Pressurized Closed Loop Corny Keg Fermenting

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I don't think there are any flat-topped fermenters that are pressure rated. It looks like a Stout. My Stout will hold a few PSI, but the lid bulges up under that pressure. It's just not what they are designed for.
 
Hannabrew said:
I shocked those aren't pressure rated.
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Pressure rates vessels are a special beast. When you consider 1 psi can put several hundred pounds of force on a lid, you realize you need thicker metal and stout clamps.
 
NavinRJohnson48 said:
Didn't read through, but the diptube fits pretty tight in the hole. Is there a trick to getting it back in after bending it?
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If you haven't already bent it (or maybe even if you have), I recommend just picking up a $5 used straight dip tube for fermenting and keeping the original one that came with the keg as-is. The straight ones would work better with the dry hopping screens if you think you might ever try those, and I like that they pickup near the side of the keg so that I can tilt the keg towards it during transfer to get a bit more beer into the SK.
 
cheesebach said:
If you haven't already bent it (or maybe even if you have), I recommend just picking up a $5 used straight dip tube for fermenting and keeping the original one that came with the keg as-is. The straight ones would work better with the dry hopping screens if you think you might ever try those, and I like that they pickup near the side of the keg so that I can tilt the keg towards it during transfer to get a bit more beer into the SK.
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totally agree here, and dont worry about the "with ears" "without ears" the straight ones without ears will fit in the holes for eared ones no problem. I got mine on Adventures in home brewing, .
 
After thinking on it a bit, is there any reason not take a length of SS 5/16 tubing - or another dip tube with the flare cut off, put a nice tight 90° (or 75°) bend in the end with a bender and feed back up through the hole and flare it in place?

I suppose you could turn it over and bend the flared end and flare the - formerly - bottom end once it's up through the hole.
 
Any tips on adding dry hops near end of fermentation? Every time I open the keg the foam rises like a mofo even after releasing pressure
 
I noticed 10 psi lead to explosive decompression as well.

That’s one reason why I settled on 3.5psi. It’s just enough to seat the lid fully but doesn’t overly carbonate the beer or collapse the head so much you have to worry about expansion.

Better solution is an oversized conical with some glycol.
 
How are you guys spunding at 3.5 or even 10 psi? Even at lager temps that wouldn't put you near enough volumes of co2 for a finished beer

I feel like I'm missing something here...
 
I may just be being lazy, but does anyone have a carbonation chart for gravity points? Ie, how many gravity points does one volume of co2 equal? I’m thinking of trying out one of those digital hydrometers in addition to pressurized fermentation, so it would be nice to know exactly when to close down the spunding for correct carbonation.

Many thanks in advance!
 
Ballpark 2-6 points remaining for spund.

I was thinking about a digital hydro too but have reading reviews they don’t seem so good for final gravity readings because any chunkies that stick to the unit throw it off dramatically.

I retract my previous criticisms of digital refractometers. If you filter the sample through a coffee filter first it’s dead nuts accurate.
 
I've been reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast book. I'm paraphrasing here but they caution about "early capping of the fermentation vessel" to carbonate (read: spund) due to the fact that some yeasts off-gas undesirable compounds until the tail end of fermentation.

I sort of connected the dots on this when I spunded my hefe brewed with 3068. After spunding, purging the keg smelled like rotten eggs from the production of sulfur compounds that this yeast is known for. Prior to using this closed transfer method by fermenting in a carboy, I'd get this smell during fermentation, but since it's basically open, by keg time that smell was well gone. I also ferment at a minimum 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up. I wonder if I'm "trapping" these sulfur compounds and other undesirables by using this method.

Anyone else have this notion?
 
Andre3000 said:
I've been reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast book. I'm paraphrasing here but they caution about "early capping of the fermentation vessel" to carbonate (read: spund) due to the fact that some yeasts off-gas undesirable compounds until the tail end of fermentation.

I sort of connected the dots on this when I spunded my hefe brewed with 3068. After spunding, purging the keg smelled like rotten eggs from the production of sulfur compounds that this yeast is known for. Prior to using this closed transfer method by fermenting in a carboy, I'd get this smell during fermentation, but since it's basically open, by keg time that smell was well gone. I also ferment at a minimum 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up. I wonder if I'm "trapping" these sulfur compounds and other undesirables by using this method.

Anyone else have this notion?
Click to expand...

