Fermenting Under Pressure

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Virginia_Ranger

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So I keep hearing mixed statements on fermenting under pressure. I've heard it the best way to go and super easy and I've heard that it will blow up your corny keg. Heres the corny I am using: https://www.picobrew.com/store/products/Product.cshtml?id=268

My questions are with that keg and pressure release valve in it:

1. Is it safe to use?
2. Can I ferment under pressure at average tempatures for ales (67-70F)?

Thanks!
 
My keg says that the max pressure is 130 PSI. It seems unlikely that you would reach that, and you could probably just release some pressure each day so that you are still under pressure but not high pressure.
 
I'm not sure what the purpose would be for fermenting in the keg though. When I transfer from fermenter to keg, I have a significant layer of trub at the bottom. It seems you would want to transfer from fermenting keg to a serving keg. What is the purpose for fementing under pressure in a keg?
 
I'm not sure what the purpose would be for fermenting in the keg though. When I transfer from fermenter to keg, I have a significant layer of trub at the bottom. It seems you would want to transfer from fermenting keg to a serving keg. What is the purpose for fementing under pressure in a keg?


Yes, you'd have a horrible trub/yeast mess to deal with unless you moved beer from fermenting keg to serving keg. Or unless you have a way to dump the trub as with a conical with a bottom dump valve.

I actually have the ideal situation to ferment under pressure with my Ss Uni Tank system. I have fermented under pressure and made the exact same beer not fermented under pressure. I have to report that I cannot tell a difference between the two.

Some say that fermenting under pressure ends up relating in some fashion to lower oxygen brewing. I know Brulosophy did a side by side with a pressure ferment compared to a non-pressure ferment. I don't think the differences were apparent while the beer is young, but maybe the pressure fermented version stays fresher longer. Not sure to be honest.
 
Yes, you'd have a horrible trub/yeast mess to deal with unless you moved beer from fermenting keg to serving keg. Or unless you have a way to dump the trub as with a conical with a bottom dump valve.

I actually have the ideal situation to ferment under pressure with my Ss Uni Tank system. I have fermented under pressure and made the exact same beer not fermented under pressure. I have to report that I cannot tell a difference between the two.

Some say that fermenting under pressure ends up relating in some fashion to lower oxygen brewing. I know Brulosophy did a side by side with a pressure ferment compared to a non-pressure ferment. I don't think the differences were apparent while the beer is young, but maybe the pressure fermented version stays fresher longer. Not sure to be honest.

Here's the theory on it: oxidation at any point post-fermentation is a bad thing. This is especially true for hoppy beers. When you transfer from fermenter to keg, you are almost certain to introduce O2 during that time. You can reduce it, but unless you're doing things like absolutely purging the keg w/ CO2, purging the lines before transfer, figuring out how to get that last bit of air out of a purged keg...you're introducing O2.

It also is important for long-term storage. If your kegs are kicking after 2 or 3 weeks, probably not that important. Some have reported kegging a 10 gallon batch in two 5-gallon kegs, drank one, the other sat, waiting. After literally months, they report the "waiting" keg was indistinguishable from the early beer. OK, I guess. No reason to not believe it.

[reply interlude: I know some of this sounds faintly ridiculous. I'm relating the theory. Anyone bothered by this, please save the brickbats for someone else. Not you, Morrey. :)]

One technique to get the O2 out of the equation and avoid all the trub/yeast in the bottom of the keg is to do keg spunding. Transfer the fermenting wort into the keg when there are about 5 points of gravity remaining, and let it finish in the keg. If your expected FG is 1.012, you'd transfer when gravity is about 1.017. This is analogous to bottle conditioning with priming sugar.

Spunding this way means any O2 that makes its way into the keg will be consumed by the yeast. It will also carbonate the beer, which is nice. But, there are some challenges with this approach. One is knowing when you have 5 gravity points remaining. You can keep taking samples, but everyone knows the cost of that in beer, convenience, and so on. Another is an internal device to measure gravity like Tilt, but that's $140 or so.

Another alternative is to use a spunding valve which will bleed off excess pressure if you xfer the wort with more than 5 points remaining.

The whole idea is to get the O2 out of the keg. Now, there's one more consideration that may cause some heads to explode. Why not simply force-carb at the end?

The LODO answer is that the CO2 we use is not pure. Even if 99.5 percent CO2, if that .5 percent is air, 21 percent of that is O2, so you're forcing a small amount of O2 into the beer when force carbing.

