My corny spunding valve build

[lud]

Yep...teflon tape.

 

[High_Noonan]

OK. I just tsped my plugs and it doesn't seem like there are any leaks.

Let me ask you this.
Cranked all the way counter-clockwise gives me shut-off?
So, dialling it clockwise is opening the spund and allowing pressure to escape?
Do I have that right?

Just making sure I have the logic right, as I am going to use it next weekend.

 

[lud]

You could try it on a pressured up corny to see which way is what.

 

[stonebrewer]

I think I prefer fermenting in a sanke. The cornies are just too small, my opinion. With trub loss, etc, it's less than a full keg. There's nothing at all wrong with doing it this way, mind you. Beats the crap out of siphoning. Lot's of pluses. But I think the sanke is the way to go. You can build a similar spud valve and use a keg tapper.

Very nice valves, though guys. I'll be curious to see if you don't move on to a sanke.

Cheers.

Can you point me to a diagram of a spunding valve for a sanke? That does seem the way to go to me as well...

 

[JuanMoore]

Can you point me to a diagram of a spunding valve for a sanke? That does seem the way to go to me as well...

A spunding valve is a spunding valve, so building one is the same either way. I have a couple, and I use them on both corny kegs and sankeys. To use one on a sankey, it's easiest to simply attach a spare sankey coupler, cap the liquid out port, and put the spunding valve on the gas in port. You'll need to take the little ball that acts as a check valve out of the coupler.

 

[stonebrewer]

A spunding valve is a spunding valve, so building one is the same either way. I have a couple, and I use them on both corny kegs and sankeys. To use one on a sankey, it's easiest to simply attach a spare sankey coupler, cap the liquid out port, and put the spunding valve on the gas in port. You'll need to take the little ball that acts as a check valve out of the coupler.

Thanks JuanMoore. I guess what I really meant to say is can you describe the rest of the parts to mate the valve to the keg...

You just have a new bundle of joy? Congrats if so!

 

[JuanMoore]

Thanks JuanMoore. I guess what I really meant to say is can you describe the rest of the parts to mate the valve to the keg...

You just have a new bundle of joy? Congrats if so!

Ah, gotcha. I used 1/4" flare fittings and swivel nuts like the OP. That way they can be secured to either a ball lock QD or to a 1/4" flare tailpiece for the sankeys. The flare tailpieces are really nice for being able to easily switch between cornies and sankeys. Here's what they look like-
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/SANKE-THREADED-FLARE-FITTING-ADAPTER-P1702C118.aspx

And yes, thank you, we just brought him home from the hospital a couple days ago.

 

[stonebrewer]

Ah, gotcha. I used 1/4" flare fittings and swivel nuts like the OP. That way they can be secured to either a ball lock QD or to a 1/4" flare tailpiece for the sankeys. The flare tailpieces are really nice for being able to easily switch between cornies and sankeys. Here's what they look like-
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/SANKE-THREADED-FLARE-FITTING-ADAPTER-P1702C118.aspx

And yes, thank you, we just brought him home from the hospital a couple days ago.

Congrats and I hope he sleeps through the night for ya soon!! Got 5 kids myself, youngest is 4...

I have that flare fitting for the sanke so looks like I have everything I need to make this work for either my sanke or my corny kegs. I am going to give this a try in the next couple of weeks and see how it goes. Looks like yet another improvement to my process I will be happy with ( just upgraded to a plate chiller last month and am loving it!).

Tony

 

[High_Noonan]

CS223,
I have my first pressurized ferment going (I think), but I am not seeing any pressure reading on the gauge.
I am using a two-keg setup with a quart of boiled water in the bottom of the "blow-off" keg. I removed the poppet from the "in" post on the fermenting keg and the "out" post of the blow-off keg. These are connected via the proper ball-lock QDs and a short length of clear hose.
I do get gas escaping when I hit the pressure relief valve on the blow-off keg, but not from the fermenter. I do not see any evidence of krausen in the hose, but I did use Fermcap-S in the fermenter for the first time ever.

Does it normally take a while to get pressure to read, or do I have a problem? I had tested the setup prior to "going live" with it and had the valve/gauge set to 12.5# from a spare leg off my CO2 regulator.

 

[CS223]

CS223,
I have my first pressurized ferment going (I think), but I am not seeing any pressure reading on the gauge.
I am using a two-keg setup with a quart of boiled water in the bottom of the "blow-off" keg. I removed the poppet from the "in" post on the fermenting keg and the "out" post of the blow-off keg. These are connected via the proper ball-lock QDs and a short length of clear hose.
I do get gas escaping when I hit the pressure relief valve on the blow-off keg, but not from the fermenter. I do not see any evidence of krausen in the hose, but I did use Fermcap-S in the fermenter for the first time ever.

