Kegmenter. Are they good to use?

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Yep, great to use.

Filled my 2 cornies last night with my munich helles. Normally wouldn't bother with filtering lately but thought I'd give it a run with the kegmenter.
44 ltrs approx in keg, sitting at approx 8 psi and 0 degrees past week. Purged and pressurised sanitised cornies to 10 psi.

Purged and sanitised my filter housing and pressurised it to 10 psi.

Click gas onto kegmenter, crank pressure upto 15 psi. Click on filter in side to kegmenter. Pressed button on top and filled it slowly to top. Then clicked the filter out line onto pressurised corny. This started filtering. Clicked my spunding valve onto corny and set to 9-10 psi. Then watched the condensation line creep up to the top.
When full, clicked everything onto next corny. Did same.

This is where the mini kegs come in handy , I filled 2 cornies,to brim. At least 19 ltrs in them.
Still had precious helles left. Clicked on a 5 ltr mini, about 3 ltrs came put of kegmenter then it started pushing gas, I then let it drain the last of the filter housing into the mini, perfect approx 4.5 ltrs in.

Thought, let's try this beer, poured a schooner, crystal clear, crisp as, 80% carbonated and ready to guzzle.

Put all kegs onto 30 psi for 7 hrs. Perfect carbonation today.

Can see myself using a little more gas filtering like I did years back before I got lazy, but for a awesome helles it works a treat plus you save on carbonation gas anyway as it's already 80% there.

These are good things.

The beer before the filter was like 90% clear anyway, so you don't have to filter, 1 week of cc is perfect after I finned it earlier in the week.
I just wanted to try it as I had the gear and to just polish it up a little .

One word of advice if filtering or pressure transfer into cornies. Make sure you put gas onto the pressurised kegmenter at approx 5 psi higher than the receiving vessels, otherwise when you click on, the back pressure will shoot down the stem of kegmenter and blast the yeast up , undoing you hard work of 1 week of cc.lol.

Cheers
 
ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1479514712.935070.jpg

****

O2 pressurised to 200kPa. Shook her just like I was rush carbonating a keg of beer - 30 seconds approx.

23mm off the bottom of the dip tube. 1054 APA double batch. US05

Pick up valve this morning.
 
Kegmenter newbie screw-up, again. Dry hopping last night. Accidentally knocked the silicone seal for the lid into the brew. Couldn't fish it out again. Going to have to find a replacement seal somewhere otherwise I'll be siphoning this one out, which kinda defeats the purpose. Bugger!
 
Chridech said:
Kegmenter newbie screw-up, again. Dry hopping last night. Accidentally knocked the silicone seal for the lid into the brew. Couldn't fish it out again. Going to have to find a replacement seal somewhere otherwise I'll be siphoning this one out, which kinda defeats the purpose. Bugger!
This was a reason I thought I better buy a spare seal.

Keg king sell them, I bought a spare for I think $4.95 just in case I drop mine in or loose it sometime.

Bugger....

Just run with this batch as if a normal stainless fermenter now.
 
Results of the first spin. Ran my porter at 18 as I did previously with un-pressurised versions, transferred yesterday after 7 days into 2 corny's. One of these is destined to be transferred to PET bottles for the SEQld Case swap.

No major issues, though I found it difficult to detect exactly how full each corny was. I could feel how cold it was, but after a while the cold level was creeping ahead of the fill level, so it was difficult to follow. Not a real humid day so no condensation to observe.

Had more clean beer coming out of the keg than I realised, so ended up blowing beer out of the spunding valve on the second corny. Gave me an excuse to whack the pluto on and have a taste. It's not quite the same as the beer that won me the QABC, but it's pretty close. Pretty happy with the carbonation level that came straight out of the keg, not quite 2 volumes is my estimate which is not far off for a porter. Spunding valve ended up finishing around 20 psi by the end before I crash chilled it. Other styles would require a bit of time on gas before serving.

kegmenter 1.jpg


kegmenter 2.jpg


kegmenter 3.jpg
 
Easiest way to fill blind is to use a scale. Weigh the corny, zero the scale, weigh the beer going in. Remember that a beer that ends at 1.015 weighs about 1015g/l. Although if you just calculate at a kilo per litre, as for water, you're guaranteed to never overfill.
 
Mr B said:
Thats a point on saving carb gas, I had discounted this option, hmm......
Keep in mind that you probably use that gas to do your transfers instead, so it's not really a net saving.

Still, it's new kit, and new kit is always fun.
 
Tahoose said:
True, but that relies on you having the bottom of your liquid in your kegmenter above the top level of the corny you're trying to fill. One of the reasons I've gone kegmenter and put the ferment chamber where I have is to avoid having to shift a full kegmenter of wort. To make it higher I'd need to lift everything else.

