Keg fermenting

[BongoYodeler]

I have a 1.5" hop bong with a butterfly valve under it. But the chopping sort of action I mentioned with the valve was more about the hops not dropping from above the valve. That is, open the valve and the hops remain suspended. An easy tap and they may start to fall but get stuck. That's where the valve can sort of scoop/chop some and then the hops may break loose. Don't fully close the valve when chopping, that helps too. I suppose if they got stuck underneath the valve could sweep that area some but not far into where they may get stuck. Beyond that I'm not sure I have any spots they have gotten stuck but sounds like some shaking solves that.

Depending on the packaging the old hops were perhaps dessicated or abraded some having been moved around repeatedly.

Yeah, as I said these hops were stuck well below the 2" butterfly valve, but they broke free rather easily. And that was a nearly 5oz drop all at once. I'm brewing today but I'll make some time, maybe tomorrow, to experiment some more. As far as the physical integrity of the pellets they seemed no different than newer hop pellets. All my open bag hops are quickly vacuum sealed and put in the freezer. I'm sure that helps

 

[Deadalus]

Just some thoughts on fine tuning it I speculate that a quick sweep of the butterfly valve likely contacts the mass of hops above in multiple spots helping to jar them loose if stuck but then keeping the valve somewhat closed would slow down the flow to where it might not get stuck below from having too large a mass hit the lower portion. The disk of the valve makes a shadow of empty space underneath. Fully open that shadow is just a sliver of empty space. I only have a few brews using mine but I have filled containers from bulk items before and going slow helps, like when using a funnel for dry goods.

Now there's probably an optimal angle to pitch the valve disk such that the shadow area accounts for the reduction in cross-sectional area created by the reducer fitting...

 

[Willy]

I have a 1.5" hop bong with a butterfly valve under it. But the chopping sort of action I mentioned with the valve was more about the hops not dropping from above the valve. That is, open the valve and the hops remain suspended. An easy tap and they may start to fall but get stuck. That's where the valve can sort of scoop/chop some and then the hops may break loose. Don't fully close the valve when chopping, that helps too. I suppose if they got stuck underneath the valve could sweep that area some but not far into where they may get stuck. Beyond that I'm not sure I have any spots they have gotten stuck but sounds like some shaking solves that.

Depending on the packaging the old hops were perhaps dessicated or abraded some having been moved around repeatedly.

I use a 1 1/2" triclamp hop bong and I have had no issues. I made a little wand... Attached to a small electric motor, spinning an off center washer assembly (basically ... A vibrator)... And that shakes whatever is stuck and shakes it loose. I know - stupid, but it works.

 

[BongoYodeler]

I did some more testing with the hop bong this evening. Each hop drop resulted in all the hops dropping successfully into the corny keg. Pictured below is the 2 inch diameter hop bong filled with close to 6 ounces of hops. This time rather than opening the butterfly valve completely and letting them all drop at once, I dropped them slower by opening and closing the valve over 6 or 8 seconds and it worked much better as I was able to completely empty the bong into the keg, without jamming, on all three attempts. I'm calling this a success and will try it for real later this month or in early December when I brew an ipa. The only possible issue I see when I do this for real is that it will be much more difficult to verify that all the hops drop into the keg when the top is on the bong. For testing purposes I only assembled the parts needed to drop the hops. I left off the CO2 fitting at the side port, and the top piece of the hop bong. Without the top attached I can look down through the bong all the way to the opening in the keg. Once it's attached it's all but impossible to see down there.

 

[mashdar]

And it looks pretty, too.

 

[day_trippr]

Love that the business end looks every bit like an actual bong

 

[BongoYodeler]

Love that the business end looks every bit like an actual bong

It's actually mine from '78. I was able to make a couple minor tweaks to make it work correctly.

 

[mashdar]

Love that the business end looks every bit like an actual bong

Sir, we call that a tobacco water pipe, or I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

 

[Deadalus]

Love that the business end looks every bit like an actual bong

I sent pics to select friends the first time I used mine.

