I've been trying to find ways to "simplify" brewing. My most recent attempts have been fermenting and serving from the same corny keg. I fill up to the weld line and start with 10-12 psi to seal things up and let it ride. This has been great because when it is close to done I can ramp the spending value up to 20-25 psi and then cold crash and serve without transfer... always a PITA to prep and purge a second keg, then deal with the racking cane, then cleanup of all the stuff. I can just move it straight to the kegerator and serve.
While pressure does keep the krausen down it doesn't always stop it and sometimes have it coming through the spunding valve which, since I am using a cheapo bow-tie has gotten a little variable in keeping pressure ... I think some junk has caused it to be overly sensitive. I'm brewing a festbier right now and, although I confirmed the valve was set to 15 psi when I started I came downstairs the next day to find it was well over 30 psi when the valve got "stuck". Relieving the pressure causes the krausen to expand out the PRV and the valve making a bit of a mess.
This got me thinking on how I could augment this process to continue to brew 5 gal batches in a single ferment-and-serve vessel while also having the option to do pressure or not.
I have plenty of kegs and I wondered if it would be possible to use one as an extra large airlock... pull the gas fitting and tube from the fermenter and screw on a fitting with a hose connected to a second keg's beer-out (dip tube replaced with a gas line tube). The keg would be filled some amount with sanitizer. I could then put the spunding valve on the gas out of the second keg. If I wanted "no pressure", set it really low (1-3 psi). If I wanted to ferment under pressure, set it to whatever PSI I need.
This way, krausen has a place to go and, even if I don't put pressure on, it will stay out of the spunding valve. While I would then need to clean this second keg, that's probably the simplest part of the process as I have a keg washer and I would still not have to do any transfer to serve.
Anyone done something like this?
Are there fittings that can screw on to the keg posts and then attach a hose?
thanks.
While pressure does keep the krausen down it doesn't always stop it and sometimes have it coming through the spunding valve which, since I am using a cheapo bow-tie has gotten a little variable in keeping pressure ... I think some junk has caused it to be overly sensitive. I'm brewing a festbier right now and, although I confirmed the valve was set to 15 psi when I started I came downstairs the next day to find it was well over 30 psi when the valve got "stuck". Relieving the pressure causes the krausen to expand out the PRV and the valve making a bit of a mess.
This got me thinking on how I could augment this process to continue to brew 5 gal batches in a single ferment-and-serve vessel while also having the option to do pressure or not.
I have plenty of kegs and I wondered if it would be possible to use one as an extra large airlock... pull the gas fitting and tube from the fermenter and screw on a fitting with a hose connected to a second keg's beer-out (dip tube replaced with a gas line tube). The keg would be filled some amount with sanitizer. I could then put the spunding valve on the gas out of the second keg. If I wanted "no pressure", set it really low (1-3 psi). If I wanted to ferment under pressure, set it to whatever PSI I need.
This way, krausen has a place to go and, even if I don't put pressure on, it will stay out of the spunding valve. While I would then need to clean this second keg, that's probably the simplest part of the process as I have a keg washer and I would still not have to do any transfer to serve.
Anyone done something like this?
Are there fittings that can screw on to the keg posts and then attach a hose?
thanks.