Over pitch into pressurized corny

[Ddubduder]

I decided to try a few no chill batches directly into my corny. The first couple batches came out good but I was still a little worries about oxygen/other baddies being sucked back in while they cooled. This is my third batch now and I tried connecting it to the co2 at 1-2 psi just to keep it under pressure while it cooled. By doing this I have essentially removed much of the oxygen from the wort. Because of the lack of oxygen I would either need to re-oxygenate the wort when pitching or as the title suggests over-pitch to compensate. In theory you would skip the aerobic growth phase and go straight into anaerobic alcohol production. I pitched my little experiment tonight so in a couple days I should have a first sample to see how it's progressing.

Wondering if anyone has tried this or already and what your results were.


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[day_trippr]

Wait. Everyone pitching fresh wort are trying to jam an imperial crap ton of oxygen into their wort, but you're obsessed with getting the oxygen out?

Cheers!

 

[geoffey]

Would be interested to hear your results. I do a no chill batch from time to time and it might be interesting to no chill directly into a corny, but I'm guessing that yeast and trub at the bottom will clog the dip tube and you'll end up opening that corny eventually and exposing to oxygen.

But really, why not just re-oxygenate after the wort has cooled? I'm not sure what you gain in skipping the growth stage aside from time. Will certainly cost more in yeast as you'd probably need to pitch four tubes as opposed to one, or grow a huge starter.

How did you calculate how much to over pitch?


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[Ddubduder]

The problem with re-oxygenating is I don't have a way to introduce more than the headspace would allow (no air stone/oxy tank) and since the corny is so narrow that won't be much air at all. I'm trying to limit the amount I open the system at this point, I don't have a choice when pitching the yeast, but outside of that it's a closed system.

In my few corny ferments I have had the dip tube clog but nothing more than a 15-20 psi blast of co2 couldn't move. I transfer from one closed corny to another via co2 keeping it closed the whole time. Though the clogging does cause it's own headaches, I am finding the corny ferment much easier to handle overall than a bucket.


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[Newsman]

Get an O2 tank, put a liquid Corny QD on there and put that on your keg, then with the PRV held open, oxygenate the heck out of your wort through the liquid out tube. That'll bubble the O2 up through the wort almost as good as a stone.

 

[Ddubduder]

Get an O2 tank, put a liquid Corny QD on there and put that on your keg, then with the PRV held open, oxygenate the heck out of your wort through the liquid out tube. That'll bubble the O2 up through the wort almost as good as a stone.

I don't disagree with your point however the getting extra equipment part is the problem and won't change anytime soon, hence the necessity of this test.

The other point here is we all are know what the pitch requirements are due to years of testing, however that assumes a certain amount of growth after pitching. What happens if there is no growth and also no lag time, are there off flavors left produced? Will the beer no ferment clean?

Logically if I pitch a certain number of cells into my wort, the aerated wort is essentially a giant starter until the oxygen runs out. If I put in double the yeast but no oxygen, would that be the same thing.

This wouldn't work with a belgian or hefe as you need the growth to produce some of those flavors, but a clean pale ale or even a lager might work well for this.


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[The_Bishop]

Not really, as the large bubbles have far less surface than millions of tiny bubbles.

 

[Ddubduder]

Not really, as the large bubbles have far less surface than millions of tiny bubbles.

Though smaller bubbles do help the bubbles actually have very little to do with it, they move too fast and little of it has time to dissolve into solution. Most of your oxygen will come from contact with the surface. The bubbles more provide a surface churn so that more of the volume has time in contact with the oxygen. You see the same principal in fish keeping which is one reason tanks always have wide open surface areas and not a small bottle neck.


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[Newsman]

I'm thinking you don't "blast" your wort with O2, but you put a trickle in through the liquid out post.

 

[thefost]

I've read on here that a drop of olive oil might be an acceptable substitute for O2 aeration. Might be worth trying out or at least investigating some more.

 

[Ddubduder]

That's a good point, I have heard something about Olive oil and o2 as well, I'll have to read up on it more. I would imagine it would cause issues with head formation but if the yeast could eat though it with little oil left over it could be possible, interesting thought.


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[chocotaco]

IIRC, the problem with the olive oil trick is that the amount of olive oil you want would be impossible to dose at homebrew scales. They used something like .2 mL in a 3BBL batch.

 

[chainlife]

Yeah, I read that at homebrew levels, you'd basically need to boil a gallon of water, put a drop of olive oil in it, then use a drop from that gallon