Does that matter enough to matter? My guess is not, but some in the LODO community say it is, which is why they're carbonating in the keg instead of force carbing.

*****************************

I've been working with LODO techniques, trying to see if it's worth the effort. It's a work in progress. I've produced some pretty good beer this way, including one I'd consider stunning. But there are a lot of moving parts, and IMO the process is rather involved.

I've been struggling to get this to work well on the hot side; I've made some progress, and the flavor of the wort going into the BK is much, much more pronounced, much sweeter-tasting to me, than the wort from a normal brew process.

I just bought a Spike CF10 conical fermenter which will allow me to pressure-ferment, carbonate before xfering to the keg, pressure transfer, clear trub from the beer, etc. Morrey is doing this very well with his system, and I'm hoping I can get to that level. We've actually been tag-teaming this, he's been working to get the O2 out of the cold side, I've been working on the hot side. He's further along than I am. :)

******************************

Does any of this matter? Can we taste the difference? That actually depends on two things, whether we keep O2 out of the process on the hot side, accentuating flavors, and whether we can keep it out on the cold side, reducing or preventing oxidation after fermentation.

If all we do is focus on the cold side, we'll never see a difference that emerges on the hot side. Many, brulosophy for instance, and Morrey's experience above, suggest it's not something one can perceive. But that depends on who is doing the tasting. I have issues with how brulosophy tests, given there's generally little or no control over what people were drinking just prior to testing (does a hoppy IPA render taste buds numb?).

I'm willing to accept--lots of anecdotal evidence--that some people can perceive oxidation flavor changes while others cannot. So results of all that effort might, quite possibly, be impossible for some people to taste.

But others can. I have a friend with a tremendous palate--he can taste things I cannot. I have him test my beers, seeing if he can detect any off flavors. He gets beer, I get feedback. I figure if my beer can pass his palate's standards, it's probably going to be good for almost everybody.

In the end, people have to taste and decide for themselves. I've had enough success with LODO techniques to keep pushing forward. But others may well decide it's not worth the time and effort given the results. As usual....

...YMMV
 
Thanks for the replys and knownledge!

You could use a spunding valve. It will maintain the pressure at whatever you set it for. If you plan to dry hop in the keg it could get ugly when you open for the additions.
https://www.homebrewing.org/Adjusta...DFTqpUMCvfqvkSo2YA5tzszBJTvDADt0aAkozEALw_wcB

^ I think I am willing to try this option and keep it at a low PSI (3-5?) and then for dry hopping I'd just pull the pressure release valave before removing the lid drop them in, replace the lid and let the spunding valve up a little to about 10-12 psi so it starts actually carbing. In theory that seems like it would work?
 
I think the big hope for fermenting under pressure was that hop flavors and aromas would be captured and retained instead of venting off thru an airlock. While the reports are mixed as to whether this process is effective, that one aspect leads us into a much larger scope of low dissolved oxygen brewing.

As @mongoose33 says above, LODO has many moving parts and components, both on the hot side and the cold side. It would seem that to become fully involved may be challenging to some that may not be setup to do everything suggested. Thusly, folks (like me) have focused on the parts of LODO that can fit into our process and equipment configurations. My thinking has been that adhering to some of the LODO process is better than trying none of it. Supporting @mongoose33 in his evaluation that my efforts to ferment under pressure have not made clear any real differences......maybe there are other LODO "biggies" that I have overlooked that mitigate any benefits I may have seen if my process was more complete. This same idea may have also come into play with Brulosophy who also seemed to isolate fermenting under pressure as a separate component and not a holistic approach to LODO.
 
I now do about 75% of my fermentation in kegs. The big advantage is cold-side exclusion of O2. I have fermented under various amounts of pressure a few times. I have found the biggest risk, however, to be that if you are not very careful with how much you fill the keg and use antifoam, the spunding valve can get gummed up with blowoff. I have found it much more convenient to use a gas QD with a hose on it for blow off at the beginning of the fermentation then towards the end of the fermentation I throw on a spunding valve to capture the last of the CO2 and carbonate. The spunding valve allows me to tune the pressure but sometimes I have just sealed up the keg with good results. When fermentation is complete I can then cold crash right in the keg - no suck back - then transfer to a serving keg with a jumper. Done, with already carbonated beer. Dry-hopping is easy at any point and you can easily purge the keg with CO2 after opening. A warning, though, if there is any carbonation in the beer dumping in hops can result in a beer fountain. As me how I know :)
 
Fermenting under pressure also reduces the esters and phenols that yeast produce. It's one of the aspects of larger volume (commercial sizes) that allow higher fermentation temperatures over what we see in homebrew batch size.
 
