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Fermenting in a stainless keg


Wolf

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Not strictly kegging but hopefully someone can help.

Since my beerdroid is 6 weeks away and my stainless kegs have already arrived I thought I would have a crack at fermenting a recipe in a 10L stainless keg. I have ordered a spunding valve and intend to cut the spear tubing so it sits a few cm above the dregs that will accumulate at the bottom of the keg. Temps are pretty mild at the moment so I should be able to keep the kegs stable around 20C for the duration. I intend to purge the air from the keg after adding the ingredients and setting the spunding valve to release at around 10 psi.

My brewkits use either the Belgian (y6) or wheat yeast (y5).

Looking for some general advice about attempting this brew as well as specific advice about which yeast js more likely to be palatable after fermenting in an unregulated environment?

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6 hours ago, Wolf said:

Not strictly kegging but hopefully someone can help.

Since my beerdroid is 6 weeks away and my stainless kegs have already arrived I thought I would have a crack at fermenting a recipe in a 10L stainless keg. I have ordered a spunding valve and intend to cut the spear tubing so it sits a few cm above the dregs that will accumulate at the bottom of the keg. Temps are pretty mild at the moment so I should be able to keep the kegs stable around 20C for the duration. I intend to purge the air from the keg after adding the ingredients and setting the spunding valve to release at around 10 psi.

My brewkits use either the Belgian (y6) or wheat yeast (y5).

Looking for some general advice about attempting this brew as well as specific advice about which yeast js more likely to be palatable after fermenting in an unregulated environment?

Hi Wolf. There is a problem here in that there will not be much head space so it is highly likely that krausen will go up through the gas inlet tube and post and wreck your spunding valve. The cleaning up of the keg afterwards won’t be great either.

I’d get a 15 to 20l food grade bucket or water drum and brew in that. You should find them in big hardware stores. 

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Wolf,

I have found that you need a lot of headspace for brews.  Once, I started a two gallon Russian Stout (not a BrewPrint) recipe in a three-gallon conical  fermenter.  This was a disaster as the fermentation lock became clogged and the lid blew off with enough force to dent my sheet-rock ceiling.  My bride was not pleased.

I managed to salvage most of that brew, but I have learned to leave plenty of headspace.

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13 hours ago, Wolf said:

Not strictly kegging but hopefully someone can help.

Since my beerdroid is 6 weeks away and my stainless kegs have already arrived I thought I would have a crack at fermenting a recipe in a 10L stainless keg. I have ordered a spunding valve and intend to cut the spear tubing so it sits a few cm above the dregs that will accumulate at the bottom of the keg. Temps are pretty mild at the moment so I should be able to keep the kegs stable around 20C for the duration. I intend to purge the air from the keg after adding the ingredients and setting the spunding valve to release at around 10 psi.

My brewkits use either the Belgian (y6) or wheat yeast (y5).

Looking for some general advice about attempting this brew as well as specific advice about which yeast js more likely to be palatable after fermenting in an unregulated environment?

Wolf,

On the yeast selection, I would go for the Y6 because it is an ale yeast and will probably perform better at typical room temperatures.  I am not familiar with Y5, an attributed wheat yeast, as to its temperature performance - if Y5 works well at typical room temperatures, it would be my choice.  

Once your droid arrives, these issues will not be a problem.

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