School me on pressure fermentation

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Bradbrewsbeer
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School me on pressure fermentation

Post by Bradbrewsbeer » Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:57 pm

Hey guys, I am the proud new owner of an all rounder. I also picked up the blowtie spunding valve to play with. I am cold crashing my common and plan on using the yeast cake ( mj Bavarian lager)for a baltic porter today. Lots of info out there ( a little too much ), just wondering what you guys do as far as when to apply pressure how much etc. Any help is greatly appreciated
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LiverDance
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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by LiverDance » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:01 pm

I transfer my beer in, add my yeast and set mine to 15 psi and let it ride.
"Twenty years ago — a time, by the way, that hops such as Simcoe and Citra were already being developed, but weren’t about to find immediate popularity — there wasn’t a brewer on earth who would have gone to the annual Hop Growers of American convention and said, “I’m going to have a beer that we make 4,000 barrels of, one time a year. It flies off the shelf at damn near $20 a six-pack, and you know what it smells like? It smells like your cat ate your weed and then pissed in the Christmas tree.” - Bell’s Brewery Director of Operations John Mallet on the scent of their popular Hopslam.

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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by Bradbrewsbeer » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:46 pm

Ok sounds easy enough. I was worried about it being a lager and having to do something for the diacetyl rest.
Kegged - Cold IPA, NEIPA, Fieldberry Wheat, Dark Abbey Ale, Apple Pear Cider, American Lager, American Stout, Belgian Wit

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PMackie
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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by PMackie » Mon Feb 22, 2021 8:32 am

LiverDance wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:01 pm
I transfer my beer in, add my yeast and set mine to 15 psi and let it ride.
Same, works like a charm.
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mccutheon
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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by mccutheon » Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:05 pm

I have been doing pressure fermentations in corny kegs for a little while now, and also started using the blowtie spunding kit, and the floating dip tubes that noble grape sells. I originally bought a bunch of the brass, screwspring spunding valves from ontario beer kegs, and had a lot of trouble with them. Blowties have been great so far.

A pretty easily digestible source for info on pressure fermentation is the youtube channel Dr Hans Brewery. He has a 3 part video series where he rapid fires answers to common pressure fermenting questions. He'll also respond directly to emails about pressure fermentation.

On sunday night, I brewed the Biermuncher Blonde recipe and am pressure fermenting it for the first time to see how it compares to the many other times I've made it. Pitched us-05, and its been sitting at 72F/30 PSI for the last 2.5 days. Just started raising the temp up to 77F/33 PSI, and I'm hoping to take it to a get together on Saturday, so 6 days grain to glass.

Pressure Fermenting has a lot of great benefits.
- Easy to draw samples from fermentation vessels
- Slowly purges oxygen from vessel headspace, and can be daisy chained to a serving vessel to purge that as well
- Carbonates beer while you ferment. 15 PSI at 70F would get you to about 1.6 Vols, 29 PSI at 70F would get you to the common 2.5 Vols. Looks like the all rounder has an upwards pressure limit of about 36 PSI.
- Pressure will suppress Krausen height, so you can fill your fermentation vessel more, and not have to worry about mess
- No blow off tube needed if you have a spunding valve

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mckay75
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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by mckay75 » Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:14 am

Just ordered 2 blowtie kits from East Coast Hoppers...can't wait to start using them.

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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by Bradbrewsbeer » Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:07 am

My Baltic porter hit final gravity in 4 days, doing a rest now. I had a leak and had to wait for fermentation to almost finish to open it and re seal it. I tried to let the pressure off while it was fermenting and the krausen rose up to the lid lol. Would have been a mess. So far so good, just set it at 10 psi and let it go, a bonus is that is it super easy to grab a sample with a picnic tap.
Kegged - Cold IPA, NEIPA, Fieldberry Wheat, Dark Abbey Ale, Apple Pear Cider, American Lager, American Stout, Belgian Wit

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mccutheon
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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by mccutheon » Thu Feb 25, 2021 12:16 pm

The off gassing that occurs from releasing pressure during a fermentation is pretty crazy for sure.

You can see what happens here when he attempts to dry hop at 'high krausen' without first adequately releasing the headspace pressure and letting it come to equalibrium. What a mess. At about 18 minutes in the video, he tries again, and this time, does 3 off gassing sessions, about a minute apart, letting krausen fall each time, and gets it to a workable state.



My blonde is currently at 1.018 according to my tilt hydrometer (not fully accurate since its partially/fully carbonated) and I'm hoping it goes down another 4-5 points or so and settles out by tomorrow night, so I can do a diacetyl test and then cold crash.

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Re: School me on pressure fermentation

Post by Bradbrewsbeer » Thu Feb 25, 2021 1:22 pm

I've been watching his videos for a while, he makes me smile. Lots of good info for sure
Kegged - Cold IPA, NEIPA, Fieldberry Wheat, Dark Abbey Ale, Apple Pear Cider, American Lager, American Stout, Belgian Wit

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