Turning your Fermonster into a complete closed transfer system for cheap!

[Noob_Brewer]

Interesting! I would have never thought a transfer could take 90 minutes. Nor would I ever wait that long. I’ve done something similar in the past to what I plan to do tomorrow, but using tubing connected to the spigot and pressurizing the FV to ~3psi. This pushed the beer out and into the keg, but got clogged several times from hop debris and trub. I’m hoping to do something similar now but the upgrade being the floating dip tube.

In your setup you have a three way thingy with a pressure valve on your fv gas out. Is this something I’ll need to build if I plan to ferment with the gas out connected to the keg to prevent bombs? Or is this just a spunding setup that is extra and not necessary?

The "cross" type sounding valve isn't necessary for the transfer. I set the keg to 5 psi first and then the FV and just use the spending valve to monitor the pressure and since it has a gas port on it, i just leave it on.

 

[Noob_Brewer]

Interesting! I would have never thought a transfer could take 90 minutes. Nor would I ever wait that long. I’ve done something similar in the past to what I plan to do tomorrow, but using tubing connected to the spigot and pressurizing the FV to ~3psi. This pushed the beer out and into the keg, but got clogged several times from hop debris and trub. I’m hoping to do something similar now but the upgrade being the floating dip tube.

another thought....if you are planning on swapping the lids tomorrow for this transfer, you are essentially/potentially exposing oxygen to the beer in the FV and potentially defeating the purpose of the "closed" transfer. So perhaps transfer this beer through your spigot as you have in the past for this beer and then use the floating dip tube with ball locks for your next beer when you can start fermentation with the new lid...just a thought.

 

[Amadeo38]

another thought....if you are planning on swapping the lids tomorrow for this transfer, you are essentially/potentially exposing oxygen to the beer in the FV and potentially defeating the purpose of the "closed" transfer. So perhaps transfer this beer through your spigot as you have in the past for this beer and then use the floating dip tube with ball locks for your next beer when you can start fermentation with the new lid...just a thought.

Appreciate it. With the spigot clogging several times, I think I end up exposing the beer to o2 anyway. With a fair mix of co2 in the headspace of the fv when it comes time to swap the lid (inside my ferm chamber which is also going to be filled with a good amount of co2), I’m thinking the exposure will be minimal. Getting a little crazy to worry about that degree of oxygen actually affecting anything. I’ve done regular-a$$ auto-siphon transfers of NEIPA to an open-lid keg with some co2 in it, and that beer stayed fresh and straw colored until it was gone.

 

[Noob_Brewer]

Appreciate it. With the spigot clogging several times, I think I end up exposing the beer to o2 anyway. With a fair mix of co2 in the headspace of the fv when it comes time to swap the lid (inside my ferm chamber which is also going to be filled with a good amount of co2), I’m thinking the exposure will be minimal. Getting a little crazy to worry about that degree of oxygen actually affecting anything. I’ve done regular-a$$ auto-siphon transfers of NEIPA to an open-lid keg with some co2 in it, and that beer stayed fresh and straw colored until it was gone.

No problem. FWIW, I am indebted to both @Dgallo @Loud Brewing and a couple others for sharing their processes with this system using the fermonster with modified lid to allow me to start my home brewing adventures using a closed cold-side system. The downside, is now I am an absolute oxygen freak and prob need to relax a little lol.

 

[Dgallo]

@Amadeo38 Im just lost as to why you wouldnt just use that lid during fermentation. If yeast and krausen gets into the dip tube, just connect your gas to that post and blow it out.

Your process isn’t utilizing the lid to the best of its abilities and all your doing is making more hassle for your self and exposing your ipas to oxygen. Just seems like much more trouble than it’s worth the way you’re thinking of doing it

 

[Amadeo38]

Didn’t get the lid until after fermentation started. Will do the whole shebang next time, but this plan is still better than a clogging spigot (my hops/trub are above the spigot level so it wouldn’t be ideal). Just gonna put the co2 tank on the fv gas-in at 3psi as my makeshift closed loop.

 

[BUCKNUTS]

I tried this method with my fermonsters and it didn’t work very well but this little easy set up works like a charm to go from fermonster to keg. It’s not oxygen free but certainly greatly reduces exposure. I attach a liquid post to the tubing and push it into a keg with a couple psi of pressure. Full disclosure I don’t use this for ipa because I have a snub nosed Fermentasaurus and fermzilla all rounder but I use it for any other beer style that I ferment in fermonsters.

