Comments on the Fermtor BS show

[Hugh-Jass]

Update to Corney vs Carboy experiment.

Hydrometer readings at 3 weeks.

(1) 1.014
(2) 1.016

Hydrometer readings at 4 weeks.

(1) 1.014
(2) 1.016


Tasting notes from hydrometer samples: Sample (1) has slightly better hop aromatics and better balanced. Not as sweet as sample (2). Both are good tasting beers, but may be a little under bittered for the style. Most likely from using hop bags in the boil kettle and getting lower utilization. Will be easier for my BMC fan friends to enjoy.

Going to bottle this weekend. Will let all of you know how the final product turned out in about a month.

The Fool.

I've fermented about 30 gallon in cornys using fermcap and bent the dip tube to avoid racking the trub. In all of the beers fermented in cornys, I've noticed similar results to yours. The beers have not attenuated fully in the keg.
I have a couple of batches in cornys brewed last week. I'm going to lightly shake them daily to try to gain a few extra gravity points. I'll check back when I take the next gravity sample.

Thanks for posting this.

[Hugh-Jass]

Update:
Took gravity samples late night from both beers fermented in cornys. Both are fully attenuated (1.012 and 1.014)

I did agitate the beers daily by "taking them for a walk around my basement" That was the only difference between these beers and the last batches that finished high.

Next time, I'll take one for a walk and leave one be to see if one drops lower than the other.

[remilard]

This is a bit dated and also based on data from larger vessels, but in Analysis of Brewing Techniques (I think, might have been POBS) Fix stated that vessels with height more than 1.2 x width were prone to micro fermentations whereby there were a number of localized convection currents rather than movement throughout the entire container. He stated that commercial breweries dealt with this by pumping beer out of and then back into the vessel (certainly possible with a corny and, hey, why not throw a torpedo in there while you are at it).

[DannyW]

I wonder how well it would work with a corny on its side. Fixes the height/width ratio problem and lets the beer clear faster since the yeast only has to fall 8" rather than 24".

[Blizzbrews]

Sorry for the dated reply, but I've been fermenting in corny kegs for quite some time now and would like add my 2 cents. The reason I went to cornies is I use a glass front wine fridge as my primary fermenting fridge. It can hold a 6gal carboy, but better yet it'll hold two 5 gal cornies. I usuaully brew a 10 gal batch, with just over 4.5gal going into each corny. I remove the gas-in post, poppet and dip tube, leaving just the threaded post. I put a piece of 1/2" ID tubing over the post and clamp it in place. Other end goes in a container with just enoug sanitizer to cover the tubing ends.

I cut about 1" off the end of the diptubes. Prior to cutting them I had trouble pushing the yeast out if the yeast was fairly compacted. Now it pushes out easily (with CO2) and if I want to harvest yeast, I add some boiled and cooled distilled water to the keg, swish it around real good the yeast into suspension and use CO2 to push it into a sanitized container.

After reading this thread and listening to Jamil talk about how it isn't the ideal fermentation vessel, my question is: If I like using cornies and intend to continue, are there things I could be doing to improve the quality of my fermentation? I think attenuation may suffer a bit compared to carboys and buckets, so is there something I can do compensate? I read somewhere that increasing fermentation temp 2-3 degrees might help mitigate the geometry issues, but would it be at the risk of creating fruity esters or other problems that arise from higher ferm temp?

I've turned out some fine beers using cornies, but would always like to do better. Any thoughts?

[jamilz]

Glad to see you sticking with kegs. The point of the show wasn't to tell people to toss out their equipment, but just to get people to think about their choices and the various consequences.

You can raise your fermentation temperature once you are past the growth stage for the yeast. Give them 2 days then you can start increasing the temp. near the end of fermentation, say the l.ast 1/3 or 1/4 you can raise it a bit more. You shouldn't get additional fruity esters from this method.

[Blizzbrews]

Thanks Jamil! Sounds like I was on the right track.