Does it normally take a while to get pressure to read, or do I have a problem? I had tested the setup prior to "going live" with it and had the valve/gauge set to 12.5# from a spare leg off my CO2 regulator.

With that much volume to pressurize, it's probably going to take a while. I set my valve to 5 PSI on an empty corney then put it on the fermenter. I just pitched some Notty on a Centennial Blonde now sitting @ 65F and it hadn't yet hit 5 PSI after 24 hours, the needle moved off the peg though. That's without a blow-off keg. It's going to depend on how fast your fermentation kicks in, and the blow-off keg is quite a volume to pressurize. I wouldn't sweat it.

One thing I might have done differently was to leave the poppet in the fermenter, that way once you were certain after a couple days that there was no krausen leaving the keg, you could move the valve directly to the fermenter. I'd be a little concerned that there would be insufficient pressure to carb with using a blow off keg. Lots of variables though. You want to crank up the pressure when you get to within 4-6 points of FG based on the carb chart. You can leave it set at a lower pressure until you reach that point.

On the same note, you can plumb it it so your fermenter self-racks itself to the secondary. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere in a thread, I don't know how much that would gain in the way of leaving trub behind. I haven't tried it, I just cold crash and counter pressure rack to the serving keg.

Think I'm going to try shaking the keg, tilt it in the keezer so the OUT port is down, cold crash and then rack to the serving keg. I think if I do it this way, I won't have to toss as much beer when I transfer because the cake will be away from the dip tube. I didn't bother to bend my dip tubes.

 

[High_Noonan]

Thanks for the info.
I think I have a bum Corny for doing pressurized ferments in.
It doesn't seem to seal properly.
That one may be sold back to my LHBS.

 

[Tomtanner]

I'm in tampa so I will be paying a lit of attention to this thread. I have three sankes do you think this is feasible for sanke use?

 

[E-Mursed]

Coming to boil on a Imperial Blonde Ale that i plan on doing my maiden closed-system pressurized ferment in the cornie keg with.

Very excited to move to this process as my means of primary fermentation.

 

[High_Noonan]

I'm in tampa so I will be paying a lit of attention to this thread. I have three sankes do you think this is feasible for sanke use?

Absolutely. I believe that the sanke path is surest.
Trying this in 5gal Corny kegs is sort of deviant.
WortMonger has a monster thread running on the process, but rather than make you read through that (It was around 70 pages long when I read it last year), here is a link to the wiki page:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Closed-system_pressurized_fermentation

 

[chuckjaxfl]

1/4"FFL to 1/4"MPT fitting Item #S6078 $6.99

This is no longer on the site. Does anyone have an alternate source for this?

 

[CS223]

This is no longer on the site. Does anyone have an alternate source for this?

They moved it to make it harder to find. A search on the p/n found it. I updated the link.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/female-flare-coupling-union-1-4-ffl-x-1-4-mpt.html

 

[humblesea]

I just have a quick stupid question regarding the spunding valve. So you set your desired psi level and the spunding valve will automatically release the pressure once it gets in excess? Or do you have to manually release the excess pressure? Thanks

 

[CS223]

I just have a quick stupid question regarding the spunding valve. So you set your desired psi level and the spunding valve will automatically release the pressure once it gets in excess? Or do you have to manually release the excess pressure? Thanks

Anything over your set pressure is released. If you set the keg to 5 PSI, it will stay at 5 PSI and vent off the excess.

 

[alexc2013]

I realize this is an old thread but....

Any reason why something like this would not work? I'd hook it up to the ball lock disconnect's 1/4" MFL fitting

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=as2&tag=makroofor-20&linkId=FXFXSIYX3RD3MW5E

 

[Stealthcruiser]

I'm not hip to spunding valves, but isn't the theory to let the fermentation set the "pressure"?

I don't think you could purpose the regulator for this, although I could be mistaken.

You basically want an adjustable P R V, me thinks.

 

[Weezy]

I made some birch beer soda Saturday. I put it into a 5 gal corny while it was hot. I figured no chill is only going to help marry all the flavors anyway, but it was taking forever. I had the bright idea to just seal up the keg and throw it in the pool. I'm certain I'm not the first to do that but it sure worked great. Minimal effort, no wasted water on the immersion chiller (although I do try to tun the immersion chiller water to the washing machine).

Anyway, damn simple. I started thinking about fermenting in them. I do 2.5-3 gal batches so my cheap 5 gal cornies are perfect. Pressurized transfer to my serving 2.5 gallon cornies is icing on the cake.