Closed-system pressurized fermentation technique!

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What do you guys think about pressure fermentations? Time for a poll.

  • I've done it and I liked it just fine!

  • I've done it, nothing wrong with it, but prefer normal fermentation techniques.

  • I've done it, hate it, and never will do it again!

  • I've never done it, but it is on my list!

  • I've never done anything. I only brew beer in my mind.

Results are only viewable after voting.
Yeah, I read the post where Monger regrets cutting it, but I was wondering if anyone else had any experience with cutting it, as well as not cutting it. I would think that leaving it intact would suck up a lot of yeast. Maybe good for harvesting the yeast?

I've soaked mine, but I still have the fear that the ball is not clean. I've taken one apart, but the ball doesn't come out. And, putting it back together without the right tools will probably be a ***** - taking it apart without the right tools was.
 
-MG- said:
After reading through quite a bit of the posts. WortMonger basically says he regrets cutting his spear and would just leave it in tack.

I don't know exactly regarding disasembling the spear itself. or if they are just refering to the whole thing and taking it out and giving it a good soak.
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I wouldn't cut the spear if I had to do it over again. Also, I never take my spear apart. disassembly to me is taking the lock ring out and removing the spear from the keg. They are easy enough to clean this way with a long soak in PBW or Oxygen cleaner like Oxyclean.
 
Thanks Monger. I've been searching online for a while, and haven't seen anything about taking it apart. But today, I found a valve cleaner, which looks like a modified sanke tap. I guess I'll just clean it in place, and make my own valve cleaner.
 
homebeerbrewer said:
Thanks Monger. I've been searching online for a while, and haven't seen anything about taking it apart. But today, I found a valve cleaner, which looks like a modified sanke tap. I guess I'll just clean it in place, and make my own valve cleaner.
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Post a link to the cleaner. That might come in handy with our readers on this thread.:rockin:
 
I modified my sump pump keg washer to clean the stems too. The spray ball and pipe attached to the pump are for cleaning kegs. The spray ball and pipe are removed and the hoses and coupler go on the pump outlet to clean the stems. I recirculate 120ºF 2.5% w/v caustic.
photo2-5.jpg

DSC_0114.jpg
 
I ran a pressurized fermentation in a cornie keg this week. 3gal of British bitter (OG 1.052) brewed with WLP002, started last Sunday 1/22, went to 7psi right off the bat and 15psi at 36hr. By 48hr it was about finished generating CO2 and I worried the yeast had dropped prematurely (its a quick flocc-er). I roused for a few days and heard no additional hissing from the spunding valve, so today I slapped a picnic tap on it and took a sample to see what the specific gravity was. FG was 1.013! Not bad for a yeast that is supposed to have low attenuation. I had mashed at a low temp though, so that explains it. I harvested yeast and put the keg downstairs to cool off, I'll transfer to a serving keg in a few days (going out of town).

I wish I had cut off the dip tube about an inch or so, then I could rack clean beer and harvest yeast afterwards. I'll be doing this on my next cornie brew.

After decanting beeer off the yeast, I had a good pint of bitter that I didn't want to go to waste. Made for a nice after-breakfast beverage, served modestly carbed and fairly warm like a bitter ought to be served.
 
If you used a 1/4 tail piece (make sure to get a beer thread hex nut):

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/kegg...d-fittings/1-4-stainless-beer-tail-piece.html

and then got some beer serving line or CO2 line with some hose clamps to this:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#53505K67

and then that runs into the T.

If you made that hose short enough where the barbed ends are practically touching you could keep a short piece of tubing. If it can work on a C02 tank, I don't see why it cant work here.

It's not the idea mix, however, it would get the job done since this part seems to be elusive unless you have a machine shop handy.
 
Good grief! It's been a week and I've only made it to chapter 23 of this thread. When is it going into publication? Ok, I'm a sllllooooowwwww reader. I need to deside if I want to go with the keg dip tube system or a keg fermenter kit. Hmmmmmmm. Well, Wednesday will be using a carboy cap since the lhbs wanted $50+ for a snake tap.
 
Completely up to you Islandboy85. I have been toying with the idea to tell people to start with a carboy cap and just spund for carbonation only as a good step into the process.

As for publication... I am doing my write-up for BYO right now. I'm excited about that!

