Closed transfer keg filling taking me too long - help me fix it

[eric19312]

I've been doing closed transfer keg filling into purged kegs in attempt to reduce oxygen exposure during packaging. Process is working but my kegging operation is slow. It is ok if I can time it to keg on brew day, it goes on on the background while I am taking care of other things. But this weekend I had beer to keg and not time to brew but I still think I was at it for nearly 3 hours by time I was done. Sorry for the wall of text but trying to provide enough detail to get to a solution.

I have a 60L Spiedel Fermenter and aim for 16 gallons in the fermenter to deliver close to 15 gallons to my kegs. My fermenter sits about 18" off the ground in a refrigerator. On the top I have stainless T leading with one side going to a ball lock gas post and the other side going to a ball valve, then a hose barb into blow off. On the bottom I have a SS brewtech 3/8" mini ball valve with racking arm. I attach that to a 10' line of 3/8 tubing to a ball lock beer connecter.

I cold crash beer in fermenter about 2 days before kegging. To cold crash I close the ball valve leading to the blow off tube. I get negative pressure in the fermentor but I work with very small head space so seems manageable.

Packaging day process:

1. Disassemble and clean 3 kegs. Reassemble the kegs.
2. Pump a full keg of Star-san from keg to keg using CO2 (about 5 PSI) and gravity. Repeat until I have 3 purged kegs and one of the recently washed kegs is now full of Star-san. Kegs sit on floor so bottom of keg is about 18" below bottom of fermentor.
3. I attach my 3/8 tubing to the barb on my fermentor valve and then attach that to beer in post on first keg. I loosen the tubing at the barb to let pressure out of the keg and push any oxygen in the line out.
4. I hook up CO2 to the gas in post on the top of the fermentor and pressurize the fermentor to about 4 PSI. Hook up blow off tube to gas out on the keg and other end of blow off tube in growler with water.
5. Open the valve on the keg and start my transfer. If the racking arm is plugged I will stop, point the arm up out of the yeast/trub and blow it out with a puff of CO2.
6. Once transfering I keep an eye on the growler to make sure steady stream of bubbles indicate product is flowing. I try to use my hands to figure out when the keg is full by feeling for the temperature line worst case I miss full and a bit of beer comes out the blow off.
7. Switch to next keg and repeat.
8. Finally I hook the kegs up to 30-40 PSI CO2 to set the lids. Carbing technique will depend on pipeline, keezer space etc.
9. Harvest yeast, clean fermentor and transfer lines.

I wasn't watching a clock but it really seems it might take me close to 30 minutes to fill each keg. The last keg probably takes the longest since it gets very little gravity assist.

A few brews ago I had a dry hopped IPA that I didn't sufficiently cold crash. Kept plugging up my ball lock post and I got frustrated and opened the fermentor and got my 1/2" stainless steel racking cane and filled all three kegs in about 10 minutes including time to lift the half full fermentor out of the fridge to get it above the kegs.

Thanks for reading if you got this far and appreciate any suggestions for improving the process. A big ass conical fermentor with a glycol system is not in my immediate future although I imagine it would be a heck of a solution to at least this problem.

 

[SEndorf]

You describe my setup almost completely.
The only differences:
I use a thermowell/blowoff adapter and attach the CO2 line to the silicone blowoff line
with a hose splice (gas line to half inch silicone)



I also got the larger diameter stainless dip tube (attached to the bottom ball valve) and make sure it sits out of the trub.

Pushing at 4 psi seems on the high side. I keep it between 2 and 4. On my first fill using this system, I tried higher and disfigured the lid.
It takes me about 15-30 minutes to fill a keg. I just keep an eye on it and when I see beer coming out the keg blowoff (into the bucket of water) I switch to a new keg. I've notice different kegs will take longer than others. Still trying to troubleshoot that one!

