dent
Under Pressure
- Joined
- 20/6/08
- Messages
- 954
- Reaction score
- 467
I spent some time today working on the fermenter-to-keg transfer setup. I wanted to be able to vacuum out a corny, and suck the beer from the fermenter with no air gaps anywhere. This was my first brew that I just used a plastic fermenter on, but the process will be pretty similar with the stainless 50L fermenter. It was nice to find the beer still has that quality malt flavour in it, for now.
I made the fitting simply by putting the silicon hose around a inline push-in joiner, which worked a treat.
First idea was putting a bunch of off-brand blu-tack around the top of the O ring seal of the corny lid - this worked pretty good for a while (some even got sucked in a little and I had to add more) but eventually the force was overcoming the off-centred lid clamps, and the lid was starting to tilt inward.
So plan B was to just turn the lid upside down. This works fine, however it forces the awkward step of taking the lid off and putting it back on the right way once the keg is filled. I gave in and did just that on this one - another idea is to modify a lid so it can't tilt down on one side. But purging the last litre in the top of the keg is much more feasible than trying to purge the whole thing. So I flushed out that last litre with CO2 about 10 times.
I didn't trust the fermenter tap to hold vacuum so that's what the irwin clamp is for.
The other issue is once the keg started to fill up, I'd lose vacuum due to the displacement, and I'd have to add more - but as the keg gets filled the foam would start to get in the suction tube attached to the gas post. So I had to use another spare keg as a bong, so no liquid would get into the vacuum pump.
Anyhow it's nice to confirm that a corny has enough structural integrity to hold a vacuum without imploding.
--
I did another brew today, I stuck with the LODO method however I was just brewing a smoked porter. I was too busy screwing around with the above I didn't really have time to prepare another stainless fermenter. So I went to see if it's possible to purge a cube. First I tried pulling a vacuum on one - that was pretty comical and did the cube no favours. Next I made a lid with a 8mm push in fitting, filled the cube with starsan, turned it upside down so the bubble was at the top. I bubbled CO2 through the starsan, and vented the bubble as much as possible a few times. Then I used CO2 to push the rest of the starsan out. All in all this used a lot of gas and I'm not really convinced it makes a complete purge - It's easy to leave the valve open a little too long and suck some air back in while trying to get the bubble out. I hooked the kettle tube up to the cube tap and loosened the lid to allow the wort in.
Anyhow I wasn't super fussed about making a LODO smoked porter but I still wanted to use the opportunity to iron out bugs in the process.
I made the fitting simply by putting the silicon hose around a inline push-in joiner, which worked a treat.
First idea was putting a bunch of off-brand blu-tack around the top of the O ring seal of the corny lid - this worked pretty good for a while (some even got sucked in a little and I had to add more) but eventually the force was overcoming the off-centred lid clamps, and the lid was starting to tilt inward.
So plan B was to just turn the lid upside down. This works fine, however it forces the awkward step of taking the lid off and putting it back on the right way once the keg is filled. I gave in and did just that on this one - another idea is to modify a lid so it can't tilt down on one side. But purging the last litre in the top of the keg is much more feasible than trying to purge the whole thing. So I flushed out that last litre with CO2 about 10 times.
I didn't trust the fermenter tap to hold vacuum so that's what the irwin clamp is for.
The other issue is once the keg started to fill up, I'd lose vacuum due to the displacement, and I'd have to add more - but as the keg gets filled the foam would start to get in the suction tube attached to the gas post. So I had to use another spare keg as a bong, so no liquid would get into the vacuum pump.
Anyhow it's nice to confirm that a corny has enough structural integrity to hold a vacuum without imploding.
--
I did another brew today, I stuck with the LODO method however I was just brewing a smoked porter. I was too busy screwing around with the above I didn't really have time to prepare another stainless fermenter. So I went to see if it's possible to purge a cube. First I tried pulling a vacuum on one - that was pretty comical and did the cube no favours. Next I made a lid with a 8mm push in fitting, filled the cube with starsan, turned it upside down so the bubble was at the top. I bubbled CO2 through the starsan, and vented the bubble as much as possible a few times. Then I used CO2 to push the rest of the starsan out. All in all this used a lot of gas and I'm not really convinced it makes a complete purge - It's easy to leave the valve open a little too long and suck some air back in while trying to get the bubble out. I hooked the kettle tube up to the cube tap and loosened the lid to allow the wort in.
Anyhow I wasn't super fussed about making a LODO smoked porter but I still wanted to use the opportunity to iron out bugs in the process.