Ferment Stout at 15 PSI?

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm about to pitch yeast into my stout. It's sort of like Murphy's, but the OG is 1.054, so it's heavier.

I am all about pressure fermenting these days because it carbonates the beer and makes O2-free transfers easy, in addition to speeding up lagers. Think it will hurt a stout to ferment at 15 psi? I'm thinking 68°. The yeast is a US-05 1-liter starter.

 

[conlun]

There will be no issues at all, I usually do my stouts under pressure with chico/US-05, imho it’s not a style that typically benefit from any esters from chico either way. If it where a more traditional english stout/porter using an English strain, I would run it without pressure the first 3~ish days, and then cap it to get some esters and free carbonation.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Thanks for the help.

Last night I remembered that I don't need a lot of fizz in this one because I use beer gas to dispense it, so I guess I'll keep the pressure down around 8. Hopefully enough to get it ready for beer gas but not enough to make it a CO2 stout.

 

[HM-2]

5 PSI will be totally fine.

IME you only really need to run PSIs over 10 if you're either naturally carbonating or using lager yeasts at high temperatures. I do my pressure fermented lagers at 15 PSI and everything else between 5-8.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

My problem now is that the pressure is hard to regulate. I bring it down, and it goes back up.

 

[HM-2]

Do you not have a spunding valve?

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Yes, and when I drop the pressure, it doesn't always stay down. It creeps up. I have to go back repeatedly to check.

 

[HM-2]

Hmm, sounds like there's something sticking inside it to me? I've got 3 different valves and all keep within 1-2 PSI of their setting. Weird.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I thought it was normal. It's a cheap Kegland valve.

 

[DuncB]

They are difficult at low PSI and need methodical adjustment to hit your target. Early ferment makes a lot of gas that seems to be more than can be vented by a spund valve with reliable figure. But it's not critical early on for a stout and you can tune to a lower psi later. The gas will balance. You'll lose some psi with the transfer.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm not worried about it. Of course, it would be nice to set it and forget it.

 

[DuncB]

I'm not worried about it. Of course, it would be nice to set it and forget it.

Good no need to worry. Just keep tweaking and then it will be accurate in the end.

 

[jerrylotto]

Mine was difficult to adjust so I picked up a 1/4" male npt CR series 0-100 psi adjustable brass pressure relief valve (about $15) and replaced the one that came with the spunding valve. It works great now.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

This is not a big problem, but maybe I should deal with it. Are there better spunding valves? I don't know if mine has a manual. If so, maybe there is something in there about cleaning and lubrication. I'm going to check.

My Kegland valves were cheap, and they have been useful, but I am not married to them.

 

[Jim R]

If you are really into pressure fermenting, it is worth buying a Spundit 2.0 spunding valve although they may be hard to find now. This is the cadillac of spunding valves. It makes it easy to dial in the exact and consistent pressure. It is one of my best home brewing purchases.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

That's the Flotit guy's valve! Saw it the other day. Maybe I'll try one. Thanks for the help.

The Blowtie from Kegland does not have a manual, but on their site, under "Description," it says you can take it apart to clean it, so that tells me cleaning is part of the package. I can open it up and see if cleaning makes it work better.

 

[DuncB]

I have taken my blowtie apart and the inline pressure regulators easy to clean. They shouldn't really get dirty.
The issue is the pressure control is quite crude but better than those original metal spunding valves that required the touch of a safecracker to reliably tune and adjust.

 

[Indian_villager]

I have taken my blowtie apart and the inline pressure regulators easy to clean. They shouldn't really get dirty.
The issue is the pressure control is quite crude but better than those original metal spunding valves that required the touch of a safecracker to reliably tune and adjust.

For those OG spunding valves, you can get lighter springs off McMaster, it'll reduce the max pressure within the usable range and give you a lot more granularity.

 

[Yesfan]

Which Kegland spunding valve do you have? There's two types. If you have the one with the small square gauge built into the blowtie, I can imagine trying to read those teeny numbers would be make it harder to tweak. I have two where the blowtie and gauges are separate pieces. The dedicated gauge is larger and much easier to read (especially for these old eyes). I'm able to set and forget on them.

That Spundit 2.0 valve is on my short list. I have been very happy with the Flotit dip tube that guy makes. Top notch.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I have the ones with the tiny gauges. Man, I miss having perfect vision. I did not appreciate it when I had it.

I can understand why pressure would creep down after adjusting a valve, because gas could continue to leak when you think it has stopped. Going back up is a little strange. Hard to complain, though, for $20.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

That $20 does not include the disconnect or hose. Forgot that. So the Duotight job is more like $28.

 

[Beerstein]

There will be no issues at all, I usually do my stouts under pressure with chico/US-05, imho it’s not a style that typically benefit from any esters from chico either way. If it where a more traditional english stout/porter using an English strain, I would run it without pressure the first 3~ish days, and then cap it to get some esters and free carbonation.

My experience is actually the opposite. I usually get better taste (very much depending on ambient and internal temp) of using pressure first. Only now am I playing with backing off on the pressures towards the tail end of 10 days. Honestly, It's really convenient to just leave it under pressure the whole time, then pressure transfer into a keg. Then it's nearly carbonated.

I've played with 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 psi. FWIW I've detected no difference between 10 and 15 psi using US-05.

 

[DuncB]

I did dialogue with kegland re their digital gauge that you can swap out for the tiny scale analogue.
But they didn't recommend long periods where it would be damp / have condensation.

 

[Yesfan]

I have the ones with the tiny gauges. Man, I miss having perfect vision. I did not appreciate it when I had it.

I can understand why pressure would creep down after adjusting a valve, because gas could continue to leak when you think it has stopped. Going back up is a little strange. Hard to complain, though, for $20.

This is the one I have. It's about $7 more, but the bigger gauge to me is worth it.

 

[ninkwood]

This is not a big problem, but maybe I should deal with it. Are there better spunding valves? I don't know if mine has a manual. If so, maybe there is something in there about cleaning and lubrication. I'm going to check.

My Kegland valves were cheap, and they have been useful, but I am not married to them.

https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/8mm-spundv-ball-lock-disc.html
this is the one I have been using, it attaches directly to the ball lock on my Fermzilla. Its not perfect but I can definitely set it to ~5 psi and it will stay there.