twd000
Well-Known Member
I've been fermenting in my corny kegs with good success for about 2 years now. One of the downsides is a smaller batch, since you typically need to allow for ~1 gallon of krausen headspace to avoid blowoff problems.
So I've been fermenting 4 gallons of wort in a 5-gallon corny keg. Often I'll brew an 8-gallon batch and split it into 2 kegs.
Was thinking today about recovering that last gallon of "missing" beer, and how it might fit with closed-transfer processes. It seems you only need the excess headspace until you're past high krausen, then it's safe to fill the keg to the top for serving. Typically you try to transfer to the serving keg with 1-2 Plato remaining so active yeast can scrub any residual oxygen.
This article indicates 20% dilution is quite reasonable, so I could brew a 1.060 beer in order to hit a target 1.048 OG after 20% dilution: High Gravity Brewing | MoreBeer
Writer also stresses the importance of de-aerated dilution water, to avoid oxidation. Well it just so happens that I have a 5-gallon keg of sparkling seltzer water in my kegerator, sitting at 40F and 30 psi.
So my idea is to transfer the 4 gallons of beer ~2 days into primary fermentation after I'm past high-krausen, then push a gallon of seltzer water over to top up the keg.
Any reason why that wouldn't work?
So I've been fermenting 4 gallons of wort in a 5-gallon corny keg. Often I'll brew an 8-gallon batch and split it into 2 kegs.
Was thinking today about recovering that last gallon of "missing" beer, and how it might fit with closed-transfer processes. It seems you only need the excess headspace until you're past high krausen, then it's safe to fill the keg to the top for serving. Typically you try to transfer to the serving keg with 1-2 Plato remaining so active yeast can scrub any residual oxygen.
This article indicates 20% dilution is quite reasonable, so I could brew a 1.060 beer in order to hit a target 1.048 OG after 20% dilution: High Gravity Brewing | MoreBeer
Writer also stresses the importance of de-aerated dilution water, to avoid oxidation. Well it just so happens that I have a 5-gallon keg of sparkling seltzer water in my kegerator, sitting at 40F and 30 psi.
So my idea is to transfer the 4 gallons of beer ~2 days into primary fermentation after I'm past high-krausen, then push a gallon of seltzer water over to top up the keg.
Any reason why that wouldn't work?