Walk Me Through a Pressurized Closed Transfer Please.

[Yesfan]

Thanks for the suggestions gang. A lot to take in for the next batch.

 

[StayThirsty]

I've done a couple hundred xfers with all rounders and have not had this issue.

With lager yeast pasted to the bottom I can leave a couple shot glasses of clear beer in the fermenter after it's kegged. We are getting different results.

Just to clarify: you've been transferring carbonated beer from all rounders and letting the pressure drop during the transfer process?

One possible explanation of our different results is that you were brewing lagers and presumably let the yeast cake compact significantly (you said "pasted to the bottom"). My experience was based on brewing ales and I would transfer off the yeast after 1-2 days of cold crash. I'd transfer into another all rounder for dry hopping and would keg after the hops had settled for a couple of days. In neither case was the trub layer very compact. It's in that context that I learned of the importance of keeping the source all rounder at its equilibrium pressure during the entire transfer.

 

[Cherokee6]

Back when I was using a bucket fermenter I'd fill the keg with sani, push it out with 3-5 psi of CO2. Elevate the bucket above the keg and connect a hose from the spigot of the bucket to the liquid post on the keg. Then I would connect a hose from the gas in post on the keg and run it up to the top of the bucket and through the lid where the air lock hole was. That way as beer filled the keg, 3-5 pounds of CO2 was pushing the liquid out of the bucket (more so gravity was pushing the liquid out of the bucket but I like to think the CO2 pressure helped. Twas a semi closed transfer IMO

This is my process now and it seems to work fine. I purge the keg using the CO2 from the fermentation and when fermentation is done, I make a closed loop between that keg and the FV. My FV is elevated above the keg so gravity does the work.

 

[olie]

Hi all. I plan on kegging a double batch I brewed about a month ago. Currently it's at 15psi at 64F. In the past, I've just bled off the pressure of the fermenter before transfer and pushed it to my serving keg at 2psi.

My thoughts are to connect a jumper gas post to gas post from fermenter to keg so the pressure equalizes between the two vessels. Then what? Connect a jumper from beer post to beer post and bleed off the keg's pressure via the prv? I've read here transferring too fast will produce foaming. If both vessels are at equal pressure, then do you use the prv valve of the keg or disconnect the gas jumper and just put a spunding valve on the keg (nothing on the fermenter) to do a slow transfer?

On another note, is there a way to see how much more days on gas a pressurized fermentation needs after transferring to a serving keg? As mentioned, it's at 15psi at 64F. If I can keg this batch tonight, how much time do I need on gas to drink it this weekend? Thanks in advance.

I know this is an ancient thread, but it didn't have an answer, so here goes:

* I keep the fermentor pressurized "as normal" for the style of beer.
* I add CO2 to the TOP of the beer in the fermentor (so as not to blow bubbles in the beer!) to hold "normal" pressure.
* I have an adjustable valve on the keg that I leave shut at the start of transfer.
* Once the flow begins to slow (I weigh my kegs to know when they're approaching full), I crack the valve to allow about 1lb of beer every several [3-5, depending on "feel"] second.

If beer goes into the keg too fast, you'll get a lot of foam on top, it'll blow out your valve, make a mess, and you won't have a full keg (unless you blow a LOT of foam!)

If beer goes into the keg too slow, you just end-up sitting there for a loooooooong time doing the transfer. No real harm, other than the extra time.

5 gallons of beer is ~42-43lbs, depending on the FG of the beer; I do (8.345 x FG x gallons) to get my final weight. (Don't forget to tare the keg weight!)

Heh. And now that I've typed all that, I see that there *ARE* answers, they just took a while to load on my slow internet. Ah well, now you have mine, too.