No chill in corny keg

[manticle]

Part of what I'm doing is to suck it and see so if things go tits up, I will know and can write from experience. I could hypothesise till kingdom come but only one way to really find out.

 

[manticle]

Ok - so I toned down the pressure when I got back from a futsal game last night. This morning the pressure seemed to have dropped to zero so I bumped it back up. Should have just left it so I would know what was going on one way or the other.

Anyway I kegged two cubes of mild this evening so I had plenty of 1469 slurry for the 1060 ESB in the NC keg. Removed around 2/3 slurry from one cube and used co2 to push the ESB wort into the cube, via pluto gun, occasionally shutting it off most of the way to force out froth for oxygentaion. Took a sample straight from the pluto into hydrometer tube - basically no noticeable carbonation in the wort and wort tasted like wort should.

No buckling in the keg. To be honest I would have been very surprised if there was but I also would have been very upset if there was.

Not conclusive but definitely enough to try again next weekend and leave the carb pressure as is. Can adjust up or down the next time if needed but just need to reduce variables where I can so I can get a consistent method. Looking forward to fermenting in the same vessel but I really want to get an oxygen tank first.

 

[Florian]

Ok - so I toned down the pressure when I got back from a futsal game last night. This morning the pressure seemed to have dropped to zero so I bumped it back up. Should have just left it so I would know what was going on one way or the other.

Funny that (well, not really), I had already half typed a disclaimer into my previous post, sort of saying 'make sure when you dial that pressure down that the reg doesn't turn itself all the way down, they behave funny sometimes', but then didn't really know how to word it properly at the time without upsetting the 'a reg is a precision instrument, it shouldn't just turn down to zero' crew, so I ended up scrapping it.

Doomed if you do and doomed if you don't, I might just shut up again and get back into my hole.

On that note, I'm planning a mini experiment on Thursday trying to replicate that 'wort swallows Co2' scenario and some control samples, all in PET bottles.

Also, if you ever have a buckling keg, I wouldn't worry too much, nothing you couldn't fix up with a hammer or some sort of suction device. yes, your keg might not look as pretty afterwards but would still hold almost the same volume.

 

[manticle]

This is where we nut out potential problems, distinguish them from real problems and work out real solutions where applicable so stay out of your hole for now and keep no chilling in your keg.

Unless the hole is warm. Is it warm?

 

[Florian]

Well, I found one potential problem (real or not, you distinguish yourself) when I stuck my oxygenation wand all the way down into the keg:

There was a substantial amount of solid matter, kind of felt like when you kayak in shallow waters and dig your paddle into that softish mud stuff where all those crabs and creatures live.

Now, admittedly I had 200g of hop matter from that pseudo L'argonaise boil in there, so that might have been a, if not the, contributing factor which can be easily eliminated by doing 'normal' boils with decent whirlpools, but I'm still curious how the bottom of the keg feels when I stick my wand into one of those 'normal' worts.


And no, the hole is cold, I only get access to the warm hole for short periods, several times per week, if you really must know.

 

[manticle]

This is you fermenting in the no chill vessel yes?

I would presume hop trub + cold break. No different to when I ferment directly in my NC cubes. Advantage of a keg is that you could punch that snot out with one shot of a pluto and some co2 before oxygenating if you thought it could pose a problem. Never has in my cubes though.

 

[Florian]

Yep, that's what I should have done, was just too worried that the hop crap would block the poppet in the out post, as I said, happened to me before, so I decided to postpone the problem to a time when I have finished beer at stake, rather than just wort. :unsure:

It wouldn't cause a problem in a cube as your pick up (tap) is usually well above the solid crap.

As you say, nutting out problems, this would clearly work well for lagers or any other beer lacking late hops, or else cut that dip tube to a level where it sits above the solid stuff.
But same as you I wasn't ready for that step yet, time will tell If I have to or not.

 

[manticle]

Otherwise a little hop screen or filter attached to the dip tube? Could block very easily depending on design but if you could somehow make it wide enough - kind of like a reverse false bottom?

Just musing (and I'm starting to overcomplicate which is the opposite motivation behind the thread) - might be easier to hop screen in the kettle or bag in the argon vessel but there must be ways and means. Cold break would be no issue.

I guess try the gun next time - if it blocks or the poppet gets too gunky, there'll be another idea.

 

[Florian]

If the gun blocks I'll just add more pressure and pray that the whole thing doesn't blow up (although I'm sure that some might love a bit of hops splattered all over their face).
Alternative is to remove the poppet from the post while clearing out the gunk from the keg, and in case the gun blocks as well, just use a naked line. Well, that's actually the safest way to do it.

See, sometimes overcomplicating things isn't such a bad thing. Proper pre thinking prevents you from doing stupid things on a whim, like opening up the keg and ladleing out the hop soup with an unsanitised spoon.

All that aside, my current run is an exception anyway, usually I would either effortlessly leave all hot break and hops behind in the kettle if I no chill, or immersion chill my heavily hopped beers and transfer straight to the fermenting vessel.

same as you I'm not concerned about cold break as it's fairly jelly-ish anyway and not prone to blocking anything up.

 

[pk.sax]

Well, I'm fermenting a saison in it since Sunday when I pitched about 24 hours post no chilling into it.

A word of caution, fermenting under pressure, releasing the pressure will cause a foam explosion to hit you in the face. You've been warned. Like I wasn't.

