Transferring from fermenter to keg with a pump?

[donovanlambright]

Not sure if this is the place to post this but... As I get older (turn 53 next month), I am trying to refine my workflow to involve as little lifting as possible. I don't have a problem lifting full carboys now but who knows what the future will bring? I have a keezer built around a chest freezer so kegging involves lifting full kegs up and over the edge of the keezer. Or lifting the fermenter up to sit above the keezer for racking using gravity. I'd like to find a way to rack from the fermenter to the keg without using gravity. I'm thinking that using CO2 to push the beer is probably the way to go but I'm also thinking about using a pump. Have any of you tried that or know of any concerns? One thing that springs to mind immediately is oxidation.

 

[gnef]

I bought the small cheaper diaphragm pump from northern brewer to transfer from my jack daniel's barrel for my single vessel flander's red solera into kegs, but I haven't used it yet. In my starsan test though, it looked like if there was any air in the line, it would very quickly oxidize beer. I plan on purging it with starsan first to remove any air in the tubing.

What I did when I was still using chest freezers for everything, is I built a winch on a frame with casters. The frame would go around a standard 15 CF chest freezer, was narrow enough to fit through doorways, and the winch was rated for 1000 pounds. I would wrap the cable around the fermenter, or hook it through the keg handles, lift it, move it, set things on top of the chest freezer, etc. This allowed me to much more easily move things in and out of the chest freezers and be able to still transfer and rack with gravity.

 

[Granpapyscrapy]

I starting tranferring cooled wort into my keezer/fermentor with co2 same as I would transfer from carboy to keg. I started doing this about a year ago, keezer with collar is deep. I have however run into bad batches of beer since starting this method. I cannot quite put my finger on to where I’ve messed up. I just moved and am getting used to new suppliers and water maybe. Been getting polyphenols and tannins despite proper ph but I may be misdiagnosing oxidation. This should flush oxygen and I literally add compressed oxygen a minute later for yeast growth.



Anyways I say this is a decent method but of course make sure transfer tubing is air tight.