Yep all my kegs have clearbeer systems. They are expensive but I'll never go back. Can keg hop with loose pellets and beer drops clear super quick.
These Top Draw pickup tubes from Williams Brewing seem to work pretty well and are more economical.
https://www.williamsbrewing.com/Top-Draw-Beer-Pick-Up-Tube-P4643.aspx
I put one on all 8x of my taps.
Thanks for sharing. Any idea what diameter they are ?
I was actually referring to the ball diameter. Would love to know this.
I actually fermented the beers in the same kegs that I'm serving from - another great benefit of the system.
Yep all my kegs have clearbeer systems. They are expensive but I'll never go back. Can keg hop with loose pellets and beer drops clear super quick.
I have done the ferment-and-serve thing in 3 Corny kegs so far...Fermenting in kegs is dirt simple; I just connect a QD to the gas port, and run a length of tubing to a blow-off jar. Then near the end of fermentation, I remove the blow off and allow some remaining CO2 to build up inside the keg. This is where spunding with a gauge would be useful, but for now I've been winging it.
McKnuckle: thank you for sharing that.
I've been thinking of doing this with 1/4 barrel (7.75 gallon) Sanke kegs for a long time. I installed a 4" TC port in one of my Sanke kegs so that I can get into the keg to clean it out and also possibly drop in a chilling coil to control fermentation temps, if I ever go glycol instead of a fridge I now use. Being that I have that port, I could drop in a float ball.
The nice thing about using 1/4 barrel Sankes is that I could up my batch size from 5 gallons to 7 gallons and still have headroom for krausen. Or if I went to 7.5 gallons, I could use a blow off tube like I do now with carboys. 5 gallon batches are a bit small if the beer is good. 10 gallons is kinda too much, for my equipment and to consume in a reasonable time, unless I'm throwing a summer party or it is my house beer. Even then it doesn't warrant me buying larger equipment. However my current equipment would easily make 7 or 8 gallons of wort into the fermentor(s).
I guess I could ferment 4.75 gallons in Corny kegs... it is just that the batch size is getting a bit small. I guess I could ferment 2 x 4 gallons per batch. My boil kettle is 11 gallons.
One of the big turn offs for me with conical fermentors is that very few are really airtight at pressure and almost none are built to handle the pressure necessary to carbonate beer for serving.
I don't get what all the fuss is about with them if you can't use them for serving. Most people don't do a secondary fermentation and autolysis isn't an issue if the beer is kept cold, so why do you need a conical ? So you can yeast harvest ?
The issue with yeast harvesting is that if you remove a quart of yeast out the bottom, you let a quart of air in at the top, unless you have some headspace at the top and you have it filled with pressurized CO2. But you don't want to be draining yeast out of a pressurized vessel either. So I don't understand the benefit of a conical.
Yeast autolysis is not an issue at serving temps. It might be at higher temps, I'd have to do some research on that.
I love the work and CO2 that your practice saves. I also love that the finished beer doesn't get exposed to any oxygen what so ever. I t can't get any fresher than that.
Have you done any dry hopping with your set up / practice ?
FWIW, I've been straining the hops, hot break and even some of the cold break out of my wort by recirculating it into a BIAB bag in the boil kettle at the end of the boil. It removes a lot of debris from the wort, makes for super clean wort. I hardly have any debris in my carboys at the end of fermentation, maybe 1/2" of yeast. Details here and here.
FYI, Brulosophy has tested the effect of fermentation headspace on beer quality, here. However, what I think they also inadvertently tested was the effect of only partially filling an unpurged serving keg as well.
It turns out that fermentation produces a TON of CO2. 5 gallons of 1.050 wort will produce between 11 and 15 cubic feet of CO2, depending on attenuation. Fermenting in a half full vessel (2-3 gallons of headspace) shouldn't cause any oxidation issues at all. Source
BTW, your process is called Unitanking.
I am very intrigued. But the specifics of "near the end" would be something I'd want to know, and without constantly taking samples or having one of those Tilt things, how'd one know?
this 10 psi inline check valve thing that someone linked to in another thread seems VERY simple and intriguing
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