OK, so I have been thinking of ways to get my fermenting vessel into a temp controlled environment and freeing up my hall closet so my wife can have it back. LOL I have looked at mini fridges and wine coolers. They all seem to have a small lower shelf that gets in the way and causes the bucket not to fit. I am still looking, but was thinking of something else that I thought might work. If I buy a used Corny keg and use it as my fermenting vessel, it will fit in the kegerator I have and I can control the temp using my InkBird. I can get a used keg for about 50 bucks, rig up a blow off tube to the pressure relief valve and off I go. Thoughts on this? Am I making this way to simple? I am sure there is more to this than I am seeing, but just thought I would ask.
I’ve been doing some lager fermentaions in 5 gallon Corny kegs. Less kausen forms with a lager than an ale that is really rocking the fermentation.
I do 10 gallon batches and split between 3 kegs, as i have enough kegs to do this. I fill by weight, adding about 27 to 28 lbs wort per keg. I use the gas in as my CO2 out. In my room in the basement that gets down to 50F in the winter i have a gas disconnects with tubing going to a bucket of sanitizer. In my temp controlled keezer i use spunding valves set to a low pressure.
One trick is to cut about 3/4 inch off of the beer dip tube. That way it is less likely yo clog, and you leave yeast behind when to transfer the beer off for lagering.
Transferring procedure is to have 2 clean, sanitized, and purged kegs ready. Make a black disconnect to black disconnect jumper. Do a closed transfer from the fermentation keg to the vented purged empty keg. I put a gas disconnect to bucket of sanizer on first to vent the pressure and act as an airlock. I transfer by weight on a scale, a full keg weighs 50 lbs. Pressurize when done. Put the 2 full kegs into the lagering chamber.
I ferment full 5 gallon batches in cornies using special lids that have another hole to accept a bung and blow or airlock. Works terrifically for ales and lagers. I don’t even cut the dip tubes for this. When I’m ready to transfer a finish fermentation, I attach a CO2 line and run a bit of gas while I remove the special lid and replace it with a regular one. Then I close transfer to another serving keg after running some of the yeasty first bits into a sanitized jar to save for yeast resue. I’m happy with this but know there are plenty of ways to skin a cat…
No matter how you do it I like both the durability and the ease of cleaning of the kegs- not to mention the price point and multi-use possibilities of them.
I’ve been kicking around a similar scheme, just with spunding valves to naturally carbonate in the keg — then either serve from the keg or fill bottles off the naturally carbed keg.
I ferment in corny kegs exclusively and it works fantastic. I use an adjustable pressure release valve on the gas side. For ale fermentation I set it low (around 2 PSI) and for pressurized lager ferments I’ll set it to 15 PSI.
I will second the recommendation to use a floating dip tube. I was using a normal dip tube for a few years and it would clog pretty frequently. With a floating dip tube you don’t run into problems even if you dry hop fairly heavily.
If you keg, you can transfer finished beer to your serving keg with minimal oxygen exposure. If you bottle you can attach a bottling wand to the Out port and use a little CO2 to push the beer out of the keg.
I picked up a Danby (4.4 cu ft?) from Craigslist which works great for a single bucket. Not enough room for an airlock so I drilled a hole in the side and always run a blowoff tube (90 degree stainless elbow on it the bucket end of the hose). Not sure on the model number. I looked inside and didn’t see a label. Looks a lot like this one: Danby DAR044A8BBSL-SD or this one Danby DAR044A4BDD