I've wondered the same. I pretty much exclusively brew with wlp007 and haven't had any issues. Though I could see it being strain dependent. Chris White and John Blichman did a study on pressure fermentation and I believe they recommended using 15 psi to ferment a lager at ale temps to accelerate fermentation. You would have to look into the study to fact check me though causes it's been maybe 6 months or so since I last looked into it.
 
Andre3000 said:
I've been reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast book. I'm paraphrasing here but they caution about "early capping of the fermentation vessel" to carbonate (read: spund) due to the fact that some yeasts off-gas undesirable compounds until the tail end of fermentation.

I sort of connected the dots on this when I spunded my hefe brewed with 3068. After spunding, purging the keg smelled like rotten eggs from the production of sulfur compounds that this yeast is known for. Prior to using this closed transfer method by fermenting in a carboy, I'd get this smell during fermentation, but since it's basically open, by keg time that smell was well gone. I also ferment at a minimum 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up. I wonder if I'm "trapping" these sulfur compounds and other undesirables by using this method.

Anyone else have this notion?
Click to expand...

While I can't say that I've noticed any negatives from capping/spunding near the very end of fermentation with any non-dryhopped beers, I'm starting to lean towards adding dry hops near the end of fermentation and then capping or spunding to naturally carbonate being a very bad thing for hop character in the finished beer. I've had 2 hoppy beers that I think I essentially ruined with this method already this year. In both beers, the hop aroma/flavor was totally lacking and had a weird harsh, maybe even chemical/soapy, characteristic to it (both beers used the same source RO water from the grocery store that I use for all my beers, before anyone goes shouting "chloramines!" or anything). It's hard to explain - you can smell and taste that there are hops in there, but its a different kind of flavor/aroma than anything I've ever had before. Kind of like if you removed all of the supporting characteristics from the hops (fruity, floral, pine, resin/dank, etc) and were just left with generic hop presence.

Each beer had some different ingredients and other tweaks going on so I wasn't sure where to place the blame (thought it was maybe some bad cryo hops, the Imperial Juice yeast, different base malt), but the one thing both batches had in common was that I added all the dry hops (over 1oz per gallon) as the fermentation was finishing up and then removed the blow-off and let to finish fermenting and naturally carbonate. With the first batch, I decided to blame the cryo hops, since it was my first time using them and they seemed to have a brown appearance and duller aroma in the package compared to the pellet hops I was using in the same batch. When it happened to me again this past weekend, I began to think maybe in my attempts to preserve and maintain the freshest/brightest hop character by sealing in all the goodness at the end of fermentation, my efforts might actually be having the opposite effect due to some weird yeast/hops/off-gasing/pressure interaction.

Doing some searches, I came across a blog post on Scott Janish's site seemingly dealing with the topic I was looking into. While the experiment in the main post doesn't sound like exactly the same scenario (his "experiement" used different yeasts, dry hop schedules for the different batches and fermented one under pressure for the full fermentation), but some of his comments in the discussion below seem to deal with exactly what I had done with my 2 failed beers - regular fermentation for the first 90%, then tossing in dry hops at the end and then allowing to naturally carbonate. To my surprise, it sounds as though he made the same/similar observations with multiple batches whenever attempting this.

Below is the link to the post and some of his comments:

http://scottjanish.com/fermenting-dry-hopping-pressure/

"I’ve tried spunding on the tail end of fermentation a few more times and I’d suggest against it actually. I’ve never been thrilled with my results, I always seem to get a milder flavored beer from it."

"I’ve done a few beers where I cap the fermentation towards the tail end of fermentation with the last dose of dry hops essentially allowing the beer to naturally carbonate. Each time I’ve tried this, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Thinking I would trap in more of the hop aromatics (not being vented with C02 under pressure) and increase aroma, I actually seemed to get the opposite, a more muted hop character with a “green” note. I’m not sure if I’m also trapping in some of the undesirable components of fermentation or what, but experimenting with this method a few times and getting the same result, I’m leaning against the processes. "

I may try doing a real side-by-side experiment in the future to compare to, but seeing as though the beers that the 2 times I've tried this have resulted in drain-pour beers (although hoping I may be able to salvage something out of my latest with some additional dry hopping), I'm not in a huge rush to do this knowing that half the beer is likely going down the drain. I'm not sure "muted" or "milder" quite does it justice - there is something just totally off about the hop character in these. NEIPA beers that I have added dry hops on day 2 and still have another 1-2 days before I cap or spund to pressure haven't had this issue. Neither have ones with all hops at the very end of fermentation but no spunding.

