I will now use Iodophor for keg purging. I also use it for my flasks and starters. I also am now going to use it periodically on my fermenters. I’ve never had an issue with StarSan either.
Got the first 6 gal in the new fermenter today! One thing that occurred to me is that the plastic will be slightly more insulating than glass carboys (in the fridge, bringing it down the last few degrees from wort chiller temp to lager pitching temp took maybe a little longer.) I’ve set the fridge thermostat a hair lower than usual and I’ll see how it goes. I am really excited about this setup.
Jim,
So the gas flows in around the dip tube, pressurizing the fermentor and forcing beer out the dip tube and into the keg? Are you just installing this into the fermentor when it’s time to transfer or leaving it in during fermentation? How much for that setup with the ball lock out?
Yes, that’s how it works. I instal it at the time of transfer. I bought a couple other things along with it and total bill was about $120. I think
It works great but be aware that you need to assemble it with Teflon tape once you get it, and I suggest testing it with a fermentor partially full of sanitizer before hooking it to beer. Make sure your gas in is set to about 5psi first too.
Came up with a further mod for my setup to stop me worrying about sanitation. Nor cal has made me an adapter so where the spigot is in the pics I’ve linked, I’ll have a liquid corny post! I’ll update pics next batch, I think I have a really good closed system now.
That makes more sense than a spigot. To me at least. A little easier to actually clean and sanitize right before transfer. We are always told clean then sanitize. I can’t bring myself to transfer through a plastic spigot that was cleaned and then sat for a month, then spritzed with starsan. A lot of people do it, and it works for them, but I just cant.
Yep, I got the idea right before I took a sample today. This sanitation time bomb had been eating at me. I was ready to pull a sample and spritz the heck out of the thing and cover it with foil and then it hit me. Got in touch with Nor Cal and a couple emails and an hour later Jaybird sent me a pic of the thing he’s made. Corny post with a 1/2" female pipe thread to go on the port. Becky said he was jumping around the shop all excited, she thought it sounded ingenious, and I can’t fathom that I might have had an original idea. Gas in, liquid out, it’s like a Speidel and a keg had a baby!
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Nice
Looks cool, Jim! So between us we have two different approaches to this, mine modeled on a conical without the cone, yours on a Sanke. For the benefit of others thinking about this it looks like the main pros/cons of each might be: you have to open up your Speidel to put this in, my setup can stay closed throughout; I have to position my “racking arm” (dip tube) before filling the fermentor and can’t move it afterward, while you can position your racking tube as you go. (As for my thermowell, you could still put one in the bottom if you wanted.)
PS got my ball lock fitting to go on the port today, it’s great. Thanks pointing me toward Nor Cal and Speidel!
Awesome! The beers I kegged today were open fermented so… already opened. On beers that I use the airlocks, I simply choose not to concern myself with the air I might get by removing the airlock and installing the transfer spear. My main objective is to not get a buggy washer lifting the fermentor. Not lifting it (disturbing it), and pulling from above the trub, equals clearer beer transfered. There’s probably some minimal O2 but probably not nearly as much as I used to get with my auto siphon.
This coupled with now doing a true purge of my kegs, is probably better than before re O2. But the big benefit I see already is totally trub free beer to the keg. Before, no matter how gentle I was, there would be some. Then it would get stirred up when I move the keg to the kegerator. It would take a few more days to resettle. Pain in the butt! That’s all done now though. Pretty happy with this setup.
Yep, I used to figure I got minimal air popping on my carboy cap rig. All closed is a bonus, the first priority was not lifting glass carboys! I may still lift this for transfers but if I do it’s a lot less weight and less danger if my back does go out halfway up (always a worry!)
I have yet one more variant of a closed transfer to a Speidel. I have a cask breather, so I use it to replace the volume of beer leaving the fermenter with CO2 during a gravity transfer (you could just use pressure instead). The gas out line goes to a bucket of water and gives an audible feedback while it drains. That way I can do other tasks and not have watch it. Once the bubbling is gone, the keg is full.
Cool! I like the audible monitoring idea, especially as gravity transfer does leave you time to go do something else!
This is how I’ve been doing it. I pull the prv, because if I don’t it blows back into the fermentor. Then start beer in. When beer comes out the prv I stop. Then I have a beer out stub and I push out about a pint, till I stop hearing bubbles from the gas in tube.
I shopped for a decent 0-60 scale and they are just too much and not necessary. So far so good
What would happen if you Connect the keg gas to the top of the Speidel?
Wouldn’t gravity move the beer to the keg and keg co2 to the Speidel?
I don’t use gravity. Scroll up to see my configuration. Post #69. It’s basically a Sanke transfer spear, for a Speidel.
My bad. I was responding to Macbrews and you got your message in before I pressed Send.
Lol
In my arrangement, I know I could run the keg gas back to the Speidel and do gravity, thought about it, but since I have to get the gas bottle out of the keezer to purge the keg anyway, that seems like just one more jumper line to put together.