I have my beer in the conical now. Sitting at about 5 psi and 63 degrees. How will this affect gravity readings?
Do I shake the sample to degass it?
 
I have my beer in the conical now. Sitting at about 5 psi and 63 degrees. How will this affect gravity readings?
Do I shake the sample to degass it?
Spin your hydrometer in the sample to degass. The temp difference from 63F to room temp may lower the gravity reading by less than .001 SG units.
 
I will lower the sample to 60 and degass first.
Thanks
You want the sample near the calibration temp of the hydrometer. Mine is 68F. The difference between your sample and the calibration temp of the hydrometer is likely less than 0.001 points SG. So, a difference between 1.010 and 1.011 SG.

It's not really enough to worry about. If you were lagering at 40F then it might be a bigger deal.

RDWHAHB.
 
Great Thread! I recently bought a Spike CF15 uni-tank with the express intent of fermenting under pressure, especially my IPAs. However, my first batch fermenting now is an Altbier, and having very little experience with this style, I deferred to another brewer who suggested that fermenting under pressure could suppress desirable esters. But now I'm 7 days in, and off-gassing from the blow off has trickled to a few occasional bubbles per minute, and I'm rethinking closing it up to build up a bit of pressure prior to cold crashing. Currently fermenting at 64 and stepping up 1 degree per day until I reach 70. I'll leave it there for a few days more, then crash, with a co2 tank attached and set at around 5 psi just to insure I don't implode my fermenter.

Does this seem like a reasonable plan? I can't imagine at this point in the ferment that any significant esters will be suppressed, or that I'll even build up that much pressure anyway. Tank came with a PRV which is fixed at 15 psi. After crashing I'll be pressure transferring to a purged keg.
 
I think your fine, depending on the style I usually just ferment with enough pressure to make sure stuff is safe and to be able to get a sample out of a picnic tap. No flavor side effects noticed yet I do everything under pressure now.
 
If you are using the red pressure relief valve that came with it, it releases at around 4-5 psi.
 
If you are using the red pressure relief valve that came with it, it releases at around 4-5 psi.
I bought the gas manifold package. PRV is stainless steel and is set to around 15 psi per everything I've read. What red PRV are you referring to? 4-5 psi would be worthless on a unitank.
 
I bought the gas manifold package. PRV is stainless steel and is set to around 15 psi per everything I've read. What red PRV are you referring to? 4-5 psi would be worthless on a unitank.
My reply was to the op's question.
 
Yes, you'd have a horrible trub/yeast mess to deal with unless you moved beer from fermenting keg to serving keg. Or unless you have a way to dump the trub as with a conical with a bottom dump valve.

I actually have the ideal situation to ferment under pressure with my Ss Uni Tank system. I have fermented under pressure and made the exact same beer not fermented under pressure. I have to report that I cannot tell a difference between the two.

Some say that fermenting under pressure ends up relating in some fashion to lower oxygen brewing. I know Brulosophy did a side by side with a pressure ferment compared to a non-pressure ferment. I don't think the differences were apparent while the beer is young, but maybe the pressure fermented version stays fresher longer. Not sure to be honest.


Hi Morrey,
I also have a 1/2bbl SS unitank. Been looking into fermenting under pressure. The advantage im most interested in is the self carbonation aspect. So do you just set your spunding valve at serving pressure (per a carbonation chart depending on your temp) and ferment under pressure from pitch till transfer? And at the end of fermentation you have perfectly carbed beer? Or do you wait to hook up the spunding valve until most of the vigorous ferm happens? I’m trying to avoid gumming up the spunding valve.
Thanks in advance!
 
The reason why I'm doing research on pressurized fermentation is the
A) ability to ferment at room temperature
B) it is a bit faster
C) the Williams Warn keg would allow me to dump the trub.