Anyways, sorry for the long post - what experience do y'all have with this? Anyone having good results with this method? Or similar bad results? Or ideas on good ways to dry hop late or after fermentation while limiting O2 exposure?
 
cheesebach said:
Doing some searches, I came across a blog post on Scott Janish's site seemingly dealing with the topic I was looking into. While the experiment in the main post doesn't sound like exactly the same scenario (his "experiement" used different yeasts, dry hop schedules for the different batches and fermented one under pressure for the full fermentation), but some of his comments in the discussion below seem to deal with exactly what I had done with my 2 failed beers - regular fermentation for the first 90%, then tossing in dry hops at the end and then allowing to naturally carbonate. To my surprise, it sounds as though he made the same/similar observations with multiple batches whenever attempting this.

Below is the link to the post and some of his comments:

http://scottjanish.com/fermenting-dry-hopping-pressure/

"I’ve tried spunding on the tail end of fermentation a few more times and I’d suggest against it actually. I’ve never been thrilled with my results, I always seem to get a milder flavored beer from it."

"I’ve done a few beers where I cap the fermentation towards the tail end of fermentation with the last dose of dry hops essentially allowing the beer to naturally carbonate. Each time I’ve tried this, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Thinking I would trap in more of the hop aromatics (not being vented with C02 under pressure) and increase aroma, I actually seemed to get the opposite, a more muted hop character with a “green” note. I’m not sure if I’m also trapping in some of the undesirable components of fermentation or what, but experimenting with this method a few times and getting the same result, I’m leaning against the processes. "

I may try doing a real side-by-side experiment in the future to compare to, but seeing as though the beers that the 2 times I've tried this have resulted in drain-pour beers (although hoping I may be able to salvage something out of my latest with some additional dry hopping), I'm not in a huge rush to do this knowing that half the beer is likely going down the drain. I'm not sure "muted" or "milder" quite does it justice - there is something just totally off about the hop character in these. NEIPA beers that I have added dry hops on day 2 and still have another 1-2 days before I cap or spund to pressure haven't had this issue. Neither have ones with all hops at the very end of fermentation but no spunding.

Anyways, sorry for the long post - what experience do y'all have with this? Anyone having good results with this method? Or similar bad results? Or ideas on good ways to dry hop late or after fermentation while limiting O2 exposure?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post! I am familiar with the blog post you're talking about. I haven't actually tried a side by side with that method, but I can't say I've really produced NEIPA beer that I feel like I needed to pour out with spunding. With my NEIPAs I usually dry hop right at yeast pitch for simplicity (so I don't have to open the fermenter until after the beer has been transferred). The current 1272 batch I have, I did the dry hop at yeast pitch but I goofed the spund timing and it only spunded a bit.

I may try standard bio transform dry hop with no spund at all and see if I can tell a difference.

I'd be interested to hear others' opinions.

Edit: Also, I wonder where the threshold pressure for the poor hop character is. I like to ferment at a minimum of 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up.
 
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cheesebach said:
I've had 2 hoppy beers that I think I essentially ruined with this method already this year. In both beers, the hop aroma/flavor was totally lacking and had a weird harsh, maybe even chemical/soapy, characteristic to it (both beers used the same source RO water from the grocery store that I use for all my beers, before anyone goes shouting "chloramines!" or anything). It's hard to explain - you can smell and taste that there are hops in there, but its a different kind of flavor/aroma than anything I've ever had before. Kind of like if you removed all of the supporting characteristics from the hops (fruity, floral, pine, resin/dank, etc) and were just left with generic hop presence.
Click to expand...

Your description is spot on with what I have experienced. I have noticed the same astringent/soapy flavor when fermenting an ipa under 15 psi, then letting the pressure build to 25 psi near the end of fermentation.This was without any dry hopping.

I've never experienced this off flavor with a normal non-pressurized fermentation. Next time I'll try fermenting around 3-5 psi the entire time and see if that weird off flavor gone. Glad to see it's not just me that has experienced this issue.
 
