Use fermenter as keg: possible?

[Anti-Hoppist]

I'm thinking about a DIY kegerator, and am thinking: could I, after primary, put Sugar in the fermenter for carbonation and once carbonated put the fermenter, with yeast and all, in the kegerator? One could surely find a way to use the airlock hole to fit a tap line that doesn't use CO2, or put the fermenter a bit high and serve directly from the spigot.
Sounds nice, but is it also reasonable?

 

[Brushwood Brewing]

First: What do you use as your fermenter? It obviously needs to be rated for holding pressure.

Another consideration would be that, as you drink the beer and the liquid level lowers in your fermenter, your CO2 pressure decreases. Over time that will lead to undercarbonated beer if you don't have a way of replacing the headspace with more CO2.

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

I'd carbonate with sugar, maybe 50% of the quantity I'd use in bottles, a fermenter of stainless steel should be able to take that.
It would be like a sort of gravity dispensed cask ale, but with temperature control.

 

[wsmith1625]

A lot of people ferment in kegs. Some transfer the clear beer to a second serving keg, but many serve from the same keg. You would need to modify the keg by cutting down the liquid dip tube or you could swap it with a floating dip tube. Also would need a spunding valve on the gas side.

I don't do it myself so that's about as much as I know about this, but there are lots of threads which address it in more detail.

 

[Cider Wraith]

I'd carbonate with sugar, maybe 50% of the quantity I'd use in bottles, a fermenter of stainless steel should be able to take that.
It would be like a sort of gravity dispensed cask ale, but with temperature control.

I believe I can picture what you're describing and in my simple way of reasoning I can't see why it wouldn't work. But you're going to have to be happy with lower carb levels. I do like @wsmith1625 's suggestion above.

My thought would be if you want to get simple, clean and easy CO2 investigate getting a pressure valve which would allow avoiding the hassle of adding extra ingredients. I can tell you what I do ... I almost never use my tanks anymore. I ferment 2.25 gal batches in 5 gal cornys purging through server cornys and pressure ferment to about 16 ~ 18, then transfer under-pressure and refrigerate server. The overly generous headspace allows the server to basically serve itself. Carbonation does down and I maybe give it a tank bump close to the end but it works for my simple purposes. Good luck!

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

Yes, I actually was willing to accept low carbonation (hence my reference to cask ales). But I will also look into keg fermentation.
Meanwhile I contacted the fermenter's builder to ask him about pressure of CO2, but really I can't think that a stainless steel vessel can't manage that low pressure (as I said I'd target something like 1,5 level of CO2, not 5 or 6).

 

[Cider Wraith]

I'd imagine there are countless ways to achieve your intended goal. What I like about pressure valves is they give desired target carbonation without guesswork or having to open fermenter and add new ingredients, although I did explore that idea

 

[mac_1103]

So first you're going to intentionally under-carbonate your beer and then you're going to let it lose carbonation as you drink it? I have a feeling you won't be happy with the results.

If you're building a kegerator anyway, why not just go ahead and keg your beer? You can prime in the kegs if you don't want to force carbonate. And you won't have to drink flat beer.

 

[Cider Wraith]

I thought he said he enjoyed lower carb ale ... I recall having "pulled" bitters in UK that were almost flat and delicious and it worked for the style

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

So first you're going to intentionally under-carbonate your beer and then you're going to let it lose carbonation as you drink it? I have a feeling you won't be happy with the results.

If you're building a kegerator anyway, why not just go ahead and keg your beer? You can prime in the kegs if you don't want to force carbonate. And you won't have to drink flat beer.

I still have math to do but I may prime a little higher to then reach my desired carbonation over time with lost carbonation (over not MUCH time I Hope). But this aspect in particular is something I can't know before trying because I don't know how much carbonation Is lost over how much time/servings.
Anyway consider that I drink beer in a ceramic mug for two reasons, and one Is that CO2 is dispersed faster than in glass...

If this doesn't really work I'll keg and serve on tap, but if this works the amount of handling and hassle involved would be incredibly low: just open fridge, put fermenter, close fridge. Want to drink? Open fridge, open spigot (provided you have a drinking vessel under the spigot), close spigot, close fridge.

