First transfer with Fermzilla was a nightmare.

[blkandrust]

Brewed a Vienna lager under pressure a week ago,went to do a closed transfer this morning using a ball lock liquid to liquid line.Got everything setup and realized that the only empty keg I had was pin lock( I know,I should have caught this earlier).Not having another pin lock fitting on hand I decided to remove one ball lock fitting from my L to L line and remove keg lid and fill it that way.Fermzilla had 10 psi in it.As soon as I connected the fitting to Fermzillathere was massive back pressure,at least thats what I assume it to be.It totally disturbed all the yeast and trub on bottom of fermenter and brought it into solution,as if I shook the fermenter for 5 mins.All this yeast and trub was sucked up into the opening of the collection ball and made its way into the keg.Now I have yeast soup.Was my mistake having one end of beer line open and emptying into keg? What can I do to avoid this in the future?

 

[Jtvann]

Let me see if I'm following you here. You're saying that you had pressure blow up into and enter your fermenter. If that's correct, it can only happen one way. You can completely ignore the type post fitting connections you're using, as that doesn't factor in to what happened here.

Your receiving vessel, the keg, was higher pressure than your fermenter. You need a spunding valve that you trust the pressure reading on. It's an absolute must to set your keg pressure lower than your fermenter. Theres a bunch of ways to skin the cat here, but keg pressure lower than fermenter pressure is the o ly absolute.

If the keg is vastly lower than the fermenter, liquid with rush through fast and violent. This fast of auction can also suck in yeast and trub.

You can set them very near equal to each other and the flow will be nice and slow, but could take forever to transfer.

You have to find an acceptable flow rate that works for your system and your patience.

I can get into more detail if you need, let me know

 

[blkandrust]

I used a spunding valve during fermentation to keep beer at 15 psi.What I did was transferred from fermenter into an open,unpressurized keg.Spunding valve was set at 10psi during tranfer then naturally decreased during tranfer.The fact that the keg had zero pressure has me scratching my head as to where the blowback came from.

 

[blkandrust]

Since my keg was unpressurized that has to be the culprit. Uou stated that liquid will rush through fast and violent, that is what happened.

 

[Jtvann]

Much better to pressurize your keg beforehand to the carbonation level your beer needs.

 

[DVCNick]

I'm not really understanding what you mean by "blowback" and I'm not understanding what would have stirred up your fermenter to the degree you seem to be indicating.

I've seen mine stir up some when I've released pressure from it, I assume since there is C02 coming out of solution.

But in general, what you want is a slow transfer from the fermeter to the keg, and this is accomplished with a pressure differential in the 2-3ish PSI range. If you had 10psi in the fermeter and zero in the keg, you are going to get a rapid transfer and probably foaming in the keg.

I start with equal PSI in the keg and fermenter, connect everything up, and then slowly start releasing pressure from the keg to start the transfer. You could use the spunding valve or the lid PRV for this. I spend probably 15-20 minutes transferring 5 gallons. Don't know if it really has to be that slow but I'd rather go a little slow than have it foamed and stirred up.

As far as what's in the keg now, just cold condition for a few days and it should mostly drop out and come out in the first couple pints.

 

[blkandrust]

I'm not really understanding what you mean by "blowback" and I'm not understanding what would have stirred up your fermenter to the degree you seem to be indicating.

I've seen mine stir up some when I've released pressure from it, I assume since there is C02 coming out of solution.

But in general, what you want is a slow transfer from the fermeter to the keg, and this is accomplished with a pressure differential in the 2-3ish PSI range. If you had 10psi in the fermeter and zero in the keg, you are going to get a rapid transfer and probably foaming in the keg.

I start with equal PSI in the keg and fermenter, connect everything up, and then slowly start releasing pressure from the keg to start the transfer. You could use the spunding valve or the lid PRV for this. I spend probably 15-20 minutes transferring 5 gallons. Don't know if it really has to be that slow but I'd rather go a little slow than have it foamed and stirred up.

As far as what's in the keg now, just cold condition for a few days and it should mostly drop out and come out in the first couple pints.

I'm no longer thinking that it was blowback that caused the disturbance of trub. I think it may have been the rapid transfer of beer with my fermenter being at 10psi,as previously mentioned. Beer is cold crashing now and I will pour a couple of pints in a few days and possibly fine. Goimg to brew another lager under pressure in a couple of weeks and will employ the suggestions previously mentioned. Thanks for the reply. Cheers.

 

[duboix]

I'm no longer thinking that it was blowback that caused the disturbance of trub. I think it may have been the rapid transfer of beer with my fermenter being at 10psi,as previously mentioned. Beer is cold crashing now and I will pour a couple of pints in a few days and possibly fine. Goimg to brew another lager under pressure in a couple of weeks and will employ the suggestions previously mentioned. Thanks for the reply. Cheers.

Hey, did you figure it out? I just had the same experience a couple of days ago, then googled and found this post. I was fermenting with a spunding valve set to ~15psi, it was cranking at ~20psi first two or three days, then settled down and dropped to ~15psi, cleared ok - it was a light beer, so in the end just about 2/3 of collection jar of trub. Time comes to transfer, I hook it up to a non pressurized keg, and all of a sudden all the yeast come back to suspension and start mixing vigorously. I ended up sucking a lot into kegs, even with cold crash I'm not sure I'll ever pour off all the junk before actually running out of beer

My theory is that as the pressure in Fermzilla drops, beer (including the collection jar content) starts releasing CO2, causing a lot of liquid moving and stirring and disturbing the sediment. So you'd either have to filter it during the transfer, or you have to maintain the pressure in the fermenter, and also counterpressure it on the keg side, so it goes slowly. That invalidates the whole idea of saving CO2 during the transfer

 

[Bobby_M]

The beer was carbonated in the fermzilla. The end of your hose was just dangling into the open keg. As soon as you popped the QD on to the top of the fermzilla you started the transfer and lowered the pressure in the fermenter. CO2 at the bottom of the vessel started popping out of solution and dragging all the trub up with it. Bottom line, you cannot transfer carbonated beer without back pressure on the destination vessel. The end.

 

[duboix]

The beer was carbonated in the fermzilla. The end of your hose was just dangling into the open keg. As soon as you popped the QD on to the top of the fermzilla you started the transfer and lowered the pressure in the fermenter. CO2 at the bottom of the vessel started popping out of solution and dragging all the trub up with it. Bottom line, you cannot transfer carbonated beer without back pressure on the destination vessel. The end.

That's exactly what I thought (and tried to express in the second paragraph of my last post). Thanks for confirming it!

P.S. I saved most of the beer by cold crashing the kegs, siphoning the beer out, and pouring it back into washed and sterilized kegs. Not concerned about oxidation at my consumption rate.

 

[Bobby_M]

Don't worry about saving CO2. It's dirt cheap and you should be concerned about oxidation. It only takes a few hours to degrade a beer like a NEIPA.

 

[Loud Brewing]

The reason it agitated everything is because you had 10psi in the fermenter going to an open end. It only takes a couple psi to transfer even when using a sealed keg, even if uncarbed. The whole idea of fermenters like the fermzilla is CLOSED transfer. You should have just waited for a ball lock keg or just used a picnic tap to serve out of the fermenter. Pull floating dip tube out and clean it, close the zilla back up, pressurize and cold crash. I'm sure it will be slightly oxidized, just drink it fast and prepare better next time.