Pressure Transfer of Pressure Fermented Beer

[mbg]

Soon to try pressure fermentation using a Fermzilla All-Rounder. When it comes time to keg I would like to do a pressure transfer (new to me too). Wondering if there are any helpful guides/tips to doing this especially since the beer will carbonated start with.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[stickyfinger]

Spunding valve on receiving keg works well

 

[mbg]

Spunding valve on receiving keg works well

Thanks - I saw some purge the keg with CO2 and just open the gas port but a valve with some back pressure makes more sense.

 

[stickyfinger]

Thanks - I saw some purge the keg with CO2 and just open the gas port but a valve with some back pressure makes more sense.

Either work. Spund valve is elegant. Just dont let beer foam get into it

 

[Iseneye]

I would pressurise the receiving keg to the same pressure as the fermenter, or a few PSI under and then spunding valve. If you transfer from say 10 PSI down to a low PSI you will get foaming once connected.

 

[SmokeyRydr]

Here's a quick & easy spunding/FOB setup I use for keg filling. Duotight fittings from Kegland / Keg Factory.
It's not the purdiest to look at, but works well.

 

[Beholder]

The method I use is to fill keg with star San and push that through to another keg on a running basis to sanitize and purge kegs of oxygen. I push around 14 psi and have spunding valve on receiving keg at 10 psi.

When packaging the beer, I use the same pressure settings as above so end with the serving pressure in the keg. I keep the keg on a scale and add 8.34x5 to determine full so I don’t get beer running through the spunding valve.

You can run a higher/lower pressure difference, depends only on time you have and how much foaming into the valve you can tolerate. 4 psi was optimum for me using a ball lock jumper with 5 foot of beer line.

 

[Golddiggie]

I'm using the method I saw in a video of a brewery filling kegs (via a manifold, believe it was a MoreBeer video).
Sanitize receiving kegs and purge O2.
Connect a QD to the gas post that has one end in a container of Starsan (no fitting on that end) to create an airlock.
Connect liquid post on keg to beer out fitting on fermenter.
Push beer as needed from fermenter to serving keg.
Watch the line from the gas post and stop filling when you see foam coming out of that fitting. Just be sure you're seeing beer foam (not liquid) and not sanitizer foam.

I used this method the past couple of keg fillings with great success. It's also less complicated than using spunding valves or other configurations. Since most of us fully sanitize our serving kegs as part of the cleaning process (or at least I do), including running Starsan through the liquid post/dip tube, doing this right before filling is adding work that's not needed. Provided you keep the keg pressurized from when you add the sanitizer until you're ready to fill it. I do push the sanitizer out of the keg, until it's empty of liquid during that process. At most, it has some Starsan foam.

Since I'm putting part of the batches into serving keg (they are leaving fermenter fully carbonated) and canning the rest, it doesn't matter to me if I don't get a 100% full keg. If it's a pint lower than it could have been, it's not the end of the world. Especially since I'm not extracting the final .6 gallons in the conical due to how far the racking arm reaches.

IME, the simpler the setup you have, the less chance you have of something going sideways. Plus less items need to be cleaned after use (or taken apart and then cleaned).