Using an SS Brewtech Brite Tank - Under Carbonation Issues

[_dirty_]

I have one of the 10 Gal SS Brewtech Brite Tanks and love the potential it has but I'm failing to fully utilize it. Full disclosure, I bought it to help me with my carbing problems. It affects 1 out of 7 brewers, I have been told (;p) but for the life of me I cannot carb my beer correctly. I'm not sure what the issue is but I'll explain my method in hopes that someone out there can help.

I complete the primary stage of fermenting, allow the beer to sit and once its at the point to transfer complete that with a closed system transfer to the brite tank. I only brew 5 gal batches so at the end I have about 6 gals of beer going into the 10 gal brite tank. The carb stone is set at the ~3.5-4gal marking so the beer at least covers the carb stone. I follow the burst carb method by burst carbing at 25-30psi for at least 24hrs then lower the head pressure to where I want the beer to be via co2 volumes and adjust the CO2 tank accordingly. I then allow it to sit for an additional week. When I go to sample, of course due to the pressure all I get is mostly foam, I get that. However when I go to bottle using 10ft of 3/16ID beer tubing with a beer gun, I fill beers with a head pressure in the tank of 4psi. Pour a glass and pours perfectly. Bottle beers and let them sit over night, next day I pop one to find that the beer seems flat, very little carbonation in the beer, little to no "psst" when opening the bottle. I'm not sure where I go wrong. I know the bottles are sealed because I tip them upside down to make sure there isn't a leak and I received a proper seal.

Is my under carbonating issue due to not allowing the beer to carb enough, even though I follow the burst carb and then the temp/psi method for at least a week after burst carbing? or is it due to not having enough beer in the tank to completely fill it even though the SS guys say "as long as the stone is covered you should be good"? or something else?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[MrPowers]

What temperature are you carbonating at? Are you bottling straight from the bright tank or kegging then bottling?

 

[_dirty_]

Carbing at 45F, however I'm adding 15psi to get the 2.2vol. I'm bottling straight from the brite tank.

 

[MrPowers]

I have never used the brite tank myself so take this advice with a grain of salt.

When I force carb in a keg, if it’s at 45F, I will generally pressurize at 40psi for 24 hours, then drop the pressure to serving (desired volumes) and let sit for a week or so. It takes longer for CO2 to diffuse at higher temps (like 45f). Ex. at 32, i would use the same procedure, but at 30 psi.

I was told by a local brewer that drawing samples off of a brite is very deceiving—usually the actual carbonation is lower than what it seems like when it pours.

For bottling, I would get the temp as low as you possibly can and bottle at equilibrium pressure (ex. For 2.2volumes - 9psi @40F) to avoid excessive foaming and preventing CO2 from coming out of solution in the brite (keg).

 

[_dirty_]

Thanks, MrPowers!

The brite tank can hold about 25psi so I'll have to lower it to 35F and burst carb for 24hrs and continue to keep the temp as low as possible for the remainder of time to allow for co2 absorption. I contacted SS and they said to connect a 6-10ft hose to the sample port to allow for the pressure to equalize when pulling a sample. I'll have to try your method in the coming weeks and report back.

 

[MrPowers]

Hopefully it helps out some! I think the SSBrewtech brites are new enough that there probably isn’t a lot of helpful information on them yet. I’d really like to have one some day.

Just keep the temp as low and as steady as you can and remember that CO2 diffuses slower at warmer temps, so you need to compensate with a higher pressure burst carb or longer wait time at equilibrium pressure.

As for sampling, a 5-7 foot line with picnic tap is probably sufficient, but unless it is kept cold as well, you will get more foaming on the initial pour due to warm lines, making it seem more carbonated than it actually is.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Aim for 2.5 volumes instead of 2.2.

 

[jmcquesten]

The following is a response from a different thread. It talks about kegs, but also applies in your situation.

"""Try using 25-30 ft. of beer line to connect beergun. The really long line will make filling a little slower, but will greatly increase the quality of the bottled beer. Just coil it up and zip tie it.

