Fermentation to bottle in only one keg feasible ?

[Shoggoths]

Hello,

Before buying stuff, I need some advices.

First, here’s my story. I drink less than 4 pints of beer per week so a 5 gallons last me for a while. I usually share half my batch with friends who drink the bottle within a short time. There isn’t a lot of hoppy beers here and the good ones don’t stay available long. That’s why I like to brew NEIPA. You’re seeing me coming. The NEIPA I brew are not that great and don’t stay fresh long enough.
At the moment, I BIAB, ferment in a plastic carboy, use an auto-siphon for bottling and I bottle condition. For me, building a kegerator is too much money and maintenance. I’m looking for a cheap way to brew and bottle NEIPA that will remain good for at least 4 weeks and let me share half of it.
Here’s my idea, does it make sense ?
I would buy a keg and a spundling valve. I would still BIAB but I would do the fermentation in the keg. I don’t mind the batch size. It would be ok for me the only put 4.5 gallons in the keg to prevent the krausen from fooling the valve. One problem I see, I would have to open the keg to do the dry hop. I would then have to purge it with CO2 afterward so I would have to buy a CO2 cylinder too. When fermentation is over, I could coldcrash and would use a beergun or counter pressure filler to bottle directly from the keg. To prevent the dip tube from clogging I was thinking to use a Clear Beer Draught System.
If in the futur I find the need, all that stuff could be use in a kegerator.
Is my plan viable ? Do you see a more affordable alternative ? Do I really need a second keg for dry hop and bottling ?

Thank you

 

[Vale71]

If you can open the keg, drop in the hops, and get it sealed before foam starts showering you from head to foot (I'm exaggerating here but not really by that much...) then I'd say you're good to go with only the one keg. You'll have to purge it afterwards which means you need a CO2 tank and regulator but you'll have to buy those anyway for bottling so...

 

[Shoggoths]

If you can open the keg, drop in the hops, and get it sealed before foam starts showering you from head to foot (I'm exaggerating here but not really by that much...) then I'd say you're good to go with only the one keg. You'll have to purge it afterwards which means you need a CO2 tank and regulator but you'll have to buy those anyway for bottling so...

You mean, even if I remove the pressure before opening the keg, it will start to foam ? Could an alternative be to raise the fermentation pressure with the spundling valve only after the dry hop is done? I would do the first 2 week fermentation at normal pressure and let the CO2 get out like in a carboy.

 

[Vale71]

If fully carbed it will start to foam because you released the pressure. You could do minimal spunding (let's say 2-3 PSI) just to prevent oxygen ingress and then after dry hopping purge the headspace like crazy and then force carbonate to your desired CO2 level while waiting for your beer to be ready for bottling. The problem is, 5 gallons is a lot of beer and fully carbed it can make a lot of foam. Dropping a ton of hop pellets into a fully carbed beer is a good way to get it angry in no time...

 

[balrog]

Hop pellets are basically compressed packets comprised of billions of CO2 nucleation sites. As soon as you drop something into a liquid not in equilibrium, CO2 will *WANT* to un-dissolve. You would have to release keg pressure and wait a few days for the equilibrium to be reached.

 

[mullet6577]

If you decide to dry hop a fully carbed keg, please get video

 

[Shoggoths]

If you decide to dry hop a fully carbed keg, please get video

I'll do

 

[Shoggoths]

Ok, so looking at the video from mullet link, I'll not try to dry hop a fully carbed keg.

The best and easiest solution to me seem to put an airlock (bubbler) on the keg for 2 weeks, dry hop and then put the spunding valve and purge to desire pressure with CO2.

That will be better ?

 

[bigkherm]

This is a good post. I'm actually considering this same practice. Briefly, I had to deconstruct my keezer and use it as an actual freezer. Like the OP I'm curious about if it's feasible to ferment in a keg and then bottle straight from the (fermentation) keg.

Not to sound like a d!ck but non of the original replies answered the OP's question.