 

[Broken Crow]

I did some more testing with the hop bong this evening. Each hop drop resulted in all the hops dropping successfully into the corny keg. Pictured below is the 2 inch diameter hop bong filled with close to 6 ounces of hops. This time rather than opening the butterfly valve completely and letting them all drop at once, I dropped them slower by opening and closing the valve over 6 or 8 seconds and it worked much better as I was able to completely empty the bong into the keg, without jamming, on all three attempts. I'm calling this a success and will try it for real later this month or in early December when I brew an ipa. The only possible issue I see when I do this for real is that it will be much more difficult to verify that all the hops drop into the keg when the top is on the bong. For testing purposes I only assembled the parts needed to drop the hops. I left off the CO2 fitting at the side port, and the top piece of the hop bong. Without the top attached I can look down through the bong all the way to the opening in the keg. Once it's attached it's all but impossible to see down there.

View attachment 862511

I Love it! If your looking for suggestions: Buy one more part:

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/tc2hb58.htm
Use it as a blow-off tube for energetic primary to keep the gunk out of your gas post and swap it out for your bong when your ferment settles down.
...Just in case you want to do a batch to yield closer to a full 5G, and if you still have any money left to spend: Get one of the cheap chinese 6.5G 'cornies' to mount it on. Here's a Canadian link to the keg; https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/ob-keg-6.5gal.html ..prices vary wildly and I don't know of a single cheap US-source, but have seen them on ebay and amazon as well as aliexpress..though: My pendantic take on those kegs: I don't like the small weld-footprint of the handles. It's fine for the smaller 1.6G and 2.6G sizes, but the weight of 5 or 6 G will cause more flexion of the top of the keg than I'm comfortable with, leading to micro-fracturing and the onset of oxidation and possibly eventually even warping the mouth so: Get or build something like a golf-bag dolly to strap it to.
Just my 2-cents.
Looking forward to your posts when you try it out!

 

[BongoYodeler]

I Love it! If your looking for suggestions: Buy one more part:
View attachment 862529
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/tc2hb58.htm
Use it as a blow-off tube for energetic primary to keep the gunk out of your gas post and swap it out for your bong when your ferment settles down.
...Just in case you want to do a batch to yield closer to a full 5G, and if you still have any money left to spend: Get one of the cheap chinese 6.5G 'cornies' to mount it on. Here's a Canadian link to the keg; https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/ob-keg-6.5gal.html ..prices vary wildly and I don't know of a single cheap US-source, but have seen them on ebay and amazon as well as aliexpress..though: My pendantic take on those kegs: I don't like the small weld-footprint of the handles. It's fine for the smaller 1.6G and 2.6G sizes, but the weight of 5 or 6 G will cause more flexion of the top of the keg than I'm comfortable with, leading to micro-fracturing and the onset of oxidation and possibly eventually even warping the mouth so: Get or build something like a golf-bag dolly to strap it to.
Just my 2-cents.
Looking forward to your posts when you try it out!

Interesting links, thanks. However, I'm not fermenting in my cornies, I use a 30L Speidel fermenter with NorCal's transfer kit. I'm also fine with ending up with a little less than 5 full gallons. My plan is to have the hop bong pre-attached to a corny dry hop keg, which in turn is attached to a serving keg with blowoff going into a jar of Starsan solution. (I do this already, but have been adding the hops to the DH keg prior to fermentation. I just don't like the idea of them sitting in the DH keg for a couple weeks, which is the whole reason I'm opting for the hop bong).
So...fermentation gas clears both cornies. Cold crash. On dry hop day I'll add the hops to the bong then purge the bong, and drop the hops into the fermentation-purged dry hop keg. *Then do an oxygen-free transfer to the DH keg over the hops, (or I may do the transfer first and then drop the hops). At that point, with the butterfly valve on the DH keg closed, I can remove the hop bong and place an end cap over the BF valve. After two or three days I'll do another oxygen-free transfer off the hops into the serving keg.

*Due to hop absorption I'll not be able to transfer a full 5 gallons into the DH keg. If anyone knows of a standard hop absorption rate I'd love to hear.

 

[Willy]

I understand it is often recipe independent, but when do you usually drop your hops into the fermenter with the bong???
For me it is 7 days from finished to 3 days from finished. But I am curious - what do you do ?

 

[BongoYodeler]

I understand it is often recipe independent, but when do you usually drop your hops into the fermenter with the bong???
For me it is 7 days from finished to 3 days from finished. But I am curious - what do you do ?

Me? The next time I use the hop bong will be my first time. I plan on using the process I mentioned in my previous post.