Waste not, want not (CO2)

I pressure ferment in a 10G Torpedo, so I get up to 30psi.

I am a slow adopter of change. I sit back and let the more adventurous plow new ground and I learn from the tips they discover. I embrace the change just don’t blaze the trail.

It’s my understanding that it takes very little time for the CO2 to push all the sanitizer out of the keg. My plan is to use a ‘burp jar’ a cpl days until high krauzen subsides to ensure there’s no blowoff. This cpl days gives me opportunity to kick, disassemble, clean, inspect, and reassemble the keg. Then I’ll hook up the fermenter blowoff hose to purge the keg with the liquid out line in a catch bucket.

Once I am blowing bubbles in the catch bucket I’ll closed transfer and install a spunding valve to let fermentation finish in the keg with the tag line of the valve in the bucket of sanitizer.

Once it stops bubbling I’ll place the keg in the fridge to cold crash under CO2 from the bottle set at serving pressure.

These two CO2 saving measures should increase the life of my CO2 bottle as well as use yeast to scavenge any O2 inadvertently picked up during closed transfer.

I just hook up to my liquid out line of my empty but sanitized keg and then keep the prv open, I know its not the same as having ferm CO2 push out liquid to replace with gas, but 3 days of fermentation creates such a high volume of CO2 my keg still get fully purged.

Here’s the setup for my first attempt at fermenter CO2 purging. I started with a blowoff jar for the first cpl days just to be sure I don’t collect barm. Then, I spliced in a jumper to the keg. I’ve collected ~ a cup in 15 minutes so this time tomorrow I should be blowing CO2 bubbles in a bucket of sanitizer.

Before I fill the keg I’ll turn it upside down towards the gas out post and use a QD to ensure all the sanitizer is drained. Then, I’ll hook it back up and take the tag end of the liquid out line and connect it to the fermenter spigot to close transfer.

Once more, I am going to *attempt* spunding on this batch so I’ll transfer tomorrow AM as soon as I blow bubbles and drain the residual sanitizer. I’ve been unsuccessful in the past but try, try again.




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Well, crap. I went downstairs this AM to see very little sanitizer in my catch bucket and a keg nearly full of sanitizer. 🤬

I had initial success yesterday AM seeing sanitizer pushing out of the drain line. Then I went to pour a beer last night and saw very little sanitizer in the catch bucket. I assumed a leak so used keg lube on the race track seal and ensured the posts were tight. This seemed to work because I saw sanitizer starting to progress out of the drain line again. …but something went sideways overnight.

I am speculating that I had a leak or waited too late into the fermentation timeline so I took the keg apart and replaced seals. I’ll check all clamps and hoses over the next cpl weeks and start day 1 next fermentation.

I decided to move on to my next process. So, I refilled the keg with sanitizer and purged it using bottle CO2.

I closed transferred the beer which is a few points from completion now and added bottled CO2 to the headspace to seal the lid. I checked for leaks with starsan, attached my spunding valve.