First time fermenting in corny keg - Lessons learned

[noggins]

I've seen plenty of people who primary in kegs, and I've lead others to believe I do it all the time, so I finally decided to give it a try this week because I just happened to have an empty keg and nothing to primary in. I've been lucky and never ever ever had a brew take more than 8 hours to show airlock activity, so this morning I was surprised when nothing was happening, but dismissed it.

Finally a couple hours ago I decided to pull the purge valve and was surprised by a GIANT burst of gas followed by a Niagara falls of beer foam coming out and knew immediately I had a problem. So I started fiddling with the rigged blow-off airlock only to realize that by leaving the gas dip-tube out of the equation, the gas disconnect had nothing depressing the valve so I created a sealed container and basically built a time bomb. I rushed to rebuild the gas disconnect assembly and hook everything back up to have a working airlock while simultaneously wiping up nearly a gallon of foam blowoff and switching out the overflowing growler blowoff bottle for a gallon jug, and now can say I have a properly setup primary fermentor keg.


I probably won't do it again b/c I could only fit 5 gallons of wort into it, and I'll be lucky to get 4.5 gallons out when I go to keg it, but it'll work as a backup if I need to ferment lots of beers and happen to have empty kegs and all my fermentors are full.

 

[Hello]

I've seen plenty of people who primary in kegs, and I've lead others to believe I do it all the time

Well, that's what you get for lying.
I'm kidding, at least you figured out how to fix it fast.

 

[Iseneye]

I've done about 4 brews in a keg and it works for me because I do undersized batches - normally 14 or so litres in the fermenter.

I don't trust the gas disconnect due to the potential for blockages. I remove the gas out and worm tie a blow off tube over the threaded bit.

I ferment in kegs for a few reasons but the main one is a post-ferment oxygenless environment and keg to keg transfers.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Why would you "lead others to believe" you do something you don't do?

 

[ghohn]

Fermcap-S or bust.

 

[iijakii]

There are new 6.5 gal kegs out there. If you really want to ferment in a keg you could do that, or just go to a 7 sankey. Not sure it's worth buying that vs a conical though.

And yeah -- don't tell people you do something or recommend it if you don't -- hivemind is a serious issue for forums especially.