Andre3000 said:
Thanks for the post! I am familiar with the blog post you're talking about. I haven't actually tried a side by side with that method, but I can't say I've really produced NEIPA beer that I feel like I needed to pour out with spunding. With my NEIPAs I usually dry hop right at yeast pitch for simplicity (so I don't have to open the fermenter until after the beer has been transferred). The current 1272 batch I have, I did the dry hop at yeast pitch but I goofed the spund timing and it only spunded a bit.

I may try standard bio transform dry hop with no spund at all and see if I can tell a difference.

I'd be interested to hear others' opinions.

Edit: Also, I wonder where the threshold pressure for the poor hop character is. I like to ferment at a minimum of 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input! I've had similar good results with NEIPAs when I add all the dry hops at 48 hours and wait until day 4ish to cap/pressurize or add half at 48 hours, cap and spund a couple days later and then transfer into a serving keg wit keg hops. I've only gotten the dull hop character when I've tried to add hops late (usually around day 3.5-4) and immediately cap and spund to pressurize.

sabitu said:
Your description is spot on with what I have experienced. I have noticed the same astringent/soapy flavor when fermenting an ipa under 15 psi, then letting the pressure build to 25 psi near the end of fermentation.This was without any dry hopping.

I've never experienced this off flavor with a normal non-pressurized fermentation. Next time I'll try fermenting around 3-5 psi the entire time and see if that weird off flavor gone. Glad to see it's not just me that has experienced this issue.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I haven't gone higher than 3psi before day 3-4 of fermentation, usually not pressurizing at all until near the end. I wonder if there's something weird the yeast are doing with the hops under pressure that is avoided if they have a day or two to "biotransform" or go through some other interaction with the hops before that pressure sets in. I think there is a lot of examples of dry hopping under pressure working well after fermentation when the yeast has mostly dropped out. Likely that the yeast are involved in some way or another.
 
Side by side experiment would be interesting. Brulosophy did an exbeeriment on a zombie dust clone with pressure fermentation, but unfortunately they skipped the dry hops.

I haven't had any negative experiences yet on getting weird or dull hop flavors when dry hopping under pressure. I've got a Trillium Fort Point clone on tap right now and it's pretty juicy. I made this recipe before without pressure and it tastes similar as far as I can remember. It was nearly a year ago last time I brewed it though.

I may test this out myself next time as well and do half batch under pressure half not.
 
LittlejohnBrew said:
Side by side experiment would be interesting. Brulosophy did an exbeeriment on a zombie dust clone with pressure fermentation, but unfortunately they skipped the dry hops.

I haven't had any negative experiences yet on getting weird or dull hop flavors when dry hopping under pressure. I've got a Trillium Fort Point clone on tap right now and it's pretty juicy. I made this recipe before without pressure and it tastes similar as far as I can remember. It was nearly a year ago last time I brewed it though.

I may test this out myself next time as well and do half batch under pressure half not.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input - when are you adding the dry hops for that recipe? Also, what’s your pressure set to when the dry hops are added?
 
i’ve been fermenting out my beer, adding 1 oz/gal dry hop along with about 50-60g of sucrose boiled in water, seal it up and purge and set lid to 20 psi. leave it for 1-2wks and then throw into keezer. seems to produce very hoppy beer
 
stickyfinger said:
i’ve been fermenting out my beer, adding 1 oz/gal dry hop along with about 50-60g of sucrose boiled in water, seal it up and purge and set lid to 20 psi. leave it for 1-2wks and then throw into keezer. seems to produce very hoppy beer
Click to expand...

So I take it since you are adding sugars that you let if fully ferment and give the yeast a couple days to settle before doing this? This was going to be my plan for my next dry hopped beer that isn’t “New England” style, with the exception of possibly waiting for a couple days before adding the priming sugar. Good to know that it call all be done in one step though to limit how often you have to mess with it and open the fermenter.
 
cheesebach said:
Thanks for the input - when are you adding the dry hops for that recipe? Also, what’s your pressure set to when the dry hops are added?
Click to expand...

I added the hops loose after about 85% through fermentation or with about 5 points left. Then spund at 26 psi. Chilled on day 11, drinking day 12.