The keys to this are:

DO NOT PURGE KEG - leave it at whatever your serving/carbonation pressure is.

DO NOT LOWER THE PRESSURE - if you carbonate at 12 - 15 psi, leave it there to fill bottles. The long line will slow down the beer enough to reduce foam.

I've found that doing this gives me nicely carbonated bottled beer with minimal foam. You will still have some foam, but not nearly as much. The amount of foam is about the same as what you would get at the top of a pint glass. I know this because I did a "test pour" by filling a pint glass from the beer gun."""

 

[jmcquesten]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/index.php?threads/630201/

 

[_dirty_]

Thanks everyone! I'll increase vol to 2.5, use longer lines when bottling, and lower temp for carbonation. My APA is in primary currently and this weekend I should be transferring it to the brite tank. I'll report back on what happens once I'm ready to bottle.

 

[_dirty_]

Alright, I'm just about at the point that it should be carb'd, I pulled a sample from the testing port with 10ft of hose and a psi of 15. 10ft wasn't long enough... lol but the beer wasn't carb'd enough. I have burst carb'd at 35F with 20psi for 24hrs lowered the psi to 10psi and let it sit for an additional three days. I've burst carb'd again at 25psi and will let it sit there for another 24hrs, lowering it back down to 11psi and let it sit there for an additional two days and take a sample on Sunday evening. I'm hoping that this will do the trick. I'll post an update Sunday evening.

 

[Darryl J Gore]

I have the 10g Brites, what I have found is there is a big temperature difference between what ftss is saying and what is actually in the Brite. For me it's around 3c (5.4f) so it's saying it's 2.5c (36.5f) when in actual fact it's 5.5c (41.9f), this makes a big difference on how much psi the gas needs to be. I use the set and forget, and are fully carbed by the next day.
Are you allowing for the wetting pressure of your carb stone?
Next time your Brite is empty, fill it with water to your normal level above your carb stone and slowly turn on the gas, you will see that bubbles do not start until around 3-4 psi, so this must be added to your gas.
Also this is a good time to leave the water in for a few days and open the lid and take a temperature reading, see if there is any discrepancy.
What I find happens when I carb up is the stone bubbles and the gas slowly fills the headspace to my pressure, and then continues to bubble away allowing the beer and headspace to reach equilibrium at my desired psi.
For me I have.....
2.5'c thermowell, actually beer temp is 5.5'c
I have a wetting pressure for carb stone of 4 psi.
To get 2.5 volumes gas I need 13 psi
So my regulator is set to 17psi (13 plus the 4 for stone)
This equates to a beer line length of 4 metres (13 feet).
Hope this helps
Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

 

[_dirty_]

Darryl,

Thank you so much for the input, this make so much sense. I use the calculator for psi and temp and it's always short. I'll take your suggestion into consideration with the wetting and the temp variance.

 

[Smellyglove]

For which volume do you calculate your co2-content? Only the volume of the beer, or for the total volume of the tank?

If you calculate for only beer volume, you'll undercarb as "something" (the co2) also needs to fill the headspace of the tank. You should calculate for full volume of the vessel, as co2 will find it's equilibrium between being in the beer, and also being in the headspace.

If you have a tank which is 50% full, and carb to a specific co2-content, half of that co2 will be in the headspace.

 

[_dirty_]

How do I take volume of beer into consideration? The chart I use only list temp and psi

 

[Smellyglove]

How do I take volume of beer into consideration? The chart I use only list temp and psi

Right. Crap. Discard my post. It was rubbish in this setting.

 

[_dirty_]

I was honestly asking a question, in what situation would that apply?

 

[Smellyglove]

I was honestly asking a question, in what situation would that apply?

Ah. Sorry. When adding fermentables to a vessel, and not being able to add more co2 other than that provided by the fermentables. Like bottle carbing (odd example, but if you for instance would just fill a bottle halfway up). Or adding speise/krausen to a vessel.