 

[eric19312]

You describe my setup almost completely.
The only differences:
I use a thermowell/blowoff adapter and attach the CO2 line to the silicone blowoff line
with a hose splice (gas line to half inch silicone)
View attachment 589767
View attachment 589766

I also got the larger diameter stainless dip tube (attached to the bottom ball valve) and make sure it sits out of the trub.
View attachment 589768
Pushing at 4 psi seems on the high side. I keep it between 2 and 4. On my first fill using this system, I tried higher and disfigured the lid.
It takes me about 15-30 minutes to fill a keg. I just keep an eye on it and when I see beer coming out the keg blowoff (into the bucket of water) I switch to a new keg. I've notice different kegs will take longer than others. Still trying to troubleshoot that one!

Can you rotate that dip tube? I ferment with my racking arm pointing down into the trub and then rotate it up out of the trub layer to get it flowing. I also disfigured my lid once but it popped back just fine. I keep eye on it and go with highest pressure that doesn't start to scare me. Pic is from before I put the stainless T on top.

 

[SEndorf]

Yes! I can rotate the dip tube. In the first pic, you can see my ball valve is a bit cockeyed to get it out of the trub.

 

[mongoose33]

Wow, 3 hours? That'd drive me nuts.

You must have a clog somewhere. I just gravity-transferred beer from a plastic fermenter to a keg last night, and it took about 20-25 minutes or so. I am building a new keezer (old one died ) and was staining the collar while the beer transferred.

Of course, it goes faster in the beginning when there's a lot of weight behind that beer than toward the end, but still.

The most likely place is the poppet in the OUT post.

I also did a pressure transfer from my other fementer last night, and couldn't get a good flow. Took apart the triclamp/out post fitting I was using, and there it was--some bits of flotsam that were clogging up the affair. I cleaned it, rinsed it, dunked in Star-san, and reassembled. Voila! Flow!

 

[TheHopfather]

It takes me roughly 20 ~ 25 min to gravity feed my kegs as well. I do what you guys do except I keep my keg on my grain scale and fill it by weight, takes the "is it full yet?" guess work out of filling.

The only thing that really sticks out to me in your process is the 10' of tubing. The longer the tubing the more resistance you're going to get, that's why longer lines in a kegerator leads to less foaming at the taps. You could try cutting the tubing down to say 6' and see if that speeds the transfer up at all?

 

[eric19312]

Wow, 3 hours? That'd drive me nuts.

Yes probably 90 minutes is total transfer time. Rest is cleaning, purging and cleaning up fermentor and lines. I could do those steps on another day but they still take time.

You must have a clog somewhere. I just gravity-transferred beer from a plastic fermenter to a keg last night, and it took about 20-25 minutes or so. I am building a new keezer (old one died ) and was staining the collar while the beer transferred.

Gravity transfer is not option give my fermenter is at similar height as the keg. 25 minutes a keg is killing me given 3 keg batches.

The most likely place is the poppet in the OUT post.

I also did a pressure transfer from my other fementer last night, and couldn't get a good flow. Took apart the triclamp/out post fitting I was using, and there it was--some bits of flotsam that were clogging up the affair. I cleaned it, rinsed it, dunked in Star-san, and reassembled. Voila! Flow!

I have messed with my share of fouled pollets too. It is why I am pretty adamant about cold crashing. I am also backing off on dry hops in the fermentor over it and shifting at least some of them into the keg.

 

[eric19312]

The only thing that really sticks out to me in your process is the 10' of tubing. The longer the tubing the more resistance you're going to get, that's why longer lines in a kegerator leads to less foaming at the taps. You could try cutting the tubing down to say 6' and see if that speeds the transfer up at all?

I'm also suspecting it is my line length and ID. I'm liking that larger dip tube @SEndorf posted (believe it is from Norcal especially given I can see his CO2 harvester next to the fermentor) and thinking I could combine that with a shorter run of half inch tubing to get to the keg but it all still has to get through that poppet.

 

[4of7]

20 min per 5 gallon