keggling keezing and spunding

[exaustgas]

Hi guys, long time reader, first post.
I am trying to reduce the amount of effort that goes into my brewing while maintaining a high quality product. I am interested in opinions and general feelings on the process I describe below.

Brew-in-a-bag in my keggle
Immersion wort chill
Drain to 5 gallon keg (doing 5 gallon batches here)
use ferm-cap
use a spunding valve (10psi?) with a trap for blow-off
Primary ferment 2 weeks
Cold crash in keezer
Pressure transfer to Serving keg/secondary (another keg)
Serve whenever I feel its ready

Regarding the use of the spunding valve: I have used it on the secondary before but didn't feel comfortable racking to a secondary when fermentation is not at F.G. (ie racking at 1.015 when FG is 1.010, so much yeast left behind. Also, isn't a yeast cake a healthy thing to have around for a week or two?) to get the final carbonation. So why not just primary under pressure and just let it sit for a few weeks?

I realize this is a ball of worms of a thread, but any advice on any part of the proposed process would be appreciated.

Ted

 

[Cantina De Jefe]

It sounds great in theory. Im looking into spunding also and trying to see what kind of stainless fermentor i need. The obvious issue here is a full 5 gallon keg is not gonna have any headpace and will blow krausen into your spunding valve. You could split it into 2 kegs. Maybe upsize your batch to like 8 gallons since you have the volume in your keggle.

 

[Veets]

Hi guys, long time reader, first post.
I am trying to reduce the amount of effort that goes into my brewing while maintaining a high quality product. I am interested in opinions and general feelings on the process I describe below.

Brew-in-a-bag in my keggle
Immersion wort chill
Drain to 5 gallon keg (doing 5 gallon batches here)
use ferm-cap
use a spunding valve (10psi?) with a trap for blow-off
Primary ferment 2 weeks
Cold crash in keezer
Pressure transfer to Serving keg/secondary (another keg)
Serve whenever I feel its ready

Regarding the use of the spunding valve: I have used it on the secondary before but didn't feel comfortable racking to a secondary when fermentation is not at F.G. (ie racking at 1.015 when FG is 1.010, so much yeast left behind. Also, isn't a yeast cake a healthy thing to have around for a week or two?) to get the final carbonation. So why not just primary under pressure and just let it sit for a few weeks?

I realize this is a ball of worms of a thread, but any advice on any part of the proposed process would be appreciated.

Ted

I've done it both ways, and both ways work. There's enough yeast still to get the last few points down. Raising the temperature a bit in the secondary also helps.

BTW, I do it almost exactly as you describe, but with the Robobrew instead of BIAB. Also, I use a water filter housing as a blowoff trap, and have the outlet of that daisy chained to my serving keg, so the serving keg gets flushed out with CO2 during fermentation. Spunding valve on the SK during primary, 10-15 psi. There are a few threads here that describe that setup (not my idea) and it works great.