 

[Cider Wraith]

Sounds to me like it's gonna' work. Trial and error. Good luck -

Edit - might still want to have a tank and regulator on hand just in case, and they are useful for countless other fermenting chores

 

[mac_1103]

If this doesn't really work I'll keg and serve on tap, but if this works the amount of handling and hassle involved would be incredibly low: just open fridge, put fermenter, close fridge. Want to drink? Open fridge, open spigot (provided you have a drinking vessel under the spigot), close spigot, close fridge.

If the goal is to reduce handling can't you just ferment, condition and serve in a keg? Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm just not understanding why you'd do a DIY kegerator build and then try to avoid using a keg.

 

[Kickass]

Something to consider: if you bulk prime with sugar then don’t connect an additional CO2 source as you serve something has to replace the departing liquid. CO2 will leave the liquid and occupy that space. Thus, leaving you with less and less pressure and carbonation of your beer.

 

[shoengine]

I'm thinking about a DIY kegerator, and am thinking: could I, after primary, put Sugar in the fermenter for carbonation and once carbonated put the fermenter, with yeast and all, in the kegerator? One could surely find a way to use the airlock hole to fit a tap line that doesn't use CO2, or put the fermenter a bit high and serve directly from the spigot.
Sounds nice, but is it also reasonable?

Why would you need to add sugar if you don't like carbonation in the first place? The beer would already be saturated with CO_2 based on the highest temperature it hit during fermentation and holding. Do you need more carbonation than that?

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

Why would you need to add sugar if you don't like carbonation in the first place? The beer would already be saturated with CO_2 based on the highest temperature it hit during fermentation and holding. Do you need more carbonation than that?

As I said, the question of carbonation needs to be tested and tasted and then managed with practical experience.
Generally the level of CO2 would be 0,9 which would drop too much, so if I bring It to about 1,7 It should stay above or equal to 1 to the end.

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

If the goal is to reduce handling can't you just ferment, condition and serve in a keg? Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm just not understanding why you'd do a DIY kegerator build and then try to avoid using a keg.

That's something I'll surely consider, but this would be even less work because I won't even have to build a kegerator, just buy a fridge.

 

[mac_1103]

this would be even less work because I won't even have to build a kegerator, just buy a fridge

Well OK, that's different. I was just confused by the way you introduced the question in the first place. At some point you're probably going to want some fully carbonated beers, so you might want to look into a vessel that can handle more pressure and a flow control picnic tap.

 

[max9]

Corny kegs , with a spunding valve, work great for fermenting. You don’t have to mess with priming sugar because the beer will already be carbonated to whatever level you want and yes you can serve right from the keg you fermented in. Just be reasonably careful about keeping the trub out best you can when transferring from the boil kettle. Don’t agitate the keg much while in the serving phase or you’ll have cloudy beer for a few pours. If you really don’t want to mess with a CO2 bottle and regulator… and I’ve never tried this … but you could conceivably rig up a jumper to capture the CO2 in a second keg for extra gas to push your beer out.

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

Yes, I actually was willing to accept low carbonation (hence my reference to cask ales). But I will also look into keg fermentation.
Meanwhile I contacted the fermenter's builder to ask him about pressure of CO2, but really I can't think that a stainless steel vessel can't manage that low pressure (as I said I'd target something like 1,5 level of CO2, not 5 or 6).

They said the fermenter can hold only the "minimum fermentation pressure of about 0.3 bar".
Meh.

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

Actually 0,3 bar might be just fine if math is true.

 

[mac_1103]

Applying 0.3 bar of CO2 will carbonate to 2.1 volumes at equilibrium at 4C. But you still have to replace the gas in the headspace as you serve.

 

[Cider Wraith]

you could conceivably rig up a jumper to capture the CO2 in a second keg for extra gas to push your beer out

Yep. I've had lots of success using residual CO2. There are lots of creative possibilities, moving cleaning solution through dip tubes and sealing newly begun batch lids are a couple. Often when servers are empty I keep them refrigerated and jumper them to half empty kegs to keep the liquid moving. Never done it but like @max9 wrote thought about using fermentation CO2 to purge a server keg and then connect that output to actually serve a full keg. My tanks get little use lately.

