New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association
Brewing => Technique => Topic started by: JohnQ on October 24, 2011, 07:36:17 AM
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I know that Kyle has just started spunding his first batch, anybody else try it yet?
Results?
JQ
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Next batch I'm doing will be an IPA using the valve... likely some time later this week.
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Don't know what it is. I have heard of spelunking though.
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Still debating on whether to make the pilsner in the spunding keg at a higher temp or make it in the fermentation chamber I've almost got finished...
If I hold off, the next ale's definitely going in it.
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mine is making a steady sssssssssssssssssssssssss noise now.
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Still debating on whether to make the pilsner in the spunding keg at a higher temp or make it in the fermentation chamber I've almost got finished...
If I hold off, the next ale's definitely going in it.
Somewhere in the vast array of pages I was reading on pressure fermenting, that was one of the things I found, though i didn't research that vein much further. They were claiming that a microbrewery somewhere uses pressure to increase the temps on all they do for various reasons, but in short, higher temp was regarded as a benefit n this situation.
I'm still trying to tell my arse from a hole in the ground so shelved the line of investigation until I figured out the basics.
JQ
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I'm intrigued. I know I mentioned to you that I researched some on various lagering techniques, and pressure lagering was supposed to speed up the clarification process from 4-6weeks to half that time. I never noticed anything about the temp though.
I always thought though, that the point was that higher temps = more yeast flavor = bad in lager (especially super strict pilsners)
Maybe I'll give it a shot anyway. I want the Pils done for the start of December, so I should get on it and try the tecnique out this weekend.
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Just started my first fermentation using the spunding valve John. I used Richard's black IPA recipe, and used a little bit more sparge water to get a post boil volume of about 26L, then transferred to 2 kegs (roughly 13L in each). Using a little 2 port manifold so I can use the spunding valve on both of them. I'm thinking lots of headroom so no worries about krausen spray, but put the spunding valve in a bucket with a lid just in case. Made and pitched the batch yesterday and today it's hissing away nicely.
Very excited about his John, after tasting Richard's black IPA, then your competition IPA last weekend, this is going to be AWESOME!
Not to go too off topic, but I was thinking about the whole benifit of using a spunding valve to mimic the pressure on the yeast cake in a big brewery. I was also thinking of the krausening technique that a lot of German (and other) breweries do where they pitch a small yeast starter in the secondary fermenter to clean up the beer....and I thought to myself...that's pretty much what's going to happen when I transfer from the primary keg to the secondary. Sure, I'm going to pour out the first pint or so of beer as it's a bunch of yeast slurry, but there's still going to be a fair amount go into the secondary....which would mimic the krausening technique....correct? So maybe that has a good part to do with why your pressure fermented IPA was so damn good?
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So far as I understand it the krausening technique relies on yeast that is at a peak of activity in fermentation, which would differ from the state of yeast that might be expelled during transfer after primary had finished. I'm pretty sure the effect cell-for-cell would be considerably different.
Also the yeast left after fermenting beer that strong would not be as viable as the yeast during active fermentation of a lower-ABV beer.
Certainly having viable yeast around would help to clean up the beer in any event, but I'm struggling to see how the situation you describe would differ from rousing the yeast in a normal primary fermentation vessel. Just going off what I've read and seen, I'm not sure how well documented this spunding stuff is ;)
Glad you liked my recipe - very interested to see how it turns out with the spunding valve :)
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Well,
S-04 is always fast, but with the spunding valve, when I woke up this morning, it was done fermenting (pitched Sunday around 6pm).
Unfortunately I initially put the contraption on the liquid-out post, for about 3 or four hours. So it got some gunk in it. What is the suggested way to dissasemble and clean the spunding valve?
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need to install a hydrometer on the side of the keg :P
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Unfortunately I initially put the contraption on the liquid-out post
:lol:
Kinda surprised that 3-4 hours was enough to get pressure from the yeast though.
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Me too, but it was just a trickle, also possibly acting as a syphon.
Anyways the solution to cleaning trub out of the spunding valve:I took a 2" peice of the silicone wort transfer hose, pushed it over the top of the valve, then looked for the 4 holes in the valve, and cut one hole in the hose that lined up with one of them. Hooked up an empty (rinsed and dried) keg to my fridge, and shoved the other end of the hose over the draft tap, turned it on. Repeated 8 timers, meaning two rotations, so that each of the four holes was the only air escape at two times, gave each time a couple second C02 Blast.
fixed.
