Spunding for Dummies

[RePete]

This is all interesting. It is making me reevaluate my plans to buy a Kegmenter. They say that you can ferment under pressure in the Kegmenter, and then just serve from there without transferring to another keg...using a tube attached to a floating ball. Has anyone tried it here? I do question whether leaving the beer sit on the yeast is a good idea. Might work if you drink it right away.

As some of you, I had the idea that carbonation was in the primary fermentation vessel. If it is done after transferring to the serving keg, this means it may be more practical to go in another direction. Pressurized transfer was one of the draws too. But if transferring with gravity works as well? Currently I am carbonating in glass carboys. The auto siphon works, but I think I want to get something with a valve. Then can finish fermentation to carbonate in a corny keg.

 

[ChiknNutz]

I am using it strictly as a fermenter for now. The floating dip tube also helps to not move as much trub over to the keg, which is another benefit of the setup. I suppose it is on the expensive side as far as fermenters go. I chose this as it is SS so should last a lifetime and can use with pressure w/o worry whether for transferring or fermenting under pressure, etc.

 

[RePete]

It looks like a quality piece of equipment. And flexible as far as capability. Glad you like it. I’m just thinking for myself, and go back and forth on it. For the meantime I’m still using my carboys.

 

[ChiknNutz]

As far as expense, I just looked at the Fermzilla which seems popular and has the benefit of holding pressure as well. The price of that with the pressure kit is pretty comparable to the Kegmenter. You can harvest trub and/or yeast with the Fermzilla if that matters to you. For me, I so far like the Kegmenter being is it SS and will not be prone to scratching.

 

[RePete]

So, I ended up buying a 30L plastic Speidel fermenter. First, it was $100 less than a Kegmenter would have been. I like that it has carrying handles, a big opening for cleaning, and a valve at the bottom for taking samples and doing transfers. I'll just need to be careful cleaning it. I also bought a spunding valve for the keg.

I brewed an ale on Sunday, and was all set to try my first closed transfer this morning, then let the beer finish and carbonate the keg. But I sampled first, and it was down to 1.012 already. Probably finished, right? Or at least close to it. That was fast. 36 hours? I had pitched 2 packets of 04 dry yeast.

At this point, I decided to go ahead and dry hop in the fermenter. The recipe calls for it, but I was going to skip it in order to get the beer in the keg and try spunding.

I wasn't sure how to incorporate dry hopping with spunding. At least in the fermenter. It seems like if you are going to transfer the beer after initial fermentation, and hope to do spunding, you about have to dry hop in the keg.

I may just prime the keg with sugar, and use the spunding valve then.

 

[ChiknNutz]

I see your point about dry hopping and spunding. I have yet to do a dry hop batch, but I don't think you'd want to leave the hops in the keg indefinitely or you'll likely get too much hop flavor over time. Perhaps they are processes that cannot effectively coexist.

 

[RePete]

I see your point about dry hopping and spunding. I have yet to do a dry hop batch, but I don't think you'd want to leave the hops in the keg indefinitely or you'll likely get too much hop flavor over time. Perhaps they are processes that cannot effectively coexist.

I did a search, and people do dry hop in the keg. But you would probably want to drink it fairly soon. On this batch I planned to avoid it, and added extra hops at flame out. But then plans went awry. The sample tasted good, but I thought it could use more.

This might be an advantage of your Kegmenter. Dry hop under pressure in the fermenter, and then transfer.

 

[ChiknNutz]

...This might be an advantage of your Kegmenter. Dry hop under pressure in the fermenter, and then transfer.

Any idea if this complicates the transfer in any way? I thought I saw somewhere that transferring carbonated beer was somewhat problematic for some reason. Could be I mis-read that, not sure. If not, this would be my preferred method.

 

[RePete]

Any idea if this complicates the transfer in any way? I thought I saw somewhere that transferring carbonated beer was somewhat problematic for some reason. Could be I mis-read that, not sure. If not, this would be my preferred method.

I don’t know about transferring carbonated beer. Haven’t tried it.

 

[McKnuckle]

@ChiknNutz
Reviving this thread for a question on the SPUNDit, one of which I also have: How long does it take to build up even the least bit of pressure to register on the gauge? I'm having some challenges. Hopefully this isn't too long:

I pitched US-05 slurry at 69ºF in a keg of 1.045 ale. I daisy chained a second serving keg from the fermenter's gas port to the serving keg's liquid port. I attached a blow-off tube from the serving keg's gas port to a jar of Star-San. It was bubbling within 6 hours.

I took my SPUNDit and brought it out to my keezer, where I have beer on tap at 11 psi. I attached it to one of those kegs, and adjusted the dial until it held pressure. The gauge read 10 psi. I then removed the blow-off tube on my serving keg and attached the SPUNDit in its place. I figured that overnight, it would register some pressure.

Nope, no pressure registering on the gauge in the morning at all; it was pegged at zero (8 hours elapsed). So I put the blow-off tube back to check fermentation. Yes, plenty of bubbling. Then I put the SPUNDit back on and turned the dial all the way counter-clockwise to zero it out. Still no action in the small airlock. Then I put the airlock on the SPUNDit's accessory port, which is before the gauge and the pressure valve, therefore simply inline with the keg's gas port. Yes, it bubbles in that case.

So in short: The airlock bubbles when attached to a fully pressurized keg. It bubbles when attached to my fermentation setup, if it's on the accessory port. It does not bubble when attached to the normal output in that same scenario, even when dialed fully CCW.