I miss seeing the beer do it's thing though.

 

[Florian]

Yep, I realised that too, multiple times, even.

I did my little 'wort eats Co2' experiment and will post results a bit later tonight.

 

[manticle]

I will be fermenting in mine once my starter gets going. Put the gas on 50 kpa for a few hours on Saturday, turned it off, no tap etc on the beer out and it's maintained the 50. Presumably it would only start absorbing into the solution at much colder temperatures and if there was zero headspace in the keg. I am not super savvy with gas as I've mentioned but I am presuming that if there is headspace the gas will always come out of solution to equilibrate? Thus no chance of the poppets sucking anything in as they cool if you have gas in there.

Brew was no chilled on Saturday, has stayed at the same pressure the whole time.

 

[Florian]

I have once seen something that I found 'weird' which makes me a bit cautious with wort and Co2:
I had a 25L no chill cube, but only about 18L of wort, so the difference was too much to just squeeze the sides to push all the air out. I decided to just fill the cube and completely displace the head space with Co2, then pulled the lid tight.

The next morning all of the Co2 had been absorbed by the wort, there was literally no head space at all left in the wort and the cube was just a shrunken weird looking thing. I expected the walls to be pulled in a little by the cooling wort, with the volume of head space remaining the same, but instead the head space had disappeared completely.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I wouldn't put the pressure on the reg too high, as it seems like the wort could 'eat' more Co2 than you would like too.

OK, so following up on that I filled 4 sprite bottles (acting as no chill cubes), two with water that had finished boiling one minute ago, and two with wort, again one minute after flame out.
The wort actually consisted of 2.5l of water and 220g of brown sugar, boiled for about 20 minutes with half a handful of Amarillo thrown in at the start of boil.

I filled all bottles with about 780ml of liquid, one wort and one water bottle I just closed the lid very tightly immediately (water+Air and Wort+Air), on the other two bottles I flushed the headspace for about 10 seconds each with Co2 at 80 kPa (Water+Co2 and Wort+Co2) and then closed the lid.

This is what the bottles looked like straight after filling (click on pic to supersize):




And this is what they look like about 30 hours later:




As you can see the head space in the Co2 flushed bottles is significantly smaller than in the ones with air in the head space, meaning that some of that Co2 would have been absorbed by the wort or water. Even more so when you consider that the wort+Co2 one was filled a little less originally than the wort+air one. If I had filled both to the exact level the difference would be even more visible.

Take from that what you want, all I'm saying is that the wort does seem to absorb Co2 in the cooling process. If it's a matter of 'the more Co2 you give (higher pressure setting on reg) the more it will absorb' I don't know, that would involve another fairly simple experiment (two cornies with same amount of hot water or wort and two Co bottles attached to the gas in, one with low reg setting and one with high setting. Weigh Co2 bottle before and after the cornies have cooled to determine how much Co2 has been absorbed).

I might actually do that just out of curiosity unless someone smart comes along and tells us if and why this happens.

Sorry Manticle, i hope this isn't taking your thread too far off topic, was thinking of starting a new thread but thought it sort of belonged in here. Feel free to split if off though, or even better tell me and I'll do it and add a preface to it.

 

[manticle]

I think it's perfectly relevant here.

 

[manticle]

Be interested if the wort has any detectable fizz.

 

[Florian]

Good point, have chucked both Co2 samples in the fridge, will check later. Although i suspect that it might not be enough.
I'm more interested though if the dissolved Co2 might have any impact, good or bad, on fermentation. I know yeast obviously produces Co2 but this is not dissolved in the wort from the start.

 

[TheWiggman]

Awesome post Florian, if nothing else it serves to show that using CO2 will post a significant hazard if not managed correctly. That hazard being the destruction of perfectly usable kegs.

 

[manticle]

My kegs have held shape fine the two times I've done this. Kegs are very different to PET bottles though.

 

[Florian]

Awesome post Florian, if nothing else it serves to show that using CO2 will post a significant hazard if not managed correctly. That hazard being the destruction of perfectly usable kegs.

I guess if you only flush the headspace once and then disconnect the gas this could in theory happen (someone volunteer to host that experiment?), although so far it seemed the consensus between us few that it's best to keep the gas connected at some sort of pressure, or at the very least pressurise the keg to a certain level before disconnecting the gas.

As I said I'd be interested on the effects this might have to the wort, yeast and fermentation.

 

[pk.sax]

Well, considering how finicky saison yeast is, I'll keep an eye on the ferment (through the opaque keg) and report if I can tell if the dissolved co2 is doing any harm to speed of ferment etc. The fridge is sitting at 22C all by itself, I had meant to tell the stalling of ferment by releasing the CO2 a few times a day and when it stops getting pressurised if know the ferment is stalled/done. Witherspoon the wort showers, I'm less keen to keep doing that. Would have to figure it out somehow. Maybe hook up the gas and see the pressure in the gauge rise without turning on the reg. won't work though because of the nrv .... Need some other solution of telling is fermenting is done.

CO2 is basically C++++ and O-- O-- somewhat polar molecules. That is why it dissolves in water better than just air, even at lower pressures it'd give you a fizz while nitrogen etc have to be dissolved at far higher pressures due to the absence of polar charges. Ionic substances have best solubility, followed by polar charge carrying covalent molecules.