So, while some would say that tastes are indistinguishable, that is my primary goal. Avoiding a bunch of painful preparations to get a similar or exact taste. Take my money! :ban:
 
Hi Morrey,
I also have a 1/2bbl SS unitank. Been looking into fermenting under pressure. The advantage im most interested in is the self carbonation aspect. So do you just set your spunding valve at serving pressure (per a carbonation chart depending on your temp) and ferment under pressure from pitch till transfer? And at the end of fermentation you have perfectly carbed beer? Or do you wait to hook up the spunding valve until most of the vigorous ferm happens? I’m trying to avoid gumming up the spunding valve.
Thanks in advance!

I don’t use the spunding valve on any of my 7g tanks. For about three days during the first part of fermentation I use the blowoff arm. After that I close it and let the tanks PRV do it’s thing at 17-18 psi. Even at that pressure minimal carbonation is happening at Ale fermentation temps. 1.87 vol of co2. The spunding valve from my understanding has a higher set point than the prv..But Ss doesn’t want end users removing that and using just the Sspunding valve. So any higher than 18 set on that doesn’t really get you any more or higher vols of Co2. Bottom Lin ers that I am still having to use co2 and the carb stone after cold crashing and aging to achieve the vol of co2 I like.

I think I remember @Morrey posting his experience with the spunding valve in the Doubling Down thread awhile back.

I know little about fermenting under pressure but it has become a constant along with glycol temperature control. Ultimately leading to ,imo, the best beer I have been making in my 11 years of this great hobby.

Czm
 
I really like the keg fermentation... I will set the spunding up to 20psi and leave it..i am using a 50l keg.. pick up tube is as bought.. I have transferred under pressure... also have been harvesting yeast under pressure...
 

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Yes, you'd have a horrible trub/yeast mess to deal with unless you moved beer from fermenting keg to serving keg. Or unless you have a way to dump the trub as with a conical with a bottom dump valve.

I actually have the ideal situation to ferment under pressure with my Ss Uni Tank system. I have fermented under pressure and made the exact same beer not fermented under pressure. I have to report that I cannot tell a difference between the two.

Some say that fermenting under pressure ends up relating in some fashion to lower oxygen brewing. I know Brulosophy did a side by side with a pressure ferment compared to a non-pressure ferment. I don't think the differences were apparent while the beer is young, but maybe the pressure fermented version stays fresher longer. Not sure to be honest.
Beer troll showing the yeast that was harvested
IMG_20181124_132831.jpg
..
 
I have done every beer under pressure since I did my first one 10+ beers ago, I see no reason not to at this point
 
I have done every beer under pressure since I did my first one 10+ beers ago, I see no reason not to at this point
What PSI do you tend to use? I’m still trying to work out what works best as I am very new to this, and any help would be much appreciated!
 
I now do about 75% of my fermentation in kegs. The big advantage is cold-side exclusion of O2. I have fermented under various amounts of pressure a few times. I have found the biggest risk, however, to be that if you are not very careful with how much you fill the keg and use antifoam, the spunding valve can get gummed up with blowoff. I have found it much more convenient to use a gas QD with a hose on it for blow off at the beginning of the fermentation then towards the end of the fermentation I throw on a spunding valve to capture the last of the CO2 and carbonate. The spunding valve allows me to tune the pressure but sometimes I have just sealed up the keg with good results. When fermentation is complete I can then cold crash right in the keg - no suck back - then transfer to a serving keg with a jumper. Done, with already carbonated beer. Dry-hopping is easy at any point and you can easily purge the keg with CO2 after opening. A warning, though, if there is any carbonation in the beer dumping in hops can result in a beer fountain. As me how I know :)

I bought my next round of ingredients yesterday from AIH and picked up another 5gal used corny for cheap because I'm thinking of trying out fermenting in the keg. Would hopefully allow me to cold crash and then easily transfer under pressure with no O2 exposure. I try to do closed transfers now from carboy to keg, but I don't cold crash(seems counter productive to what closed transfer is trying to accomplish) so I deal with lots of annoying clogs even using mesh to filter.

Did you just cut your dip tube shorter? I've seen some people say they use the clear beer draught system when doing this to pull from the top and leave the yeast/trub behind.

It's encouraging that people like yourself are having good results with this.
 
No reason you cant cold crash under pressure too. Plastic carboys wit narrow necks will hold at least 3psi. Just seal it up, top off with some more co2 if you think it’s necessary and cold crash.

Im adding a floating tube to the mix soon in place of racking tube, if successful ill post example.
 
I almost always ferments in a keg. I used to do it with the clear beer draught system but now and do it with a cut+slightly bent diptube. Both ways works great.
 