 

[moreb33rplz]

Homebrewing is fun be ause you can do whatever you want. That said this seems like a lot of effort to produce inferior beer

 

[mac_1103]

Homebrewing is fun be ause you can do whatever you want. That said this seems like a lot of effort to produce inferior beer

I don't know if it will necessarily produce inferior beer. But it is a lot of effort to avoid just transferring the beer to a keg. Capturing fermentation gas in a keg and using it to provide serving pressure is a fine idea. But once I've got a couple of clean purged kegs, what exactly do I gain by keeping the beer in the FV instead of transferring it to one of my kegs?

 

[moreb33rplz]

I don't know if it will necessarily produce inferior beer. But it is a lot of effort to avoid just transferring the beer to a keg. Capturing fermentation gas in a keg and using it to provide serving pressure is a fine idea. But once I've got a couple of clean purged kegs, what exactly do I gain by keeping the beer in the FV instead of transferring it to one of my kegs?

True, maybe I don't really understand what OP is going for, but I'm not a fan of under carbed beer, traditional cask ale aside

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

I don't understand where's all this effort you see, It's the most lazy way of packaging and serving one could think of

 

[mac_1103]

I don't understand where's all this effort you see, It's the most lazy way of packaging and serving one could think of

Several of the responses tack on plenty of additional effort to your original idea. The one bit of additional effort that I don't think is avoidable is some way to replace the volume of the liquid as it is dispensed. Otherwise it will just stop flowing. I guess the simplest thing is to just vent the FV and let air in as you pour, but if that's the plan you'd better drink it fast or you will have beer that is flat and oxidized pretty quickly.

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

If I choose to keg, is there a way to serve the beer without using CO2? I haven't seen any handpump available for homebrewing, and I haven't found info about the chance of adding a spigot.
I'm pretty much stubborn about not using force-injected CO2.

 

[shoengine]

Have the keg higher than the serving area, flip it on its side and rotate the diptube. Sort of like a stainless cask.

If it stops flowing, push in the gas-in poppet to let in air. And like @mac_1103 noted, drink it fast.

 

[mac_1103]

If I choose to keg, is there a way to serve the beer without using CO2?

See max9 #18 and Cider Wraith #22. Also, google "beer engine."

 

[wsmith1625]

For all the effort, why not just bottle?

 

[Anti-Hoppist]

For all the effort, why not just bottle?

Again, this takes Just the same effort of opening and closing a drawer

 

[mac_1103]

What does your FV have in the way of ports? Maybe post a picture of it?

 

[Broken Crow]

I'm pretty much stubborn about not using force-injected CO2.

Why?

 

[Cider Wraith]

For anyone that gets their water from a well on their property you're aware that you have a bladder diaphragm based pressure tank. Ever see plants being watered at a building supply store with a pressure tank on a rolling cart? Don't they sell food grade bladders that can go inside kegs and force the liquid out under constriction?

 

[Cider Wraith]

I guess if the OP switches to keg fermenters then he has a useless dedicated FV?

 

[mac_1103]

I guess if the OP switches to keg fermenters then he has a useless dedicated FV?

No, he has a useless fermenter if he dedicates it to serving his beer until it's empty. If he kegs he gets to brew again and never run out of beer!

 

[day_trippr]

Don't they sell food grade bladders that can go inside kegs and force the liquid out under constriction?

I have never read of a bladder that would fit a conventional cornelius style keg. Fitting one to the keg dip tubes would likely be an interesting challenge - but not insurmountable I believe.

There have been some purpose-built "kegs" using replaceable bladders over the years. One was marketed under the Heineken brand for a time. And Kegland had their design. Don't know if any of that style keg are still manufactured.

Cheers!

 

[Cider Wraith]

Many people enjoy a hint of residual sweetness in cider ... and so ... after having pressure fermented to about 16 PSI, when fermentation in FV has about 1/5 left to go, transfer to server, refrigerate and serve. You'll get ample alcohol, you'll get fruit flavor and residual sweetness because all sugars aren't consumed, refrigeration will slow down fermentation but not stop it, so it will continue to slowly carbonate and serve itself. Guess would be this work for ciders but wouldn't be appropriate for beer, though.

 

[mac_1103]

Are you sure that only works for cider? Because it sounds a lot like spunding.