Catalyst Secondary Fermentation

[Brews&Barks]

Hi Y’all!

Im a relatively new brewer, I’ve used the buckets and 6.5/1 gallon glass carboys to make some brews. However, I’m debating on investing into a Catalyst (unless anyone else has a recommended system) as I am nonCO2 and it does seem a bit easier to use. One of the things I’m concerned about is how easy is the secondary fermentation when it comes to adding any flavor ex. fruits to ciders. Does anyone have any tips or experience with this? Any and all advice is appreciated.

 

[Jag75]

Hey, welcome to HBT !

I dont have one of those but I started out with something just like it . Having access to co2 is really valuable imo. Anytime you open the fermenter it's good to purge the o2 out .

You can get by without it though. If your doing a fruit beer I would add the fruit at the end of fermentation that way co2 is still pushing out , which would rid of any o2 that starts to infiltrate when you open to add your fruit.

 

[d_k_8]

I realize that this thread is almost two months old at this point (and OP may have already made a decision and bought something), but I recently got the Catalyst and have used it for 2 brews now so I thought I'd give my opinion -- I love it. No more racking to a secondary or bottling bucket, and the valve makes removing trub and collecting yeast a cinch. I just bottled a watermelon wheat earlier today and the watermelon juice was super easy to add using a large wide mouth mason jar. I just removed the jar from the valve that I had put on for primary, filled a larger jar with watermelon juice and opened the valve. Once the yeast was kicked back into action, the juice got mixed in very well (I was nervous at first). Once it refermented out the sugar from the juice, I just attached the bottling funnel and bottling wand. The beer I had it in before was a NEIPA and I had read horror stories about bottling these, but I think the catalyst (among other things) really helped me keep from oxygenating (been a little over a month of no bottles oxidized yet).

Bottling the neipa. I highly recommend the cover - makes it much easier to carry. But I also ferment in basement in 100 y.o. house, so need to get it up and down steep basement stairs.

Right after I attached the jar with the watermelon juice for watermelon wheat. I had used the yeast that I had saved in a jar from the neipa.