Ok, so I acquired a spunding valve. I want to use it. So what are the basics and what styles benefit from it the most? And what can I expect come time to keg?
My conical is good up to 15 psi, is there any benefit to setting the spunding valve at 5 psi and letting it roll throughout fermentation in the conical then transferring to a serving keg?
Or if you wanna make a lager without having to ferment at low temps. Im gonna give it a try this weekend.
I will put this to the test this weekend. Dont have a tall fermenting vessel but i do have a way to pressure ferment some lager yeast at ale temps to see if it really does have an impact on the beer.This is often brought up but not exactly true.
Lager yeast see hydrostatic pressure from the head pressure caused by the liquid height in the tall cylindroconical fermenting tanks used in large commercial breweries. Hydrostatic pressure is not the same as gauge pressure or simply the pressure inside the tank vs out. Secondly, pressure is directly related to the solubility of CO2 and higher pressure causes the gas to build up in the yeast cells which they don't particularly like. Fortunately though there are currents in these large tanks caused by temperature differentials as well as CO2 evolution that forces the beer to circulate from top to bottom and back. At any given time the yeast is only subjected to the pressure that is specific to the height they are at in the liquid column and that is always changing. Therefore they can give off that built up CO2 as they near the top of the tank otherwise the yeast would become stressed and under perform.
These conditions are specific to the physics of tall columns and head/hydrostatic pressure and cannot be replicated by simply adding gauge pressure to your fermentation vessel. This idea homebrew scale presure fermentation has been roaming these forums for a while but is a complete misunderstanding of the actual process and detrimental to yeast health as well as your final product.
Most people that use this method also cut a few inches off the dip tube in keg, because you are transferring beer before cold crashing it, so will have lots of trub.
I would suggest just a blow off tube to start. At hop time, just open and drop. Without any carbonation yet I don't think you will get any foaming during the hop drop. Then spund at 5 to finish?Hypothetically, what if I were to brew an ipa that was getting dry hopped and spund at 5psi, come time to dry hop, release the pressure, dry hops in, close back up for a couple days then close transfer. Will I get lots of foaming with the dry hop? Will this process help avoid oxygen? Or is this a bad idea an stick to using it with regular ales or lagers.
Spot on man. Hefes want that yeast esters in there, ales, depending on what you make, im doing a honey ale saturday and gonna pressure ferment it cuz i want nothing but honey and hops in flavor. Lagers are just pure malt and hops, so pressure is its best friend. Im gonna try a hefe at 5 psi to see if i can get a erdinger type of ferment from it.I've just recently started fermenting in kegs...and even more recently started doing it under pressure...What I've observed so far...
Hefes don't like pressure...well mine certainly did not. Prevents any "banana and clove"...so use a blow off tube the first few days/week...then spund to whatever target carb pressure you like (using the carb chart).
Ales in general like yeast "expression"...probably best to also use a blow off tube first...or spund to a very low psi ( 5? ) from the start. No real benefit from running ales at higher temps under higher pressure since most everyone's home is probably in an acceptable temp range for ales anyway.
Lagers...spund right away at ale temps ( 15psi? ) or perhaps even set at target carbonation pressure right away? Pressure seems to prevent negative lager yeast "expressions" that would normally result from the higher fermentation temps.
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