You can get a Sanke tap connector for less than that, and I would recommend more than one anyways. I own three and need more so I am not taking stuff apart all the time. I really like the 100% stainless ones myself. I accidentally turned one into a half copper plated beauty by letting it set with a copper tubing piece in some wort for too long. LOL
 
Right, it will act like an airlock and get him used to fermenting in a keg until the parts show up. Using the last bits of gravity to carbonate, or priming and adding a closed system aspect are the next steps to getting used to the process. That is what makes this such a versatile setup. Once he gets the parts, the whole thing can be pressurized 100%.
 
WortMonger said:
Right, it will act like an airlock and get him used to fermenting in a keg until the parts show up. Using the last bits of gravity to carbonate, or priming and adding a closed system aspect are the next steps to getting used to the process. That is what makes this such a versatile setup. Once he gets the parts, the whole thing can be pressurized 100%.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've made it about a fifth of the way through the thread and can't believe how much you can do with this setup.
 
I finally got my spunding valve setup and tested with a CO2 tank. I wish the pressure relief I used from McMaster had some sort of indicator on it. Right now I have it kind of figured out where zero is, and how much of a turn it takes to get it set.

I won't have a batch ready to go for a month, so some of my friends are buying a bud light keg and we're going to counter-pressure transfer it with WortMonger's instructions into a keg in the chest freezer. Think I'm going to do a test run with some PBW soak thats in a keg now to make sure I get it down :).
 
Also -

How do you fill up mulitple cornies from the sanke? If everything is closed system, its not the easiest to figure out when the corny is full. Ideas?
 
-MG- said:
How do you fill up mulitple cornies from the sanke? If everything is closed system, its not the easiest to figure out when the corny is full. Ideas?
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heh I asked the same question about 400 pages back:

cmuench said:
If you weigh a corny full of water it's somewhere between 45-50 pounds. I crash cool then counter pressure transfer my fully carbonated beer through a filter to 3 cornies. I put each corny on a scale while transferring and stop when I get close to the desired weight. Also, you'll see a sweat line on the side of the corny to indicate the beer level depending on ambient temp and humidity.
Click to expand...

-Joe
 
-MG- said:
Also -

How do you fill up mulitple cornies from the sanke? If everything is closed system, its not the easiest to figure out when the corny is full. Ideas?
Click to expand...

I would suggest weight, put corny on scale, zero scale, open the pressure relief valve, fill thru the out post of the keg, shut off flow when your reach approximate weight of 41-42 lbs.
 
You could also daisy chain the cornies:

Fermenter---Liquid1-Gas1----Liquid2-Gas2-----Liquid3-Gas3----SpundingValve

If you let the CO2 run its course, the first two kegs should be filled all the way to the level of the gas diptubes, and the third keg will have what is left over.
 
Yeah the frost line technique had a drawback this week when I filled a keg with a bunch of brewery stickers on it...
 
kpr121 said:
If you let the CO2 run its course, the first two kegs should be filled all the way to the level of the gas diptubes, and the third keg will have what is left over.
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That's true, but I would never want my keg filled all the way to the gas tube. Even with check valves, I don't want to chance beer backing out the gas line.

Nor would I really want beer coming out my nice, clean gas-in side. Probably paranoia, but it helps me sleep at night :)

-Joe
 
nostalgia said:
That's true, but I would never want my keg filled all the way to the gas tube. Even with check valves, I don't want to chance beer backing out the gas line.

Nor would I really want beer coming out my nice, clean gas-in side. Probably paranoia, but it helps me sleep at night :)

-Joe
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No problem, to each his own. A bathroom scale is by far the easiest fool-proof way.

My daisy-chain idea would not only require a bunch of additional fittings, but also additional cleaning. I probably wouldnt do it this way, but it is an option and I think I've seen someone on HBT doing it this way. :mug:
 
I bought a heavy duty digital shipping scale off ebay for about $40. Zero empty keg and fill by/to weight depending on size of keg. This has worked well for me so far and I suspect will continue to.
 
I use the spunding valve to fill 3 cornies at once in tandem. I prefer this to what I see folks doing with kegs in series because when I'm done I have the same headroom in each keg (a half gallon or so) that leaves ample room for boost carbonating and also won't gunk up my gas disconnects and hose when I tap kegs to serve.

