Keg to keg transfer – advice please!

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phildo79

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Hi all.

Some advice / knowledge, please.


I am thinking about buying another couple of kegs and using them to ferment in and then do a closed transfer to a serving keg. Whilst I have no doubt this will be better for the beer, I am wondering if it will make a noticeable difference. I have noticed the hop aroma fading quite quickly on my last two brews (IPA and a pale ale). Would a closed transfer help keep the aroma for longer?


Also, how tricky is it to do? I have watched a few different videos and they are all a little different. One of them suggests that if you want to brew 19L, you need to use two kegs to ferment by splitting the batch. Is this totally necessary?


Overall, I guess I am trying to weigh up the cost of new kegs plus a few extra bits of kit (tubing, disconnects etc.) against the overall outcome and quality of the beer. My plastic bucket FV’s have served me well for almost a decade and I did watch a video of a closed transfer from a plastic bucket FV to a corny so I know it can be done that way.


Decisions, decisions.


Thanks in advance
 
quick reply as in middle of a brew day.

Assuming you are talking about corny kegs I can't see it working as all you will do is either clock the out dip tube or transfer all the crud into the serving keg which is not what you want.

Probably better to look at you process to see where you could be introducing condition to accelerate hope fade ( you will always get some over time) or get a designated fermenter designed for pressure transfer (I believe there are several on the market now).
 
I did look into this myself as it goes,as i have a couple spare corny kegs i bought (refurbished ones) i now only use my new ones for serving. I think the best way around this... is replacing the dip tube and using a gas in tube instead? then using the floating dip tube system that the fermzilla uses? There’s a few retailers currently selling the floating dip tube setup for around £10 ish. Also you’ll need a spunding valve too for more accuracy which can be obtained fairly cheap too. Hope this helps?
 
I've been thinking of giving this a go, from what I've read it seems fermenting in a corny will work but you either need to cut down the dip tube to avoid the crud post-ferment, or as @cossie.j says a floating arrangement could also work.

To allow for sufficient headroom I'm thinking probably max of about 15l batch, I guess you could look into an anti-foam additive if you want to maximize the batch size with a single keg?

Have also considered the fermzilla but it's bigger, more expensive and made out of plastic, so a keg does seem appealing as a cheap way into fermenting under pressure.
 

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