Fermenting with a corny keg

[Jamie02173]

Im thinking of brewing ipa beer or lager
I heard for example with lager the fermentation and carbonation can be accellorated by using a corny keg.
One example, the lager was fermented for 1 week, then added to the corny keg for 2 weeks and it was a finished result!
Anyone any similar experiences or advise as i have the keg and all the equiptment ready to go!

 

[doogie]

The only thing it speeds up (if you choose to) is carbonating. You can force carbonate in a corny keg in a day or shorter if you desire. I normally take 3-4 days to carbonate since I'm not in a rush.
A lager at 3 weeks from brew day isn't going to be as good as one that has lagered for 3-4 weeks (or more) after fermentation.

 

[Jamie02173]

Cheers for the reply
What would your proccess be for example would you fermentate for 1 week and lager for 3 or 4 weeks in the corny keg?

 

[Golddiggie]

Using a corny keg means you can ferment under pressure. People are making lagers with this method with higher temperatures than you normally use when lagering. Get a spunding valve setup and go for it (most say to keep the batch under 15psi). I have three batches (two beer, one cider) that have fermented under pressure. The second two (cider and beer) are not yet in serving kegs. The first came out as expected and took less time to carbonate.

I use converted sanke kegs for my batches. Mostly because I use the tall 1/4 barrel kegs (7.75 gallon capacity) to get 6 gallons into serving keg. I leave 3 quarts behind since that's where the yeast cake and trub settle. Meaning I get clear beer into keg. IF I was to use a 5 gallon corny keg, I would only count on getting about 4 gallons of actual beer. You'll also want to trim down the dip tube so that you're not sucking yeast cake into your serving/carbonating keg. That means you'll have to get a replacement dip tube if you ever want to use that keg for serving again.

I do have other size kegs that I use for either different batch sizes, or different fermentations. Some 1/6 bbl, one 3.5 gallon sanke, plus one 50L keg that was converted. I'm using the 50L converted keg to ferment my English IPA 9 gallon (into keg) batch.

 

[doogie]

My process is to ferment in whatever vessel you normally use, then after fermentation is done (for me normally one week at 62 degrees F or so) I ramp up the temp a few degrees to allow the yeast to finish up for another week, then cold crash to drop most of the yeast. After that I would transfer into the keg. Have it under about 20psi for 3-4 days before reducing to serving pressure. I think you will find that it gets better the longer it stays at serving temp.
Personally when I lager I leave it in the fermenter for 4-5 weeks in the mid 40's to 50 degrees F then transfer into my serving keg, force carb and drink in 3-4 days.
Looks like Golddiggie can help if you want to ferment under pressure. I have not tried that intentionally, but I accidentally had my airlock blocked for a few days once.

 

[Jamie02173]

Cheers guys i have a lager mash kit and a youngs american ipa extract so going to start brewing midweek and should be drinkable by xmas ill take both advides on board i might ferment them both and put the ipa in a corny keg ater a week and the lager into it 3 weeks later when the ipa is been drank.. hoping that works!