The seperate pressure guage on the other hand... I'll be getting a new one of those.
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The seperate pressure guage on the other hand... I'll be getting a new one of those.
I can pick up a replacement if you'd like.
JQ
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That would be amazing. Actually, get 2 if you don't mind, I have a busted regulator guage as well. Let me know how much I owe you.
I'm also going to put one of those water filter housings (minus the filter) in line so no more goo goes in the spunding thing.
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Once I clean out my spunding valve tonight, I'm going to put my redgreed krausen catcher in line so I don't have to clean the darn thing again.
Pretty funny how many of us have to clean our valves! and there's John sitting back probably chuckling at us all because he had to do the same thing his first time around... :frazzled:
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Lol, true, only as soon as I saw a little krausen coming out, I put the inline keg as the krausen catcher to stop that from happening again.
Still thinking about using it as a top yeast catcher.
JQ
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Well, the valve works much better when it's clean. I have a feeling it also works much better with some type of air gap between the fermenting keg and the spunding valve, like another keg or something. I've cleaned the spunding valve 2-3 times since sunday, and since I put my redgreen kausen catcher inline, the valve seems very accurate, blowing off consistently.
Here's a pic of my setup...don't laugh...
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:shock:
Great Job Jr!
All you need is a little coathanger involved in some way...
Seriously though, what process did you use to go about the cleaning of the spunding valve?
JQ
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I tried taking the spunding valve apart, but taking the screw out at the end didn't seem to loosen anything up so I cleaned it real good using a pressurized keg of oxy clean. I hooked the gas out fitting to the keg, put the keg on it's side, covered 3 of the 4 holes on the spunding valve at a time and turned the pressure knob until water spurted out with a good amount of pressure. repeated the process, covering 3 of the 4 holes until I ran a good 2L of cleaner through the valve. I then did the same procedure with pressurized clean water.
Then I used the spray nossle on my air compressor to spray air through each of the spunding valve holes...I did this with the spunding valve all the way open.
The thing is clean as a whistle and back to accurate.
I didn't clean it well enough the other few times as I noticed that the spunding valve would hiss, then quickly stop, and then build pressure way above what I set. I would just touch the pressure knob and it would start hissing again...
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Fakr,
That setup you have looks great!!
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Thanks Kyle. I was hoping to use the inline PET bottle as a repitchable krausen catcher. It's a 1L see throught bottle so wouldn't be too hard to determine the volume of krausen.
I'm wondering if I couldn't also use it to capture part of the yeast cake from the primary keg by attaching maybe a quick disconnect to the hose so I can attach a gas or a liquid fitting.
John, you think I would be able to attach this krausen bottle to the liquid out valve, set the spunding valve to higher PSI than the keg, and slowly turn down the pressure to get a nice slow controlled flow of yeast cake into the krausen catcher bottle? It has a sealed cap on it that could then be unscrewed and poured into a batch of beer...or perhaps even add some wort to make a small 1L yeast started?
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as long as you can sanitize the fittings on the catchment bottle, it should work.
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Absolutely, swap the line leading to it for a liquid line, attach to the out port and slowly open the spunding valve.
I'd do it before cold crashing and even gently swirl the keg a bit to maximize the yeast capture while minimizing the beer transfer.
JQ
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Great setup... very nice :D
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Thanks for the confirmation Senior! I'll do that.
I'll thoroughly sanitize the bottle next time around as it wasn't this time...and I only added the bottle after getting frustrated with cleaning the spunding valve so much. since I put it on, there isn't a drop in the bottle...go figure...
and thanks Richard for the feedback!
If you guys have any ideas on how to improve on the krausenyeast catcher bottle, I'm all ears. I believe I'm going to swap the 2 port manifold for a 4 port, add check valves to eliminate cross contamination, add 1/4 ball valves to each port, and hard mount everything to a board or something...I was thinking of using quick disconnects for the bottle too so it could be easily removed cleaned.
This shit is fun as hell!
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This shit is fun as hell!
Legos for big kids :D