But, still a good idea for smaller things.
 
pcqypcqy said:
Results of the first spin. Ran my porter at 18 as I did previously with un-pressurised versions, transferred yesterday after 7 days into 2 corny's. One of these is destined to be transferred to PET bottles for the SEQld Case swap.

No major issues, though I found it difficult to detect exactly how full each corny was. I could feel how cold it was, but after a while the cold level was creeping ahead of the fill level, so it was difficult to follow. Not a real humid day so no condensation to observe.

Had more clean beer coming out of the keg than I realised, so ended up blowing beer out of the spunding valve on the second corny. Gave me an excuse to whack the pluto on and have a taste. It's not quite the same as the beer that won me the QABC, but it's pretty close. Pretty happy with the carbonation level that came straight out of the keg, not quite 2 volumes is my estimate which is not far off for a porter. Spunding valve ended up finishing around 20 psi by the end before I crash chilled it. Other styles would require a bit of time on gas before serving.
Looks yummy, I found with my helles, I just needed to add a little more gas when into cornies.

I love this fermenting way...
 
I'm starting my cold crash in my kegmenter.

Has anyone buckled their stainless as the air pressure of the earth forces doom with beer directed vectors....

It hasn't happened to me yet. I've pressure fermented and have head pressure, but I'm not sure if I've got the balance right yet. Should just get the pencil and pad out to do some calcs....

But I'm interested if anyone has crashed and caused grief?

Zorco
 
Yep, there were a few posts in a thread not long ago, including photos, about caving a corny. I can't remember who but IIRC it was actually about cold-crashing in a corny.

What immediately follows this sentence is pure and utter speculation on that question. I think standard keg thickness would be fine though. I wouldn't do corny myself. The ribs combined with their increased thickness would add a significant amount of rigidity.

I have done 40L Firestone ones, with zero isse. This is part of why I SPECULATE that normal 50L & 60L kegs would be fine.
 
Zorco said:
I'm starting my cold crash in my kegmenter.

Has anyone buckled their stainless as the air pressure of the earth forces doom with beer directed vectors....

It hasn't happened to me yet. I've pressure fermented and have head pressure, but I'm not sure if I've got the balance right yet. Should just get the pencil and pad out to do some calcs....

But I'm interested if anyone has crashed and caused grief?

Zorco
I also whilst at d rest temps, had the spunding valve wound totally in with a pressure sitting at 22 psi. As I dropped the temp in 4 increments over 2 days down to 0 I noticed the pressure drop, but at cc temps it was stable at approx 6-7 psi. So all good there.
You could always compensate by giving it a pressure blast with co2 if you have no resididual pressure in it.
 
Guys come on most corny kegs(especially the new kk ones) are thin enough for my 5yo to dint with his tonka truck, a 50L keg you'll do well to ding with a 15LB hammer (i had a dent in one of my keggles despite efforts dent remained).
 
pcqypcqy said:
True, but that relies on you having the bottom of your liquid in your kegmenter above the top level of the corny you're trying to fill. One of the reasons I've gone kegmenter and put the ferment chamber where I have is to avoid having to shift a full kegmenter of wort. To make it higher I'd need to lift everything else.

But, still a good idea for smaller things.
image.jpeg

Current setup, kegmenter in position to allow for the next move which is as per the previous attachment. Normally sit the cube on top of the fridge and use the tap with a hose to fill the keg.

The keg then doesn't get moved, cold crash in place counter pressure fill the corny or multiple cornies.

There you are..
 
Tahoose said:
attachicon.gif
image.jpeg

Current setup, kegmenter in position to allow for the next move which is as per the previous attachment. Normally sit the cube on top of the fridge and use the tap with a hose to fill the keg.

The keg then doesn't get moved, cold crash in place counter pressure fill the corny or multiple cornies.

There you are..
I like it.

Wouldn't work for me with my current set up, the top of keg is in line with the bottom of kettle, so I can chill my wort and then drain straight into my kegmenter that's already sitting in my temp control freezer.

MIght be something I can think about now that I have acquired a few new fridges for fermenting/lagering.
 
Home made Kegmenter at Angle Park, Adelaide. I just bought myself a KK Kegmenter, but I would be all over this one if I was close. Easy to change it to a lid like Tahoose did. I hope someone following this thread manages to grab it. :beerbang:
 
where's the best place to get the parts / kit for a pressure kegmenter ?

is it worth doing the flip upside down and put in a corny lid type kegmenter ?
 
Ive got all the parts ready to make mine like you said. Im going to use tri clover to put on a ball valve. Got the posts from Grain and Grape and the tri clover bits (a clamp, 2" tri clover to 1/2" thread and a 2" cap) off the net.

As to if its worth it Tahoose is using a slightly different setup with success.
 
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