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Darryl,

Thank you so much for the input, this make so much sense. I use the calculator for psi and temp and it's always short. I'll take your suggestion into consideration with the wetting and the temp variance.

No problem, another great tool to have is a CO2 flow meter, a device the goes between your gas regulator and carb stone. It allows you to slow down the flow of gas, still at the same pressure, it just means instead of blasting through your carb stone at high flow, causing big bubbles which just go through the beer into the head space, it reduces the flow for a finer mist of bubbles, which get absorbed into the beer more readily. This will greatly speed up the process of carbonation.
By burst carbing with 30 psi the bubbles are big and fast, going straight through the beer and filling the headspace, with hardly any getting absorbed. Then you turn down the psi to serving pressure... Problem is, your headspace has more pressure than the CO2 coming into the Brite, so none will go in, untill that headspace worth of gas slowly absorbs into the beer, eventually ending up lower than the serving pressure, which then allows the CO2 to flow again. You never want the headspace to be at a higher pressure than your serving pressure. It has to be less in order for the beer to take on more co2. Having the carb stone eliminates the burst carbing that you may or may not of done with kegs.

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Dirty...
You should also never purge the headspace.

If you think about it.... Say you have an equalised system sitting at 14psi, then you purge the headspace down to 4 to bottle/ sample, you now have beer at 14psi and headspace at 4, so obviously the CO2 rushes out of the beer into the headspace to try and equalise again, which would roughly bring them both to around 9psi. This rush to equalise also creates massive foaming.
If the long length of beer line is warm... Foaming.
Glass, tap...warm.... Foaming.
It's a constant battle, frustrating, but when you get everything pouring right, there is no better feeling. Good luck

Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Sorry for bombarding this discussion.
In Summary what i would do is...
- fill Brite to your normal beer level with water
- after a couple of days check the waters temp with the thermastats temp (beer temp)
- turn on gas slowly to see when stone starts to bubble (wetting pressure)
- turn regulator on to serving pressure + wetting pressure
- get a flow meter between gas gauge and carb stone (reduce flow by half for small mist of bubbles)
- when beer is cold and ready to be carbed you can hit with full burst of CO2 until around 1psi lower than required to fill the headspace
- then reduce flow so fine mist bubbles, as the headspace is 1 psi below your regulators pressure (-wetting), CO2 will flow. But as the headspace is nearly full, the CO2 will absorb into the beer instead of the headspace.
- when the beer reaches saturation, the headspace will equal the regulator (-wetting), so it would have raised the 1psi, and the ball/ float on the flow meter would have slowed down or even stopped/dropped.
- with proper beer temp, you can work out your required line length for consistent beers.
- try to maintain consistent temperature from beer, line, to tap.
- also a point to note is that during bottling you can lose .1 to .2 volumes, so allow this when carbing. I would carb to 2.8 volumes.

Clear as mud
Cheers
Darryl

 

[_dirty_]

Thanks again, Darryl! This helps tremendously and should help others out there if they encounter this issue. There isn't much info out on the internet about the SS Brite tanks at the moment.

Any recommendations for the flow meter?

Filtering the mud
Gary

 

[TANSTAAFB]

These are the threads I find so enlightening and helpful! I don't have a brite tank but I keg, and 2 upgrades I have been considering are a beer gun and a carbonation lid with a stone. This info just saved me hours of frustration! I freaking love HBT when it doesn't devolve into arguing semantics or massive side trips from the OPs questions! [emoji482]

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Thanks again, Darryl! This helps tremendously and should help others out there if they encounter this issue. There isn't much info out on the internet about the SS Brite tanks at the moment.

Any recommendations for the flow meter?

Filtering the mud
Gary

No problems. As for the flow metre it doesn't have to be anything flash, even the plastic ones will do. Obviously if you can afford something at the top end of the scale go for it. All it's doing is restricting flow, so just make sure you get one that will easily attach to your setup, be that a certain sized hose Barb, or screw type fitting that fits your gas line.
In my case it's a 7mm hose Barb, and 1/4" npt to attach to my regulator.

Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

One other thing to be aware of is that you can calibrate the thermastats probe on the ftss, so usually a glass of iced water. In the settings for the ftss is one labelled "CA" adjust accordingly to the freeze point. I have three, and one is -.5c, one is +.3c and the other is +.1c - so a bit of discrepancy.
Having a thermostat that's calibrated is only half of it, like I said test the liquid in the Brites temperature and compare it with what the ftss is saying, and if needed you may have to tweak the "CA" to suit.

Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

I

These are the threads I find so enlightening and helpful! I don't have a brite tank but I keg, and 2 upgrades I have been considering are a beer gun and a carbonation lid with a stone. This info just saved me hours of frustration! I freaking love HBT when it doesn't devolve into arguing semantics or massive side trips from the OPs questions! [emoji482]

I hear you re the hours of frustration. At least we have the internet. I can't imagine trying to sort this out 30 yrs ago.
In your scenario you would attach the grey gas to the normal gas post on the keg, fill the headspace to 1 psi below your target psi, then disconnect that gas and hook it up to the stone and gas it to target psi plus wetting pressure of the stone.

 

[Darryl J Gore]

I hope everyone is having a good Christmas.

Stay safe, and happy holidays.

One thing I forgot is to do with your regulator, a good way of testing it's accuracy, and if you don't mind using a little bit of co2, is to in your empty Brite, close everything up and put your target carbonation pressure on your regulator and let it fill the brite. It will come to a stop - check the Brite tanks pressure in relation to your regulators pressure.
My regulator is 1 psi more than what the Brite is reading (I had my regulator on 15, tank filled and stopped at 14) so I have to add 1psi for the difference.

As you can see there is a lot of mucking around, but the little bit of time testing with empty tanks and tanks of water does save a lot of hassle in the long run.

Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Here is a pour from my set up.

 

[_dirty_]

thanks again, Darryl. Nice pour!

 

[_dirty_]

Darryl,

what range do you have on your flow meter?

Looking at one of these https://www.dakotainstruments.com/carbon-dioxide-flow-meter-acrylic-brass-fittings

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Darryl,

what range do you have on your flow meter?

Looking at one of these https://www.dakotainstruments.com/carbon-dioxide-flow-meter-acrylic-brass-fittings

I have a cheap Chinese one, it is 1-25 litres per minute (too much), I need to get a smaller one, ideally your flow rate should be around 1-2 litres per minute or 2.5 scfh, so any in that smaller range (up to 5 scfh). Also get one with the dial/valve. The ones linked are perfect!

 

[Darryl J Gore]

In a commercial Brite tank they have a way to apply head pressure directly to the top through the clean in place valve.
For the SSBrewtech Brites we don't, and the only way is to have the CO2 go straight to the head by turning up the pressure this unfortunately scrubs aroma and volitile hop oils from the beer. Something that the blast carbonating does, as well as foaming the beer etc, thus the need for flow control.
I'm actually looking at maybe adding a ball lock gas post to my lids so I can put pressure straight to the head, before then carbing through the stone. It's 8mm thick steel so seeing how feasible it is and how much it costs before I go ahead.

Anyway, the way to best avoid losing all the aromas and flavours from the late additions and dry hopping is to just do the slow reduced flow from the bottom, which will eventually fill the headspace and reach equilibrium when the ball in the flowmeter drops. It's not as quick as the filling the head pressure method, but better for the beer.
It's got to be better than a day at 30 psi whichever way you do it. The important thing is flow control, the slower the better. Finer bubbles, means finer head, and lacing.

I'm still getting my head around it all myself. I serve from my Brites, which are in a humid ambient environment, using glycol (another steep learning curve there) which has just lead to more challenges. I've done a lot of reading/ research, and I have sussed it out now, so more than happy to pass on my knowledge. Don't be afraid to ask me anything, no matter how trivial you may think it is, odds are it's happened to me or I've read about it.