 

[Noob_Brewer]

What am I missing here? I’m just not sure if the siphon will start and don’t want to be bummed come tomorrow when I give it a shot

@Amadeo38 how'd your kegging go?

 

[Amadeo38]

Went really well, other than being slower to transfer than I could have imagined. Took about 15 minutes to transfer 4.75gal once the siphon started. My big diameter auto-siphon takes about 4 minutes or less, but I guess that’s unrealistic.

I was able to get the regulator to pump just enough co2 to keep the FV pressurized (about 0.5psi, it seemed). Going higher didn’t increase the transfer speed, so I figured save the $ on co2.

Thanks for all of your help peeps!

 

[Amadeo38]

Alright so I am attempting the full blown system with fermonster lid connected to a keg filled with star san emptying into a bucket. I cannot seem to find a leak anywhere with a star-San spray test on all connections, yet I’m not generating enough pressure to push the starsan from the keg to my bucket. Has anyone else had this problem? I started a siphon at the final endpoint and that drained a gallon or so rather quickly but then stopped. Ferm is going full tilt.

 

[Dgallo]

Alright so I am attempting the full blown system with fermonster lid connected to a keg filled with star san emptying into a bucket. I cannot seem to find a leak anywhere with a star-San spray test on all connections, yet I’m not generating enough pressure to push the starsan from the keg to my bucket. Has anyone else had this problem? I started a siphon at the final endpoint and that drained a gallon or so rather quickly but then stopped. Ferm is going full tilt.

Spots And things to check;
-Are you sure your lids oring was properly in place?
-Make sure all your ball lock fittings are fully pushed down.
-make sure your prv is not stuck open at all.
-make sure the keg is properly closed and your keg posts are fully tightened.
- if you have any adapter to change size of your barb, make sure those gave been screwed on tightly.

since you’re not moving any water that means it’s most likely your at the Fermonster lid. Also cCheck to see if it has cracked on you.

 

[Amadeo38]

Spots And things to check;
-Are you sure your lids oring was properly in place?
-Make sure all your ball lock fittings are fully pushed down.
-make sure your prv is not stuck open at all.
-make sure the keg is properly closed and your keg posts are fully tightened.
- if you have any adapter to change size of your barb, make sure those gave been screwed on tightly.

The since you’re not moving any water that means it’s most likely your at the Fermonster lid. Also cCheck to see if it has cracked on you.

Funny - I just decided to add some keg lube to my keg lid and fermonster o-ring before your reply. In doing so, I discovered that brewhardware.com never included an o-ring inside my solid lid when I ordered it back in March. I just slapped in the o-ring from my other lid with the airlock hole (the one that came with the fermenter). It sure if it’s transferring yet, but will update if not.

Have confirmed all other spots you mentioned, thanks for listing them all as a sanity check.

 

[Dgallo]

Funny - I just decided to add some keg lube to my keg lid and fermonster o-ring before your reply. In doing so, I discovered that brewhardware.com never included an o-ring inside my solid lid when I ordered it back in March. I just slapped in the o-ring from my other lid with the airlock hole (the one that came with the fermenter). It sure if it’s transferring yet, but will update if not.

Have confirmed all other spots you mentioned, thanks for listing them all as a sanity check.

If you have a proper seal you should be moving water within minutes

 

[Amadeo38]

Thanks. I guess this one will be chalked up to a loss since ~2 gallons of starsan appeared to have transferred to the bucket solely because of the siphon I started. Good thing it’s just a Pilsner as my test subject. Ready for a NEIPA next time.

edit: it has fully emptied the keg and is blubbing away now!