Like you indicate maybe it's yeast dependent and some strains interact with the hops differently under pressure. I use WLP007 which is highly flocculant and ferments really fast. Maybe these properties make it better suited for high pressure fermentation with dry hopping?
 
stickyfinger said:
i’ve been fermenting out my beer, adding 1 oz/gal dry hop along with about 50-60g of sucrose boiled in water, seal it up and purge and set lid to 20 psi. leave it for 1-2wks and then throw into keezer. seems to produce very hoppy beer
Click to expand...
I'm leaning toward trying this on my current batch. The common thinking is get the ipas on tap fast but with no o2 exposure, time could actually work in your favor.
 
cheesebach said:
While I can't say that I've noticed any negatives from capping/spunding near the very end of fermentation with any non-dryhopped beers, I'm starting to lean towards adding dry hops near the end of fermentation and then capping or spunding to naturally carbonate being a very bad thing for hop character in the finished beer. I've had 2 hoppy beers that I think I essentially ruined with this method already this year. In both beers, the hop aroma/flavor was totally lacking and had a weird harsh, maybe even chemical/soapy, characteristic to it (both beers used the same source RO water from the grocery store that I use for all my beers, before anyone goes shouting "chloramines!" or anything). It's hard to explain - you can smell and taste that there are hops in there, but its a different kind of flavor/aroma than anything I've ever had before. Kind of like if you removed all of the supporting characteristics from the hops (fruity, floral, pine, resin/dank, etc) and were just left with generic hop presence.

Each beer had some different ingredients and other tweaks going on so I wasn't sure where to place the blame (thought it was maybe some bad cryo hops, the Imperial Juice yeast, different base malt), but the one thing both batches had in common was that I added all the dry hops (over 1oz per gallon) as the fermentation was finishing up and then removed the blow-off and let to finish fermenting and naturally carbonate. With the first batch, I decided to blame the cryo hops, since it was my first time using them and they seemed to have a brown appearance and duller aroma in the package compared to the pellet hops I was using in the same batch. When it happened to me again this past weekend, I began to think maybe in my attempts to preserve and maintain the freshest/brightest hop character by sealing in all the goodness at the end of fermentation, my efforts might actually be having the opposite effect due to some weird yeast/hops/off-gasing/pressure interaction.

Doing some searches, I came across a blog post on Scott Janish's site seemingly dealing with the topic I was looking into. While the experiment in the main post doesn't sound like exactly the same scenario (his "experiement" used different yeasts, dry hop schedules for the different batches and fermented one under pressure for the full fermentation), but some of his comments in the discussion below seem to deal with exactly what I had done with my 2 failed beers - regular fermentation for the first 90%, then tossing in dry hops at the end and then allowing to naturally carbonate. To my surprise, it sounds as though he made the same/similar observations with multiple batches whenever attempting this.

Below is the link to the post and some of his comments:

http://scottjanish.com/fermenting-dry-hopping-pressure/

"I’ve tried spunding on the tail end of fermentation a few more times and I’d suggest against it actually. I’ve never been thrilled with my results, I always seem to get a milder flavored beer from it."

"I’ve done a few beers where I cap the fermentation towards the tail end of fermentation with the last dose of dry hops essentially allowing the beer to naturally carbonate. Each time I’ve tried this, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Thinking I would trap in more of the hop aromatics (not being vented with C02 under pressure) and increase aroma, I actually seemed to get the opposite, a more muted hop character with a “green” note. I’m not sure if I’m also trapping in some of the undesirable components of fermentation or what, but experimenting with this method a few times and getting the same result, I’m leaning against the processes. "

I may try doing a real side-by-side experiment in the future to compare to, but seeing as though the beers that the 2 times I've tried this have resulted in drain-pour beers (although hoping I may be able to salvage something out of my latest with some additional dry hopping), I'm not in a huge rush to do this knowing that half the beer is likely going down the drain. I'm not sure "muted" or "milder" quite does it justice - there is something just totally off about the hop character in these. NEIPA beers that I have added dry hops on day 2 and still have another 1-2 days before I cap or spund to pressure haven't had this issue. Neither have ones with all hops at the very end of fermentation but no spunding.

Anyways, sorry for the long post - what experience do y'all have with this? Anyone having good results with this method? Or similar bad results? Or ideas on good ways to dry hop late or after fermentation while limiting O2 exposure?
Click to expand...

I've had good results transferring from my fermenter to a purged serving keg with loose dry hops, with anywhere from 10-15 points remaining (timing mostly driven by my schedule). I let it finish fermenting at low pressure (3-5 PSI) over a day or so, and then let it run up into 20+ PSI to get mostly carbonated.

