Just curious, does anyone else skip the transfer to a dedicated fermenter and just pitch the yeast in the boil kettle after the wort has been cooled down to pitching temperatures? I've done my last few brews that way and frankly I have yet to come up with any downsides. Am I missing something?
Boil kettle as fermenter
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Maybe. Life activities gave me the opportunity to make 3 batches in 3 days. That means I needed 3 fermenters. Buckets are pretty cheap compared to boil kettles. The also have lids that close tightly (if this dummy makes them) which is not usually the case with a kettle. When I left a beer in the fermenter for a couple weeks with the lid loose on one side, I got 3 gallons of malt vinegar instead of the beer I wanted.
I haven't had that problem yet, mind you I haven't dry hopped yet in that kettle. The reason I do it is that my fermenter got damaged and figured, why not, and it's one less step and one less thing to clean. I only leave it in the kettle until most of the fermentation is done then transfer it to the serving keg to finish the process and keep an eye one the pressure created by the remainder of the fermentation. I still need to decide how that process will change if I dry hop.
After all they used to ferment in open vessels.
https://brulosophy.com/2022/08/15/exbeeriment-impact-open-fermentation-has-on-an-american-pale-ale/
Yeah, I thought of making my own with a sheet of silicone but the lid and the kettle have such good fit that I figured sealed enough to let co2 out and no bugs in.
missing nothing at all. absolutely nothing wrong with what you are doing.
1. you now have a totally sterilized "fermenter".
2. fermentation has been done in "unsealed" vessels for thousands of years.
3. everything in the kettle often gets dumped into the fermenter anyway.
There are breweries today that still do completely open top fermentation (in very clean rooms, and I'm not talking about "lambics" or other wild yeast sours).
Just place the lid on the kettle and let it rip. perhaps place a clean towel over the lid as an extra precaution against the lid getting bumped.
Lots of breweries do not "seal" the fermenter with an airlock but just have the top well covered.
Downsides:
1. you can't brew another beer until it's finished fermenting.
2. kettle is likely too big for a typical fermentation chamber if you want/need to control temperature.
3. probably can't harvest the yeast since there will be lots of kettle trub and junk mixed in.
excellent move. I bet that will result in a nice clean yeast cake in the bottom of the keg.
All the trub and junk will have dropped nice and tight in the kettle by this point. The active yeast is still all suspended in the beer. Just open the spigot and fill the keg with half finished beer and healthy yeast.
if you have a floating dip tube, just drink the beer and when the keg hits bottom, you can then harvest the yeast for another batch.
If you have a standard dip tube, save the first pint of yeasty beer in a mason jar for the next batch.
beersk
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This would be good for a British yeast that produces a big krausen. You do a semi-open fermentation and you can top crop the yeast rather than harvest from the bottom after transferring. Maybe I'll try this soon with the Wyeast 1028 that I need to get going.
I'm simultaneously on a quest to brew low alcohol beers (1.5 to 2%) so the trub hasn't been much of an issue, even from the first pint from the keg.
I believe that read in the “Foxfire” book that the old moonshiners used to seal the head cap to the still using bread dough. The still would be running hot at that point, so I don’t know if that would be ok for a fermentation. Also, if you seal the lid, you would need a vent and bubbler.
