First try at beer...

[iceman_ii]

I started this hobby almost two months ago, starting with Blackberry wine because of the simple expedient of finding a use for excess blackberries from the garden.... next I made a hydromel as a test, then another batch of wine (strawberry from fruit this time) and a batch of Roland's Fantastic Tart Cherry Cider (which I HIGHLY recommend) So I finally decided to cast the dice on making a beer.

Cooked it up and pitched the yeast last night on a nice autumn wheat beer, and never one to do things the easy/simple way, I'm brewing it under pressure... and six hours in, it is already up to 13psi and fermenting nicely. (making an extract recipe, NOT an all grain - I may not take the easy way, but I am also not a blithering idiot)

Any recommendations/advice on brewing under pressure would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Spundit]

Fermenting under pressure is fairly straight forward but it is important to think things through. Make sure your gear is rated for the pressures and think twice when you make any adjustments. Keep an eye on your pressures. They can increase surprisingly fast if you don't have your spunding valve set properly. Safety first. I would probably recommend starting at lower pressures your first time out. Personally, I wouldnt let it go higher than the 13psi you are already at.

What is your goal with fermenting under pressure? That may help folks give you more specific advice. Most wheat beers benefit from a little ester production. Theoretically fermenting under pressure should inhibit esters so you should end up with a clean wheat beer (which can also be delicious).

Good luck

 

[iceman_ii]

Fermenting under pressure is fairly straight forward but it is important to think things through. Make sure your gear is rated for the pressures and think twice when you make any adjustments. Keep an eye on your pressures. They can increase surprisingly fast if you don't have your spunding valve set properly. Safety first. I would probably recommend starting at lower pressures your first time out. Personally, I wouldnt let it go higher than the 13psi you are already at.

What is your goal with fermenting under pressure? That may help folks give you more specific advice. Most wheat beers benefit from a little ester production. Theoretically fermenting under pressure should inhibit esters so you should end up with a clean wheat beer (which can also be delicious).

Good luck

Well, seeing as my spunding valve won't read over 15psi, I figure 13 is safe

My plan is to ferment in the Fermzilla under pressure, and after fermentation is complete, either keg or take off the spunding valve, replace with a CO2 tank to raise the pressure up to about 30 for a couple of days then bottle right from the fermzilla. If I use a counterpressure bottler, I figure I can avoid bottle conditioning.

A question I have is this, I am supposed to add the apple flavor to the bottling bucket before I bottle, but I am not using a bottling bucket... Would it be appropriate to wait till after fermentation is complete, bleed off the pressure, add the flavoring, then seal back up and repressurize the firmzilla for finishing and bottling, or might it be better/safer to shift the beer to a keg, add the flavoring to the keg, then jack up the pressure in the keg for a couple of days before bottling.

Leaning toward the latter, I figure adding additional pressure to a corny keg is safer to adding it to a firmzilla....