I've been totally gentle with the device and have used it just a couple of times. I didn't physically damage it. Am I just being very impatient, and it takes a while to register even 1-2 psi of pressure on the gauge?

 

[RePete]

My first though reading this is just that if you have the Spundit attached to a secondary keg, it may take some time to build up pressure. You have what, 5 gallons of space to fill?

 

[Vale71]

Your keg is leaking without any internal pressure applied on the lid. It's unfortunately way too common with corny kegs and one of the major challenges they present when used as primary fermenters.

 

[McKnuckle]

The fermenter is a 3 gallon keg, and the serving is 2.5. There's no leak in either keg's lid. A simple blowoff tube works fine, as does the SPUNDit's airlock jar hooked to its accessory port, both in daisy chain configuration.

I'm just baffled by how long it's taking to register even 1 psi, and wondered about the norm (nobody seems to discuss the time required).

 

[Vale71]

The fermenter is a 3 gallon keg, and the serving is 2.5. There's no leak in either keg's lid. A simple blowoff tube works fine, as does the SPUNDit's airlock jar hooked to its accessory port, both in daisy chain configuration.

I'm just baffled by how long it's taking to register even 1 psi, and wondered about the norm (nobody seems to discuss the time required).

Yes there is, you're just not detecting it with the few millibar of pressure that a blowoff allows to build up. Go above that and you need a lot more pressure to push the lid in place to obtain a good seal, but you won't get that for several hours through fermentation alone and so CO2 keeps on escaping and the system is locked in a vicious circle that it's unable to exit.
If you have vigorous fermentation you should have registered plenty of pressure increase overnight, possibly even all the way to the set pressure.
To confirm you can apply 10 PSI of pressure with bottled CO2 and then attach the SPUNDit turned all the way up. If the kegs achieved a good seal you should see the pressure rising noticeably within the hour.
For reference, in a Unitank with plenty of head space when I spund in the evening I'll have reached at least 15 PSI come the following morning. Cold fermented lagers can take twice as much though as they tend to slow down a lot more than ales near the end.

 

[McKnuckle]

Yes there is, you're just not detecting it with the few millibar of pressure that a blowoff allows to build up.

Okay thank you, let's indulge this possibility... I filled the headspace of the fermenter keg with CO2 from my keezer setup, then I attached the spunding valve (turned up somewhere > 10 psi). The gauge is now registering 9 psi. I'm going to leave it this way and see if it climbs. So based on your example, which I appreciate, the pressure builds quickly - that's really the tidbit I was after.

 

[McKnuckle]

Alright, one hour later; I re-seated the fermenter keg's lid with some lube and the system is holding pressure. I was able to watch pressure climb by ~1 psi even over 20-30 minutes. Got it all going at 6.5 psi now. Thanks @Vale71 for your persistence in arguing for a small leak. Must have been so!

 

[ChiknNutz]

To add my $0.02, I have been fortunate I guess in that I had no issues using it so far. Normally I put the SPUNDIT on right after getting into the fermenter. I don't check to the next morning and have thus far always noted a pressure increase coupled with vigorous bubbling in the airlock. I have only 2 corny kegs, both new, and do not "pre-seat" them with pressure. I only add some keg lube to the seal and that has been adequate to ensure a good seal. I presume this changes over time given the comments from folks hitting them with pressure to ensure they are sealed.

 

[McKnuckle]

My kegs are not new, but I'm the original owner, and they are all lightly used. I take a long time to empty a keg, so I always re-apply lube with each new batch. On the fermenter keg, though, I was lazy this time, but lesson learned.

 

[RePete]

Glad you found out the problem. It does make sense. On some of my kegs, I have to give it a burst of CO2 to seal the lid. One thing I have found is that the seals which came with the kegs were harder. Whether from age or manufacturing, I don't really know, but I think they were just a lower grade of rubber. I found some new seals at the LHBS which work better.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Just posting so that this thread is easy to find.

David Heath Homebrew had a pretty good video on Spundit vs Blowtie: (11) Spundit V2 vs Blowtie Full Comparison for Homebrewers - YouTube

 

[kmarkstevens]

Remember, the PSI for room temperature is much higher than your serving temperature. You have to have a higher than normal PSI, and then when it cools CO2 leaves the wort. Certainly more experienced folks than I can point to a good rule of thumb.

Good to see you're on the path. And once you get the spunding/keg carbonation figured out, that canister of CO2 lasts a LONG time.

Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

 

[VikeMan]

Remember, the PSI for room temperature is much higher than your serving temperature. You have to have a higher than normal PSI, and then when it cools CO2 leaves the wort.

As the carbonated beer cools, some of the headspace CO2 dissolves into the beer, not the other way around.

Certainly more experienced folks than I can point to a good rule of thumb.

If you mean a rule of thumb for spunding pressure needed at a given temp to produce a desired level of CO2, you can do a lot better than a rule of thumb. As mentioned in the other thread, there are tables and calculators fort this. I'll link one here, so you won't have to recommend rules of thumb or guesswork anymore.

 

[Thelonius]

Spunders, how are you taking numerous hydrometer samples without exposing the beer to oxygen?

If there is any pressure at all in the fermentation vessel - in my case my vessels have ball lock ports so I simply hook up a liquid ball lock connector with a short tube attached to the barb and express a little beer into a hydrometer flask or a glass. If there isn’t pressure, I give the vessel a shot of CO2 to give it enough pressure to force a sample out the liquid out as above.