Latest beer is primarily Mosaic dry hop, and it's got a great berry/citrusy aroma.
 
I haven't dry hopped under pressure yet, so it would be cool if some of you folks who are doing so already and getting results they are happy with could outline their schedule eg. What pressures, for how long, when you are adding your dry hops, whether the whole fermentation is under pressure or just spunding, etc
 
DaveGillespie said:
I haven't dry hopped under pressure yet, so it would be cool if some of you folks who are doing so already and getting results they are happy with could outline their schedule eg. What pressures, for how long, when you are adding your dry hops, whether the whole fermentation is under pressure or just spunding, etc
Click to expand...
I have used 2 different dry hopping schedules both with great results at getting hop flavor and aromas into the beer. However, the hops will fade over time faster with the first method, which may not be a problem if you can consume it all in ~4 weeks. I can attest that the second method has worked tremendously for preserving hop flavors and aromas. The last beer I brewed was a NEIPA in April this year. Long story short I had a few surgeries this summer and didn't drink much of that keg until recently. I just had the last glass this weekend and it amazed me how much aroma and flavor was still there after 5 months of lagering.

Older west coast IPA method: ferment under pressure to terminal gravity starting at 5-10 psi. Place dry hops in second keg and purge with CO2. Counter pressure transfer into dry hopping keg and sit for 3-7 days depending on my laziness. I have served directly from the dry hopping keg or I have transferred to another purged keg to get them off the hops.

Newer NEIPA method: ferment under pressure but only up to 2-3 psi for the first 36-48 hours. Then I bleed off the excess pressure open the top and add the dry hops. Seal it back up and crank the spunding valve up to 10 psi. Let fermentation complete then cold crash before transferring to a water purge keg.
 
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In your first method, was the keg CO2 purged from being filled with air? Did you ever try this with a water purged keg?
 
DaveGillespie said:
I haven't dry hopped under pressure yet, so it would be cool if some of you folks who are doing so already and getting results they are happy with could outline their schedule eg. What pressures, for how long, when you are adding your dry hops, whether the whole fermentation is under pressure or just spunding, etc
Click to expand...

Honestly, to avoid having to open the fermentation keg I've been throwing all my DH hops in right at yeast pitch. The less mucking about I've got to do the better IMHO. Not sure if this is ideal or not but it's been working for me. I've got an NEIPA-like beer in the kegerator that's over two months old and it still has all kinds of aroma.

I usually start spunding at day 5 or so. Sometimes this is too late. Day 4 is better.
 
Any thoughts on dry hopping forWest Coast style beers?

Also, RE: the discussion up thread about Hefes. Currently drinking one with a 45/55/63/71/78 mash schedule (temps in Celsius) then fermented with 3068 and kegged on day 5 with an additional 30g sucrose - spund at 20psi. No off flavours, total clove bomb. I do recognise the unwanted sulfur a Hefe yeast will throw off and have had it hang around in a fermenter for 2 weeks plus, but it's not in this beer.
 
Andre3000 said:
Honestly, to avoid having to open the fermentation keg I've been throwing all my DH hops in right at yeast pitch. The less mucking about I've got to do the better IMHO. Not sure if this is ideal or not but it's been working for me. I've got an NEIPA-like beer in the kegerator that's over two months old and it still has all kinds of aroma.

I usually start spunding at day 5 or so. Sometimes this is too late. Day 4 is better.
Click to expand...

how many oz and how full is the keg? the online concern i would have is clogging something if too full with dry hops in there at high krausen
 
stickyfinger said:
how many oz and how full is the keg? the online concern i would have is clogging something if too full with dry hops in there at high krausen
Click to expand...

I'd have to look back at my notes but 5 oz-ish? This is a 4.5 gal batch in the 5.1 gal keg or whatever it is. I usually get minimal or no blow off from this. The Clear Draught floating dip tube with screen has worked wonders for me. Never had an issue transferring.

My biggest complaint is sometimes it leaves a bit too much beer in the bottom for my liking. But I realized something the other day; this is most likely because the beer is foaming up towards the end of the transfer. And the reason why is I use the serving keg to purge lines, this causes the entire system to be slightly under pressured, allowing the beer to foam up slightly by the time the transfer is almost finished. Next time I'm going try transferring under higher pressure than spund, and see how that affects the foaming of the last bit.
 

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