 

[Elric]

Alright so I am attempting the full blown system with fermonster lid connected to a keg filled with star san emptying into a bucket. I cannot seem to find a leak anywhere with a star-San spray test on all connections, yet I’m not generating enough pressure to push the starsan from the keg to my bucket. Has anyone else had this problem? I started a siphon at the final endpoint and that drained a gallon or so rather quickly but then stopped. Ferm is going full tilt.

i suspect your starsan spray test can't get the gasket on the lid, and I have seen it can be kind of finicky on being tight enough for withstanding pressure. Two things to try 1) if you try to put a good amount of pressure in it with your ear up close can you locate a hiss to indicate where the leak is? 2) try putting some keg lube on the oring to help get a tighter seal for the lid

 

[Amadeo38]

i suspect your starsan spray test can't get the gasket on the lid, and I have seen it can be kind of finicky on being tight enough for withstanding pressure. Two things to try 1) if you try to put a good amount of pressure in it with your ear up close can you locate a hiss to indicate where the leak is? 2) try putting some keg lube on the oring to help get a tighter seal for the lid

Forgot to mention in my edit above that it was definitely the missing o-ring on the Fermonster lid at fault. All is well - thanks!

 

[wsmith1625]

I fill a keg to the brim with starsan solution and have 7 gallon bucket. I connect the co2 post of the fv to the co2 post of the keg and then connect the kegs liquid post to a 3ft hose at the bottom of the bucket.

the co2 from fermentation will push all the Solution from the keg to the bucket which completely purges the keg of oxygen and then the bucket becomes an airlock.

Hey, one last question before I hit the buy button. How much loss do you have using the floating dip tube? It seems the ball needs to be floating on some beer to keep the tube off the trub. I watched some videos on the Fermentasaurus pressure kit and it works great in a conical, but not sure in the Fermonster.

BrewHardware also has a Fermonster pressure transfer kit which uses a racking cane instead of a floating dip tube. I'm on the fence.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ptrfermonsterecon.htm
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Amadeo38]

Hey, one last question before I hit the buy button. How much loss do you have using the floating dip tube? It seems the ball needs to be floating on some beer to keep the tube off the trub. I watched some videos on the Fermentasaurus pressure kit and it works great in a conical, but not sure in the Fermonster.

BrewHardware also has a Fermonster pressure transfer kit which uses a racking cane instead of a floating dip tube. I'm on the fence.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ptrfermonsterecon.htm
Thanks for sharing!

No loss. The draw tube continues to go down and WILL collect trub at the end if you don't stop the flow when you get there. I love the floating dip tube and recommend it, but don't have experience with the racking cane option.

 

[Dgallo]

Hey, one last question before I hit the buy button. How much loss do you have using the floating dip tube? It seems the ball needs to be floating on some beer to keep the tube off the trub. I watched some videos on the Fermentasaurus pressure kit and it works great in a conical, but not sure in the Fermonster.

BrewHardware also has a Fermonster pressure transfer kit which uses a racking cane instead of a floating dip tube. I'm on the fence.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ptrfermonsterecon.htm
Thanks for sharing!

I do get loss but I plan for it. I specifically built this originally for brewing NEIPAS. With a heavy dryhop I need to get 6-6.25 gallons in the fermenter to yield a full 5 gallon keg ensuring no trub makes it in to the serving keg. I could probably get away with 5.75-6 gallons but i don’t want to risk it. That being said, recently brewed two lagers using it abs 5.5 into the FV was perfect 5 gallons in the keg.

The racking cane lid will work fine but it does more chances for o2 pick up then a fixed keg post. I personally would used the CBDS over the cane, but I also brew a lot of Increased o2 sensitive styles

 

[Amadeo38]

I do get loss but I plan for it. I specifically built this originally for brewing NEIPAS. With a heavy dryhop I need to get 6-6.25 gallons in the fermenter to yield a full 5 gallon keg ensuring no trub makes it in to the serving keg. I could probably get away with 5.75-6 gallons but i don’t want to risk it. I recently breweries two lagers using it abs 5.5 into the FV was perfect 5 gallons in the keg

That’s loss expected no matter what method you use for racking. There’s no additional loss due to the use of the floating dip tube, IME.

 

[Dgallo]

That’s loss expected no matter what method you use for racking. There’s no additional loss due to the use of the floating dip tube, IME.

Agree 100% but I was just being specific to leave out any and all assumptions

 

[wsmith1625]

Agree 100% but I was just being specific to leave out any and all assumptions

Okay, ordering today. Thanks!

 

[Noob_Brewer]

It seems the ball needs to be floating on some beer to keep the tube off the trub.

