1)I've been working on the assumption that I'd do primary in a carboy, rack to a second and then to a keg for a bit of aging before swilling. 2)If I ferment in a keg won't I get a ton of skunge in the bottom and 3)will the yeast be happy working under pressure? 4)And do you have to blow off pressure?
Actually what I need the carboys for is wine, so the need will continue, but have you been fermenting in kegs, and 5)hows the beer for clarity?
1. I do a primary for 2 weeks to a month depending on the recipe (stronger beers getting more time, smaller beers getting less within that range), and then I keg. There is no need to secondary: I dry hop and even add fruit in primary, after active fermentation.
2. It does, but this can be remedied but this is remedied by disposing of the first pint or so of gunky stuff that comes when you are ready to transfer under about 2psi CO2 presure from the primary keg to the serving keg. Basically, if you partially unscrew the top of the liquid disconnect in set it in a sanitized bowl, and plug the other end of the liquid to liquid cable onto the liquid out of the keg, you can vent out the gooey stuff, and then when the beer appears reasonably clear, re cap the open disconnect, and put on your serving keg, with the release valve open to fill it.
3. the optimal pressure for beer yeast is about 7psi, and if you us this method, you can actually go grain to glass in a few days, it's called Spunding, but you need additional equipment to do it.
4. you need the spunding valve to avoid a beer explosion if you want to ferment under pressure, but you can also just use a bit of hose attached to the gas-post recepticle on the keg (with post and dip tube removed) to attach an airlock. My current brown ale was done in that way.
5. the clarity is slightly less than with the other methods, nothing seroius. If you want, you can chop off the botom 3/4 inch of the dip tube on the fermentation keg to remedy this issue.