I hope we can get your system where you want it to be.

 

[_dirty_]

The following is a response from a different thread. It talks about kegs, but also applies in your situation.

"""Try using 25-30 ft. of beer line to connect beergun. The really long line will make filling a little slower, but will greatly increase the quality of the bottled beer. Just coil it up and zip tie it.

The keys to this are:

DO NOT PURGE KEG - leave it at whatever your serving/carbonation pressure is.

DO NOT LOWER THE PRESSURE - if you carbonate at 12 - 15 psi, leave it there to fill bottles. The long line will slow down the beer enough to reduce foam.

I've found that doing this gives me nicely carbonated bottled beer with minimal foam. You will still have some foam, but not nearly as much. The amount of foam is about the same as what you would get at the top of a pint glass. I know this because I did a "test pour" by filling a pint glass from the beer gun."""

So I tried this the other night, had my line, bottles and beer gun all at the same temp as the beer (35F) and left the pressure of the tank at 12psi. I couldn't explain the amount of foam I received, it was to the point that I ditched the gun and actually put the beer lin into the bottle and slowly filled the bottle with that, still foam but not as nearly bad as the gun. Any ideas what could be my issue?

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Is everything on the gun tightened, sounds like the gun could be the problem, and somehow it is creating the foaming issue. I don't use one so have no idea.
How are you connecting to the Brite? From the sample port or the T/C bottom outlet?
I use the 1/4" MFL T/C with a John guest fitting.

Darryl

 

[Darryl J Gore]

 

[Darryl J Gore]

Have not heard back as to how you are going. Here are my thoughts/ observations.

Make sure everything is sealed and tightened. I was having trouble with one of my Brite tanks shooting a blast of foam about 3 seconds into the pour.

The problem could of been one of 2 things ( I fixed both at the same time). The butterfly valve hex nuts were not tight, so air could have been coming in through there, or the head pressure in the Brite, is greater than the beer pressure, so when pouring, it wanted to take over. Once the beer in the line was used, the new beer exiting the Brite tank shot out causing the foam.

I tightened the hex nuts, and got head pressure and beer pressure equal (flowmeter) and problem solved.

There is nothing more frustrating than a system not operating as it should. After all the time and money spent on this hobby, it's a pain to then not have it pour properly.

Darryl

 

[_dirty_]

reviving this thread

When bottling using a beer gun or counter pressure filler, I notice that the beer line has a lot of bubbles rather than solid beer. Not much foam is present in the bottle. Filled bottles roughly 4hrs ago, cracked a bottle and it’s flat.

Never tested the beer prior, which I should have however, is the carbonation separating from the beer in the transfer process as I mentioned above?

 

[CodeSection]

reviving this thread

When bottling using a beer gun or counter pressure filler, I notice that the beer line has a lot of bubbles rather than solid beer. Not much foam is present in the bottle. Filled bottles roughly 4hrs ago, cracked a bottle and it’s flat.

Never tested the beer prior, which I should have however, is the carbonation separating from the beer in the transfer process as I mentioned above?

I just bought a SSB 20 Gallon Brite Tank so I'm interested in this thread. Am I understanding correctly that you followed the advice given in various posts and may have increased your psi and are you are still having flat beer after making those changes?

....As for sampling, a 5-7 foot line with picnic tap is probably sufficient, but unless it is kept cold as well, you will get more foaming on the initial pour due to warm lines, making it seem more carbonated than it actually is.

....I was told by a local brewer that drawing samples off of a brite is very deceiving—usually the actual carbonation is lower than what it seems like when it pours....

A friend suggested I use a sample valve and sample valve pigtail to take samples with to get a feel for what the carbonation is. Here is what I bought from SSB...
https://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/accessories/products/sample-valve-1-5-tc-knob and https://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/accessories/products/pig-tail.

They work great and may help in giving a better gauge of actual carbonation over tubing and a cobra or picnic tap.