I agree with the other replies in simply accounting for losses due to trub/yeast/dry hops. But if you do it right, the floating dip tube will actually suck every bit of beer out of the fermenter. Its also extremely helpful to get a good hard cold crash with lots of dry hops so that they settle and pancake down at the bottom prior to kegging. I thought I had some better pics of this but int he pics you can see that even when the ball is actually sitting on the DH/trub/yeast, the dip tube is actually laying horizontally and still siphoning beer out the dip tube. I did not cut my dip tube length at all. If you've cold crashed well, very little hops get into the keg. Final picture shows a kicked keg that was dry hopped with 8oz total in the fermenter. The procedure works very well once you get the hang of it.

 

[Amadeo38]

One thing to mention is that some trub and yeast will get into the floating dip tube during fermentation. I simply connected low pressure co2 to that post prior to cold crashing so that junk got blown out and didn’t get slurped into the keg.

 

[Knightshade]

I have 2 questions regarding this.

• How are heavy krausen loads addressed w/this solution?
  • Fermcap?
  • Regular blow off tube setup, then replace lid w/this setup?

• What if you don't have the space to hook up a keg to purge Star San etc., etc.? Assuming this setup has a secondary goal of ensuring that the Femonster doesn't explode, correct?
  • Would this be when you might hook up a tube to the gas ball lock and push that tube into Star San like a regular blow off?
  • Or....would it be better to setup a spunding valve...and then connect the releasing side to an airlock?
    • Does this not need an airlock?

 

[Snark_Wolf_Brewing]

I've been looking at the whole concept of pressure fermentation and closed transfers, and it's definitely piqued my interest. Would this set up be safe to use for actual pressure fermentation?

 

[Dgallo]

I've been looking at the whole concept of pressure fermentation and closed transfers, and it's definitely piqued my interest. Would this set up be safe to use for actual pressure fermentation?

Depends on the psi. You can def use a spunding valve and do it. I wouldn’t go over 10 psi though personally

 

[Amadeo38]

I have 2 questions regarding this.

• How are heavy krausen loads addressed w/this solution?
  • Fermcap?
  • Regular blow off tube setup, then replace lid w/this setup?

• What if you don't have the space to hook up a keg to purge Star San etc., etc.? Assuming this setup has a secondary goal of ensuring that the Femonster doesn't explode, correct?
  • Would this be when you might hook up a tube to the gas ball lock and push that tube into Star San like a regular blow off?
  • Or....would it be better to setup a spunding valve...and then connect the releasing side to an airlock?
    • Does this not need an airlock?

I’ll address a couple of these...if you blow out the floating tube with co2 before racking, no worries about heavy Krausen loads.

I actually had a gas QD with a regular airlock connected to it with some tubing for the first 24h of fermentation so that when I swap to the line connecting to the starsan filled keg, it’s almost pure co2 rather than part o2.

You do need an airlock of some type if you want to stay sanitized like any other fermentation, at least once it starts to slow down. Connecting a tube to a cup of starsan would be fine if you don’t want to do what I described above with a QD>1” piece of silicon tubing>airlock setup.

As for the other poster, I wouldnt push the fermonster much past 3-5psi. Pressure fermentation is typically done around 15psi, I think.

 

[Knightshade]

I’ll address a couple of these...if you blow out the floating tube with co2 before racking, no worries about heavy Krausen loads.

I actually had a gas QD with a regular airlock connected to it with some tubing for the first 24h of fermentation so that when I swap to the line connecting to the starsan filled keg, it’s almost pure co2 rather than part o2.

You do need an airlock of some type if you want to stay sanitized like any other fermentation, at least once it starts to slow down. Connecting a tube to a cup of starsan would be fine if you don’t want to do what I described above with a QD>1” piece of silicon tubing>airlock setup.

As for the other poster, I wouldnt push the fermonster much past 3-5psi. Pressure fermentation is typically done around 15psi, I think.

Any chance you could post a picture of this? I was kinda..hoping that I might be able to figure out how to use this a Blowtie Spunding valve, connect an elbow duotight connector, and pop the airlock right into the elbow...but...I don't think that is going to fit as the largest their lines get is 3/8"

 

[k-os]

Any chance you could post a picture of this? I was kinda..hoping that I might be able to figure out how to use this a Blowtie Spunding valve, connect an elbow duotight connector, and pop the airlock right into the elbow...but...I don't think that is going to fit as the largest their lines get is 3/8"

Why not just run your line from the spunding valve into a cup of sanitizer? That's what I do with my Spike Flex+ fermenters.