Corny Keg Fermentor

[Jcpomp]

Exploring the idea of fermenting in a corny keg.. i have heard it works extremely well.. was wondering if anyone had pictures of their setup or links to a video.. Cheers!!

 

[Parrothead1]

These are good $12.99. Take a sample without opening through a picnic tap. Transfer to serving keg from a liquid connect to a liquid connect so no oxygen or bacteria. Fill the serving keg with sanitizer and push it out with co2. You might have to bend or cut a diptube to keep trub out. Also good for cold crash(slowly) without sucking oxygen in. Just hit it with co2 before you lower temp

 

[BeerGoggles403]

I've been trying a few different things, gas disconnect with 1/4" tubing into jar of sanitizer and 3/4" tubing fitted over gas post with poppet removed.

I've had a few issues with blow off clogs, still trying to figure out volumes.

I love the closed transfer and easy cleaning of corny keg

 

[Gnomebrewer]

You'll find a picture or two in here
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/pressurized-closed-loop-corny-keg-fermenting.600563/

 

[RTE]

View attachment 615424
These are good $12.99. Take a sample without opening through a picnic tap. Transfer to serving keg from a liquid connect to a liquid connect so no oxygen or bacteria. Fill the serving keg with sanitizer and push it out with co2. You might have to bend or cut a diptube to keep trub out. Also good for cold crash(slowly) without sucking oxygen in. Just hit it with co2 before you lower temp

Can ask why you would use one of these? I attached tubing to my gas post and ran that into sanitizer. Am I doing it wrong? I have a clear draught system attached to the liquid post. It was 4-4.5 gallon batch.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Can ask why you would use one of these? I attached tubing to my gas post and ran that into sanitizer. Am I doing it wrong?

That's exactly how I was doing it. No need to spend money! Now I'm lazy and just prop the PRV open once active ferment starts until I'm ready to close it to pressurise the ferment. As long as there's a flow of CO2 coming out, nothing can get in.

 

[Jcpomp]

Can ask why you would use one of these? I attached tubing to my gas post and ran that into sanitizer. Am I doing it wrong? I have a clear draught system attached to the liquid post. It was 4-4.5 gallon batch.

I was going to do the same ‍

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Also good for cold crash(slowly) without sucking oxygen in. Just hit it with co2 before you lower temp

No need to hit it with CO2 from a cylinder - just close off the keg before the ferment is finished and it will pressurise itself with yeast produced CO2. No need to waste $$$!

 

[Jcpomp]

No need to hit it with CO2 from a cylinder - just close off the keg before the ferment is finished and it will pressurise itself with yeast produced CO2. No need to waste $$$!

Think the idea of doing this is to purge the oxygen out...also it would be very minimal waste of CO2

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Think the idea of doing this is to purge the oxygen out...also it would be very minimal waste of CO2

CO2 produced during fermentation is a more pure grade (less O2) of CO2 than what you get in a cylinder. Using cylinder CO2 would be minimal, but ferment CO2 is better and easy.

 

[ba-brewer]

So what is the safe max volume you can ferment in a 5gal corny without making a big mess or need to add a foam control agent?

 

[schematix]

So what is the safe max volume you can ferment in a 5gal corny without making a big mess or need to add a foam control agent?

Depends on yeast. I’ve done about 4.75G with a cold fermented lager strain, but a blow off on the gas post is necessary.

Us-05 on the other hand, only about 4G.

 

[ba-brewer]

thanks @schematix, I have some WLP845 fast lager I am thinking about fermenting in a corny. When I used it before it did not seem any faster than most lager yeasts I have tried. Seen someone comment that it might behave different under pressure, so thought it might be a good choice for my first attempt.

 

[schematix]

My experience was that fermenting under pressure was always slower and frequently led to under attenuation, although the foaming was about half (ballpark).

Shouldn’t need more than 1” of headspace for a lager. I always filled to the top weld on my ball lock kegs.

 

[ba-brewer]

My experience was that fermenting under pressure was always slower and frequently led to under attenuation, although the foaming was about half (ballpark).

Shouldn’t need more than 1” of headspace for a lager. I always filled to the top weld on my ball lock kegs.

How much slower and how much difference in attenuation from a non pressurized fermentation?

 

[schematix]

How much slower and how much difference in attenuation from a non pressurized fermentation?

What i now regularly do in 6-12 days used to take 14-21 days.

And i can easily get 80% AA on my Pils now. Used to have trouble getting over 70%.

 

[ba-brewer]

What i now regularly do in 6-12 days used to take 14-21 days.

And i can easily get 80% AA on my Pils now. Used to have trouble getting over 70%.

Thanks. That is quite significant, would not have guessed there would that much difference.

One of the reasons I ask is I transferred a beer to a keg early to allow the beer to carbonate naturally. 1050 starting gravity and was at 1016 on transfer, with a expected target final gravity of 1012. I transferred 3.5 days post pitch and it was up to the final pressure(22psi) about 24hours later. Today is day 8 and the spunding valve is still releasing pressure but the beer only dropped 1 point. I allow some of the beer to continue fermenting and it is at the target final gravity.

Did I transfer at too high of a gravity or set the pressure too high too soon or am I not giving it enough time?

I plan to just wait for the pressure to plateau and call it good, but was sort of thinking it should of been closer to final gravity by now.

 

[schematix]

Thanks. That is quite significant, would not have guessed there would that much difference.

One of the reasons I ask is I transferred a beer to a keg early to allow the beer to carbonate naturally. 1050 starting gravity and was at 1016 on transfer, with a expected target final gravity of 1012. I transferred 3.5 days post pitch and it was up to the final pressure(22psi) about 24hours later. Today is day 8 and the spunding valve is still releasing pressure but the beer only dropped 1 point. I allow some of the beer to continue fermenting and it is at the target final gravity.

Did I transfer at too high of a gravity or set the pressure too high too soon or am I not giving it enough time?

I plan to just wait for the pressure to plateau and call it good, but was sort of thinking it should of been closer to final gravity by now.

How do you know what your final gravity is going to be?

How much pressure are you fermenting with? What temp?

There are a lot of factors you have to consider. I find it a lot easier to make repeat batches of an identical recipe and keep good notes until you dial it in. At least takes some of the guess work out. When you get it all right it's amazing though.

 

[ba-brewer]

How do you know what your final gravity is going to be?

How much pressure are you fermenting with? What temp?

There are a lot of factors you have to consider. I find it a lot easier to make repeat batches of an identical recipe and keep good notes until you dial it in. At least takes some of the guess work out. When you get it all right it's amazing though.

Final gravity based on beersmith estimate and recent brews of similar beers with the same yeast. The yeast is a repitch of wlp007 and it has been giving me about 75 to 77% attenuation with similar grain bills. Beer that was not in the keg finished where I would expect. WLP007 is normally at terminal gravity 4 days post pitch and clear and compacted on day 7.

Beer started without any pressure(airlock), transferred to the keg with a spunding valve set to 22psi. Temp 68F, left over beer closer to 65F.

Recipe grain bill and mash process is something I use all of the time, 100% pale ale malt, 150F until about 90% converted then 162F until 100% converted.

I have primed kegs before but this is the first time trying kegging early to capture remaining CO2. Priming normally takes a little over a week to get to the desired pressure, never took a gravity reading to see if all of the added sugar was consumed/converted though. When I primed I would use half the bottling amount of sugar.