Crash chill in cubes

[Beamer]

Gday all,
I have changed my brewing setup a bit, im no longer using the classic fermentor look but have gone to cubes for fermentors as I can fit two of them in the temp control fridge I then rack into a smaller cube to go into fridge I use for crash chilling. This also fits two cubes

Does anyone else use cubes for crash chilling? If so do you purge the headspace with CO2? I never did it before when using fermentors for the crash chill

Any thoughts or advice is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Beamer

 

[Bribie G]

No need to transfer to another vessel if you are just chilling to clear and settle the beer.

 

[Beamer]

Thanks bribie, but its more for the reason to free up the fermentors

 

[Bribie G]

I used to do that, actually, if I needed to do stuff to the beer such as gelatine and polyclar then a week or so cold conditioning.. I used Willow 20L cubes as they have a slim profile and I could get three of them into my chillin fridge.

I would transfer very slowly, fill as far to the top as possible and put in a few sugar cubes to generate a wee bit of CO2 to discourage oxygen in the headspace. Even at fridge temperatures sugar will continue to ferment slowly.

Nowadays I have two fermenting fridges so don't use so-called "secondary"

 

[Beamer]

Im doing what you used to do but without the sugar cubes, I have just purchased 25L cubes to ferment and im just using 20l cubes for the crash chill.

I used my bottling gun today to purge the "secondary" cube, will be able to telk I a fortnight if it makes a difference.

With your two fridges are they both fermenting or is one for crash chilling/cold conditioning?

 

[buckerooni]

I use the one 20L jerry for the entire process - from no-chill to keg. lazy but enlightened is how I'd like to think of it.

Hot wort goes in, no chill, yeast goes in, maybe some dry hoppin, cold crash and maybe some gelatine then straight into keg via the jerrycan's tap. I use an irrigation filter just stop any trub/hops getting into the keg but that's it.

Theory is the beer sees no 02 until it's in the glass.

 

[Beamer]

How much wort goes in the jerry buckerooni?

 

[verysupple]

In reply to the OP, it sounds like you want to transfer because your smaller cubes fit in your CCing fridge better, but if you don't have to transfer then I wouldn't bother. If you do have to transfer I wouldn't bother purging with CO2 because unless you do it multiple times at high pressure you're not actually changing the O2 content of the air inside the cube enough to make it worth it.

 

[verysupple]

I use the one 20L jerry for the entire process - from no-chill to keg. lazy but enlightened is how I'd like to think of it.

Hot wort goes in, no chill, yeast goes in, maybe some dry hoppin, cold crash and maybe some gelatine then straight into keg via the jerrycan's tap. I use an irrigation filter just stop any trub/hops getting into the keg but that's it.

Theory is the beer sees no 02 until it's in the glass.

A little OT...

How do you handle blow off? Or do you not get much? I ask because I'd love to save the effort of cleaning and sanitising another vessel to ferment in, but now I ferment my ~23 L batches in a 30 L FV and krausen usually comes out the airlock and pools in the lid (I use a drum style plasitc FV). So I figure if I was fermenting in the cube, which has far less head space, I'd make a hell of a mess - or need a pretty big bottle for my blow off tube to go into.

 

[buckerooni]

How much wort goes in the jerry buckerooni?

between 19-21 I'd say, they expand a bit when they get hot wort. minimal losses from jerry to keg due to CC'ing/gelatine.

A little OT...

How do you handle blow off? Or do you not get much? I ask because I'd love to save the effort of cleaning and sanitising another vessel to ferment in, but now I ferment my ~23 L batches in a 30 L FV and krausen usually comes out the airlock and pools in the lid (I use a drum style plasitc FV). So I figure if I was fermenting in the cube, which has far less head space, I'd make a hell of a mess - or need a pretty big bottle for my blow off tube to go into.

I've used a 2.25L bottle blow off without issue. I've been lucky enough when the gladwrap has blown off that no nasties have ruined the beer.

It is a valid concern though, but in practice it hasn't had any material effect, as far as I can tell.

I'm looking to increase my batch size and use 2 jerry's at around 16-18L each, I think this would work well, giving at least 4-6L of headspace

 

[Bribie G]

My two fridges are Kegmates and can be either run on a Fridgemate for primary fermentation or, after primary, disconnect the Fridgemate and switch the fridges over to "native mode" where they can go down as low as -1 degrees for lagering.
so nowadays I don't need to transfer as I can do the whole process in one vessel.

A kegmate can hold a 60L fermenter with room to spare so if I'm running low I can run up a double batch to be fermented in one fridge while while the other lagers a previous single batch.

 

[manticle]

In reply to the OP, it sounds like you want to transfer because your smaller cubes fit in your CCing fridge better, but if you don't have to transfer then I wouldn't bother. If you do have to transfer I wouldn't bother purging with CO2 because unless you do it multiple times at high pressure you're not actually changing the O2 content of the air inside the cube enough to make it worth it.

As above. When chilling, I just tighten the cap.
Only ever transfer if aging/lagering for several weeks or more.
Just buy more cubes.