Hi,
I've been trying to reduce my oxygen exposure over the past year or so. Stopped using a secondary, added a CO2 collector to pull CO2 back in during cold crash, went to a closed loop transfer, and purging my kegs by forcing liquid out with CO2 before filling the keg. I'm not sure how much CO2 a purge uses; I set my regulator just high enough to force the liquid out, but I'm still using CO2. I started wondering if there was another way to accomplish this, and I started thinking about using the CO2 lost during fermentation.
I just kegged my latest beer, so it will be another couple of months before my next brew, but I've been playing with the idea in my head. There are several issues I'd need to work out for my setup. I ferment in my old kegerator, which has four bolt holes in the top where the tap tower was mounted. I use one of them to feed the probe for my Inkbird controller. I'd probably try to use one of the holes to thread tubing from my fermenter's blow-off out of the kegerator. From there I think I'd need some kind of initial collector, in case of blow-off. I have a couple of one-gallon Big Mouth bubblers, so I was thinking one of those with son Star San in it. From there the tubing would run to a gas connector for my keg. One concern would be building it air tight, so that it generates enough pressure to purge the keg. I'd also have to let everything run for a while before I started purging the keg, to make sure the entire setup was full of CO2.
Is anyone doing this already? Any thoughts/pointers? Thanks for your help!
I've been trying to reduce my oxygen exposure over the past year or so. Stopped using a secondary, added a CO2 collector to pull CO2 back in during cold crash, went to a closed loop transfer, and purging my kegs by forcing liquid out with CO2 before filling the keg. I'm not sure how much CO2 a purge uses; I set my regulator just high enough to force the liquid out, but I'm still using CO2. I started wondering if there was another way to accomplish this, and I started thinking about using the CO2 lost during fermentation.
I just kegged my latest beer, so it will be another couple of months before my next brew, but I've been playing with the idea in my head. There are several issues I'd need to work out for my setup. I ferment in my old kegerator, which has four bolt holes in the top where the tap tower was mounted. I use one of them to feed the probe for my Inkbird controller. I'd probably try to use one of the holes to thread tubing from my fermenter's blow-off out of the kegerator. From there I think I'd need some kind of initial collector, in case of blow-off. I have a couple of one-gallon Big Mouth bubblers, so I was thinking one of those with son Star San in it. From there the tubing would run to a gas connector for my keg. One concern would be building it air tight, so that it generates enough pressure to purge the keg. I'd also have to let everything run for a while before I started purging the keg, to make sure the entire setup was full of CO2.
Is anyone doing this already? Any thoughts/pointers? Thanks for your help!