Primary in Corny Kegs-Effects on Yeast

[cuse88]

I may be coming into quite a few corny kegs and was thinking of switching over to fermenting exclusively in cornys due to the fact they're stainless and save some space in fermentation fridge.

I have read the cylinder shape can have an effect on the yeast and beer. What's everyone thought or experience with this?

Cheers!

 

[mredge73]

I pressure ferment in corny kegs exclusively for 5 gallon batches. Yeast have no problems fermenting to completion, even at 15psi.
You will want to use FermCap to keep the foam down to limit the amount of blow off due to the small head space.
If you pressure ferment you will want to use a secondary vessel (another keg) to catch any spill over so it doesn't get in your spunding valve. You shouldn't loose much when you ferment under pressure; in fact I usually use the secondary vessel as my serving keg. I just flip the hose around to the opposite terminals and pressure transfer primary to secondary and serve from secondary.
If you don't pressure ferment you will want more head space, brew smaller batches or split between 2 kegs. Otherwise you will loose quite a bit of beer to your blow off collector.

 

[etk29321]

I've been fermenting 1/2 of a 10gal batch in a corny and the other half in my 7gal conical for about 2 years now -- ever since I moved up to 10gal batch size. I can't say i've noticed any significant flavor differences.

Looking at the two, since the keg is tall and narrow, the yeast cake contact surface area is about the same for both vessels. One of the key features of a conical that'd read was decreasing that contact surface area.