Just bought all my kegerator stuff....

[icantbejon]

I'm pretty stoked about it! I got a fridge, conversion kit with dual tower, and two ball lock kegs.

Can I ferment in the kegs, say as a secondary unit, as opposed to using a carboy?

 

[Gear101]

Why would you want to do that? as a primary fermenator?

 

[bja]

You got a dual tower and 2 kegs. Why would you ferment in the kegs?

 

[icantbejon]

Just to simplify the process a bit. I'm guessing from the reaction, its not the best idea.

 

[zacjack]

You will end up with a big pile of sludge in your kegs and the dip-tube that pulls your beer from the bottom will get clogged with trub.

You can use your kegs as a secondary if you want to. I normally ferment for 10-14 days in a bucket, transfer to the keg and let them sit for another 10 days with about 12psi of pressure on the beer. After that, I lower the pressure down to my serving pressure and enjoy a homebrew

 

[IrishBrewer74]

Congrats on moving to kegs!

Technically you can ferment in the keg, but there are two issues to contend with... First there is the CO2. You would either have to buy or fashion a lid with an airlock in it, or manually vent CO2 a lot, or leave the purge valve open. Second, you would have to still move the beer to a second keg in order to get it off the yeast cake. I use fermentation buckets and usually end up with about an inch of yeast covering the bottom. Considering the smaller diameter of a corny keg, you will probably end up with 2-3 inches of yeast at the bottom. The dip tube picks up beer from the bottom of the keg, so that'd be a lot of yeast to get through. There is some potential as a secondary fermenter, since you'll have much less yeast or CO2 to contend with. But I would assume you'll be force carbing your beer so without the need to add sugar and create more yeast, using the keg as a secondary will still lead to a good amount of yeast settling out, which again the beer has to suck through.

All in all it's probably just not worth the effort to ferment in the keg. I go a minimum of three weeks in the bucket primary, then move the bucket right into the keggerator (keezer in my case) and cold crash for 1 to 2 days. These gives me crystal clear beer and almost no yeast settling out on the bottom of the keg.

 

[psymonkey]

I think everyone is misreading his question. "Can I ferment in the kegs, say as a secondary as opposed to a carboy" I think he's asking if he can secondary in the kegs to begin with..that's how I read it anyway.

Translation: Can I use the kegs instead of a carboy for my secondary?

 

[day_trippr]

Sure, you can ferment in kegs, but leaving aside the whole yeasty trub layer issue, with two faucets and only two kegs, why would you want to?

I'd say either stick with fermenting in something else, or pick up another couple of kegs...

Cheers!

 

[onthekeg]

I'm pretty stoked about it! I got a fridge, conversion kit with dual tower, and two ball lock kegs.

Can I ferment in the kegs, say as a secondary unit, as opposed to using a carboy?

Apparently everyone except one person was missing your question. Yes you can secondary in the kegs.

 

[bja]

Apparently everyone except one person was missing your question. Yes you can secondary in the kegs.

No we didn't. Our question is, why would you buy a dual tower and then tie up a keg and leave a tap unused?

 

[icantbejon]

So what I'm reading here is that I should not ever use a keg for a primary, but could use it as a secondary. That all being said, should I choose to not use it as either, would lagering in a keg present any problems? I'm thinking of the following technique, a few days in the primary, rack to the secondary and take a few weeks, then rack to a keg and lager for a few weeks. Obviously all my timing issues are generic and don't refer to any specific recipe.

 

[bja]

So what I'm reading here is that I should not ever use a keg for a primary, but could use it as a secondary. That all being said, should I choose to not use it as either, would lagering in a keg present any problems?

I'm going to ask this one more time. Why would you buy a dual tower and 2 kegs, then tie up a keg and leave a tap unused?

 

[icantbejon]

I'm going to ask this one more time. Why would you buy a dual tower and 2 kegs, then tie up a keg and leave a tap unused?

So I can free up my carboy and brew again as opposed to waiting for 40 days while my beer lagers.

 

[bja]

So I can free up my carboy and brew again as opposed to waiting for 40 days while my beer lagers.

Another carboy is cheaper than a keg. Or you could buy 3 buckets.

 

[brewhappy]

So I can free up my carboy and brew again as opposed to waiting for 40 days while my beer lagers.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy another carboy?

In any case you are going to run into some issues if you only primary ferment for a couple days and then transfer to the keg. At minimum you'll need to have it primary for 5 days if it's a quick ESB or something. Generally you should primary until the beer is pretty close to your final gravity. If you take it off the yeast too soon it may not finish fermenting.

Carboys and buckets are cheap. Just buy more and properly ferment your beers.

 

[chuckda4th]

Personally, I have 1 extra keg than will fit in my kegerator. If both kegs in the kegerator are still going and I kegged a third batch, I'll hit that third one with 30psi once a day for a few days and let it sit in a cool spot in the basement. That way when one of the 2 kegs in there kicks, I only have to wait a couple days for fully carbed beer instead of the normal week and a half. So, I have what I think is a legit reason for having an extra keg than will fit in the fridge.

Since I only have 1 better bottle for secondary-ing, I have hit times where an ale was meant to be in a non-refrigerated secondary for 2-3 months, and I could have used a second secondary for another ale that only needed a couple of weeks. I've thought about doing the following: http://goo.gl/3qs6t or I've seen a couple places that have the airlock hole pre-drilled on a keg lid, which can be purchased separately from a keg.

That being said, I mostly secondary my ales in order to let more sediment settle and so I can pull the beer off that sediment (besides longer aging for some styles that it helps with). If I served from the keg I secondary'd in without racking and re-racking, it would kind of defeat my purpose. So, I would need to rack from one keg to another. That means I need yet another keg available at keg time. If I only have 1 of the 2 spots filled in the kegerator, then I have an extra keg, otherwise I'd then be stuck racking to a bottling bucket, cleaning my secondary keg, then racking again to the freshly-cleaned keg (dangerous). Just takes a little planning to avoid this.

So, I could see someone lagering using the above methodology, although assuming you already had 2 beers on tap, you'd need room in the fridge for a third keg. Doing it with ales as I planned wouldn't need that extra spot.

Alton Brown would be proud of your hatred of unitaskers.

 

[Monster Mash]

So I can free up my carboy and brew again as opposed to waiting for 40 days while my beer lagers.

I hope this helps... Secondary is not necessary unless you are dry hopping, adding wood or fruit. Just ferment, rack to a keg, let carbonate at serving pressure for about a week and serve. Technically you are doing a secondary in the serving keg at this time and you will get about a pint of sediment on the first pour and it will be fine after that.

If you ever want to move the keg you have to rack to a clean one first or you will stir up the sediment.

If you are lagering you do the same thing but wait 4 weeks before serving.