I use the spunding valve and a 3 port gas manifold that equalizes all 3 kegs to the same pressure. Then counterpressure fill all 3 kegs like you would just one, but they all fill at the same pace since they're all pressurized the same. It's important that the gas manifold not have check valves in it because it's operating in reverse, sending 3 into 1 rather than 1 into 3 as it would distributing gas in a kegerator. Anyways, it works pretty well, within a quart or so. In fact the way I can tell that I missed a leak in one of the serving kegs is because it fills a bit slower than the others.

Here's a video I took with my phone and,.... I'm much better at it now than in this vid.

No doubt it takes additional cleaning and nice digital mid weight scale is also useful to weigh out grains, but I like it. I wanted to learn how to do it.

(I will say though that if you simply don't pre chill the serving kegs, it's really easy to see the condensation line and just fill one at a time. Since you're doing it counterpressure, it won't foam much. Just do it slower than mach 5 and you can see where you are).
 
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I like the setup you built however I'm set just to fill 2 cornys so with my first 15 gallon batch I did two then switched the tap to the third. I'm amazed at the difference in flavor by the last keg filled vs the 1st two.
 
flananuts said:
I like the setup you built however I'm set just to fill 2 cornys so with my first 15 gallon batch I did two then switched the tap to the third. I'm amazed at the difference in flavor by the last keg filled vs the 1st two.
Click to expand...

How so? Last one better or is it that the time it ages helps?
 
Well, the last one was the clearest to start, but it also had more of an american pale ale flavor profile than american ipa. I do filter with a 1 micron filter and interestingly enough I either ended up with some chill haze effect( which is rare) or the first pours have more of a hoppy flavor profile.
 
Ok, my turn to build a spunding valve. I wanted to be able to use it with a ball-lock quick-connect so I could add more pressure to push beer places.

Parts list and sources:

1x 1" Tri-clamp fitting with 1/2" NPTF coupler (bought from Swagman)
1x 1/2" NPTM to 1/2" NPTF bushing (Home Depot)
2x 1/4" NPTF tees (Home Depot)
2x 1/4" NPTM close nipples (Home Depot)
1x 1/4" NPTM to 1/4" MFL adapter (Home Depot)
1x Cornelius Plug Adapter - 1/4" FFL x 19/32" (Midwest SKU 5203)
1x Gas Post - Cornelius-Spartan, Super Champion & R Kegs (Midwest SKU 5201)
1x 1/4" NPTM 0-100PSI adjustable pressure relief valve (Ebay)
1x 1/4" NPTM 0-60PSI Liquid-Filled Stainless pressure gauge (Ebay)

If you're not familiar with the abbreviations:
NPTF/M = National Pipe Thread Female/Male
FFL/MFL = Female/Male Flare

Why a glycerin-filled gauge? No reason other than it being inexpensive and stainless.

spunding1.jpg

spunding2.jpg

spunding3.jpg
 
I was just thinking about this system and how wortmonger talks about closed system. If you dry hop after primary fermentation is complete, in the same vessel, how do you accomplish this without exposing to oxygen?
 
By dry hopping when primary has just a tad left to go. The fermentation will consume the oxygen. A typical dry hop regiment for me is to ferment at like 3 or 4 PSI (just so I can take gravity samples easily), then pop the cap to dry hop, then close up the spunding valve to capture the remaining CO2. A couple points of fermentation (plus the diacetyl rest) are good enough to fully or mostly carbonate. And, because you're not letting any of the gas out after the hops go in, the gas isn't scrubbing away hop character.

That's my theory at least.
 
nostalgia said:
I wanted to be able to use it with a ball-lock quick-connect so I could add more pressure to push beer places.
Click to expand...

Kick but man. I like it.

I've never been given the reason for the pressure filled gauge. McMaster states that they are better for vibration, so mounted on an engine or what not I get it. Originally I expected it had to do with going down to freezing temps, but that's not the case.

{I was always confused than I never saw anyone ask them to weld one of those gas bulkheads onto the top tri-clamp cap- since BH obviously works with a welder anyways for their product. That's how mine top cap is and it's immensely useful. The only thing I wished I had more there was more was a blowoff port AND a gas ball lock ... they're the same for my setup and I have to switch fittings for primary, etc. That's what you've got there though. Nice.}
 
I believe glycerin in a gauge prevents corrosion from water vapor condensing in the gauge. It keeps the water out.
 

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