Did you just cut your dip tube shorter? I've seen some people say they use the clear beer draught system when doing this to pull from the top and leave the yeast/trub behind.

It's encouraging that people like yourself are having good results with this.

Yes, I just cut off ~1 inch from the bottom of the dip tube. I worried about committing kegs to fermenters by doing this but realized I can use them as serving kegs if I want just by adding a bit of silicone tubing to bottom of the dip tube.

I have also heard that the Clear Beer Draught system works well. Since my post you quoted I have gone 100% to fermenting in kegs, but I haven't tried this approach yet, though I do have all the stuff for a DIY version.

Best of luck with your keg fermentation! I think you will find sacrificing a bit of batch volume is well worth the ease of working with kegs.
 
I use a floating dip tube from a fermentasaurus - much cheaper than the clear beer draught system, and works really well
 
What PSI do you tend to use? I’m still trying to work out what works best as I am very new to this, and any help would be much appreciated!

At room temperature I shoot for around 15 PSI. It seems to have the best results of keeping things sealed up well but not stressing the yeast to much.
 
5-7 psi at 33~34 degrees F during 2 days of cold crash gets me +/- Half way to desired carbonation.
 
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I use a floating dip tube from a fermentasaurus - much cheaper than the clear beer draught system, and works really well

I picked up the fermentasaurus dip tube and am going to give that a go, before I start cutting down my steel dip tubes. Even if I don't end up liking it for this application, I will use it in my serving kegs.

It should pull from the top and leave the trub behind, but when do you know when to stop the transfer? Just watch the tubing and when you see crap start to flow through stop it? I'm guessing the floating dip tube will start to pull gunk over when it gets low enough.

I've been trying to think through the best way to do this keeping the system as sealed as possible throughout. I think my plan is ferment in primary keg with the floating dip tube, which is hooked up to a dry hop keg with jumpers already loaded with my dry hops(to purge the dry hop keg during fermentation), and have the blow off coming off of that. I have a spunding valve so maybe will throw that on at some point, I don't know so many moving parts. I may need to also transfer to a serving keg at the end, not sure I drink my batches fast enough to leave it sitting on the hops.
 
I picked up the fermentasaurus dip tube and am going to give that a go, before I start cutting down my steel dip tubes. Even if I don't end up liking it for this application, I will use it in my serving kegs.

It should pull from the top and leave the trub behind, but when do you know when to stop the transfer? Just watch the tubing and when you see crap start to flow through stop it? I'm guessing the floating dip tube will start to pull gunk over when it gets low enough.

I've been trying to think through the best way to do this keeping the system as sealed as possible throughout. I think my plan is ferment in primary keg with the floating dip tube, which is hooked up to a dry hop keg with jumpers already loaded with my dry hops(to purge the dry hop keg during fermentation), and have the blow off coming off of that. I have a spunding valve so maybe will throw that on at some point, I don't know so many moving parts. I may need to also transfer to a serving keg at the end, not sure I drink my batches fast enough to leave it sitting on the hops.

I used a fermentasaurus floating dip tube for the first time in my last IPA fermentation. My normal process is to ferment in kegs (shortened dip tube) and dry hop in the same keg near the end of the fermentation when there is a bit of extract remaining. Dry hops are added with CO2 flowing into the keg, followed by CO2 purging, then I throw on a spunding valve. Once things are complete, I cold crash and transfer the already carbonated beer into a serving keg. After trying several different approaches and suffering clogged transfers I finally settled on bagging my dry hops. For my process this worked fine but I think the extraction of hop oils was less than optimum because of the bagging, and I was still getting quite a bit of trub and hop particles in the serving keg. I thought the floating dip tube would solve this by allowing free-floating hops, while drawing from the top and covering the uptake end of the floating dip tube with fine SS mesh would help avoid trub and filter out hop material. I have to say that it worked out better than I had hoped. Transferring to the serving keg was really smooth with less particles/crap than I had ever had - i just stopped when it started to pull a bit of junk. Jury is out on dry hop character because I am not serving the beer yet but the process was fantastic. The only downside is cleaning the floating tub tube apparatus is a bit more difficult than a normal dip tube.

Hope this helps.
 
