Transfering from cornie to cornie w/ co2

[rich]

Ok, I've retired my glass carboys once and for all without ever having dropped or broke one. I primary in lin-pac buckets, an when I choose to secondary I'm doing it in a cornie (this is not a secondary debate, so please don't dredge it up again). My question to those of you secondary in a cornie is this:

When you guys/gals transfer from the secondary cornie to the serving cornie, do you do it with the lid ajar to allow for displacement as the keg fills?

I'm using a short piece if dowel, feed through the pressure relief valves ring, and elevated on end with a small wedge to hold the valve open as I transfer. I cold crash all my beers for several weeks prior racking to serving keg, so just serving in the secondary keg, and excepting a few cloudy pints is not an option in my overly anal world.

Just wondering how everyone does it.

[Homegrown Hops]

I keep lids sealed on both cornys then pull release valve on the on I am filling turn slightly to allow the valve body to hold the "ring" open the attach the BLDQ to the post and fill away. When its done I close the release valve and disconnect the BLQD. HTH


HH

[Danno]

I'm with HH except I forget about leavin the relief valve open sometimes and the next thig I know, I have beer foaming out the RV. I just keep it closed and burp the receiving keg often to keep the flow moving.

[bubrewer]

I made two jumpers - one with gas QDs on both ends and the other with beer QDs on both ends. I fill the serving keg with sanitizer and push it all out with CO2. Then I gently stack the full keg on top of a spare empty keg. The receiving keg sits on the floor next to the two stacked kegs.

I'll pull off a half pint or so with a picnic faucet to get the yeast out of the way, then hook up the two jumpers and let the carbonated beer gently siphon itself to the empty keg. There is no foaming and no risk of spray from the releif valve. If I feel like paying attention, I will watch the tube for the last few minutes and disconnect as soon as I see yeast in the tube. If I don't pay attention, it will stop itself anyway with just a small amount of yeast making the trip over.

The transfer takes 30 min pretty much every time, so I can set a timer for 25min and go do something else while it takes care of itself.

There are a few more details involved (like a T and valves in the gas jumper to hook up to the Co2 bottle) but that it the basic procedure.

[Homegrown Hops]

bubrewer, If you have a jumper from one CO2 post to the other, where is the pressure coming from to transfer the beer? Do you have the keg that you are filling from at a higher pressure before transferring, it seems to me that your method would work until the kegs hit an equal pressure then the flow would stop. Maybe I am not thinking about it correctly, this method sound interesting but I need to absorb the information better.

HH

[bubrewer]

There is a T in the gas jumper, with a shutoff valve on each side. You can see a picture on http://bubrew.org/pressure-ferment.pdf on page 3. Where you see the pressure relief valve hooked up in the picture, I attach the CO2 bottle for the keg-to-keg transfer.

The kegs are at the same pressure. The transfer is done via gravity siphon rather than pressure differential. I do usually have to close one valve and pull the relief valve on the receiving keg just long enough to fill the jumper tube with beer. Then I close the relief and open the gas jumper valve. The rest of the tranfer takes place with the same pressure in both kegs.

[Homegrown Hops]

bubrewer, that is f'n great. Thanks for the visual aid too, that helped tremendously. I really like your setup, and you use the same rig to save carbonation from the last bit of fermentation, amazing.

HH

[rich]

Me likes too. I dig the way your using gravity, yet it's still a sealed system. Also returning the gas lines to allow for displacement. Brilliant.