I used a fermentasaurus floating dip tube for the first time in my last IPA fermentation. My normal process is to ferment in kegs (shortened dip tube) and dry hop in the same keg near the end of the fermentation when there is a bit of extract remaining. Dry hops are added with CO2 flowing into the keg, followed by CO2 purging, then I throw on a spunding valve. Once things are complete, I cold crash and transfer the already carbonated beer into a serving keg. After trying several different approaches and suffering clogged transfers I finally settled on bagging my dry hops. For my process this worked fine but I think the extraction of hop oils was less than optimum because of the bagging, and I was still getting quite a bit of trub and hop particles in the serving keg. I thought the floating dip tube would solve this by allowing free-floating hops, while drawing from the top and covering the uptake end of the floating dip tube with fine SS mesh would help avoid trub and filter out hop material. I have to say that it worked out better than I had hoped. Transferring to the serving keg was really smooth with less particles/crap than I had ever had - i just stopped when it started to pull a bit of junk. Jury is out on dry hop character because I am not serving the beer yet but the process was fantastic. The only downside is cleaning the floating tub tube apparatus is a bit more difficult than a normal dip tube.

Hope this helps.

I have the floating dip tube and am wondering where you got the ss mesh? I use mine in the primary keg and after a 2 day cold crash to 34, with free floating hops, I still picked up a lot of hop particles (shook the keg to help settle them as well). Ended up clogging the poppit during transfer. Im thinking the mesh would help in that situation as I don’t want to start bagging the hops again.
 
I have the floating dip tube and am wondering where you got the ss mesh? I use mine in the primary keg and after a 2 day cold crash to 34, with free floating hops, I still picked up a lot of hop particles (shook the keg to help settle them as well). Ended up clogging the poppit during transfer. Im thinking the mesh would help in that situation as I don’t want to start bagging the hops again.

Yes, I know your pain. I had one of those keg hopper mesh canisters for one of the early iterations of dry hopping that didn't work well. I just cannibalized if for some of the mesh, which is really fine. With scissors and pliers I made a mini-bazooka-shaped tube that fits over the uptake end of the floating dip-tube. Sorry, I don't have a picture.
 
My plan for the dry hop keg is to have a mesh screen over the dip tube, and have one of those big mesh keg hopper things around the dip tube(drill a hole in the top and dip tube goes into it). Then the dry hops can be free and hopefully not clog the dip tube when I transfer to serving keg. I got this idea from a blog post which I can't locate now. The only thing I'm struggling with is getting the beer from fermenting keg into dry hop keg without opening it or clogging it. If I go in through the dry hop keg dip tube I can't bring any trub with me or it'll screw the whole filtering system up. I could go through the gas in but then it would splash, but if the keg is completely purged during fermentation like I'm hoping maybe that won't matter.

I think the guy in the blog post used a long liquid dip tube on the gas side to transfer in to the dry hop keg to avoid splashing, then quickly changed it out for the short gas tube and purged. But it defeats the whole goal I'm trying to achieve which is a completely closed system from fermentation to glass.
 
My plan for the dry hop keg is to have a mesh screen over the dip tube, and have one of those big mesh keg hopper things around the dip tube(drill a hole in the top and dip tube goes into it). Then the dry hops can be free and hopefully not clog the dip tube when I transfer to serving keg. I got this idea from a blog post which I can't locate now. The only thing I'm struggling with is getting the beer from fermenting keg into dry hop keg without opening it or clogging it. If I go in through the dry hop keg dip tube I can't bring any trub with me or it'll screw the whole filtering system up. I could go through the gas in but then it would splash, but if the keg is completely purged during fermentation like I'm hoping maybe that won't matter.

I think the guy in the blog post used a long liquid dip tube on the gas side to transfer in to the dry hop keg to avoid splashing, then quickly changed it out for the short gas tube and purged. But it defeats the whole goal I'm trying to achieve which is a completely closed system from fermentation to glass.

Are you planning on having your hops in your dry hop keg while it is purged during fermentation? If so, any concerns about your hops sitting a room temp with some O2 for a while? I considered doing something similar to what you are proposing but I worried about having the hops sitting warm in the keg for a while, potentially oxidizing unless the keg was totally purged already.

I tried the mesh on the dip tube along with the keg hopper over the dip tube, as you describe, and it didn't work for me. Tried it several times and somehow hops kept sneaking in there, going up the dip tube, and clogging the poppet. I have no idea how but it did every time. This was in the fermenter though, I wasn't transferring to a separate dry hopping keg.
 
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