Fermenting under pressure

[Rafael Pestano]

My first under pressure fermentation, 12 hours after pitch. Its a Helles bock fermenting at 18C and my idea is to raise to 22C and 30PSI as fermentation slows down:

 

[Marty_G]

Have to love pressure fermentation. This is the double double batch I brewed yesterday. Forty three litres in each fermenter. The 38c is an American Pale ale pitched with Voss kveik the other at 24c is Czech Pils pitched with Urquell 2001. The Pils is sitting at ambient but was wrapped with a towel last night. The APA has 2 heat belts on it but now that it is at temp it will pretty much maintain that without the heat.  The Voss was pitched at midday yesterday and was at 15psi by 5pm and the Urquell was pitch about 4pm with 5psi added at pitching and was at 10psi at about 10pm.  Both at 15psi now and going gang busters.  I predict full ferment will be over by Friday. Then I will let sit for a couple of days before I think about my next move.  The fermenters are: a re-purposed 50 litre Sanke keg and a Mytton Grovener 50 litre keg.  

[Marty_G]

Update on the post above: the ferment of both brews is over. As predicted it was complete by Friday.  Took a sample of both yesterday and the predicted OG had been reached. This morning the pressure in both fermenters had dropped from 15psi which is an indication that the CO2 in the head space is being absorbed into the brew so the ferment is complete.  Will now cold crash the American Pale Ale in the black FV until Monday then keg that before cold crashing the other, a Czech Pilsner.  Both will be ready to drink by next weekend. However, the Pils will be conditioned until needed.  The benefit of pressure fermenting lagers is that lagering as such is not needed. 

[Rafael Pestano]

Yesterday I sampled my Helles bock from the fermenter (third day of cold crash and 12 days after brewday) and the carbonation was just right. Today I'll transfer to keg and will try to collect the yeast to do a Vienna Lager 

 

[Pezzza]

9 hours ago, Rafael Pestano said:

Yesterday I sampled my Helles bock from the fermenter (third day of cold crash and 12 days after brewday) and the carbonation was just right.

Hey there Rafael!  Looks llllllaaarvely!  Great Job!

And I love the pour set-up from the pressure FV - pretty cool!

Couple quick qns - what were your OG and FGs?

[Rafael Pestano]

9 hours ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Hey there Rafael!  Looks llllllaaarvely!  Great Job!

And I love the pour set-up from the pressure FV - pretty cool!

Couple quick qns - what were your OG and FGs?

Hey @Bearded Burbler, thanks!

The OG 1065 and FG 1014. It was 8 days of fermentation,  3 days at 18C/15PSI and the rest at 22C/31PSI (raised about 1C per day till 22C). Attached is the recipe:

 

[Pezzza]

57 minutes ago, Rafael Pestano said:

The OG 1065 and FG 1014. 

Lovely lovely - sounds like my idea of a good time! Ha ha.... luvyerwork.  

Well done RP - it will be nice to see a picture of the final brew and read your description!

I reckon Weyermann Pilsener Malt is a beautiful thing too ; )

[Rafael Pestano]

33 minutes ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Lovely lovely - sounds like my idea of a good time! Ha ha.... luvyerwork.  

Well done RP - it will be nice to see a picture of the final brew and read your description!

I reckon Weyermann Pilsener Malt is a beautiful thing too ; )

I posted some pictures here:

So I'll try to describe the beer, I've never drink this style (only the lighter version, the munich helles) so it's hard to compare. It's an awesome beer (I drank around 3L during the 4/5 days of cold crash haha), it's very malty, slightly caramel notes with a great mountfeel (medium to full body, probably will cleanup more with time). The bitterness is very well balanced with the little sweetness I get in the end. I think if it was a bit drier it would be even better. 

I hope it gives you an idea of how it looks like, sure I'll brew this again

[Pezzza]

7 minutes ago, Rafael Pestano said:

it's hard to compare. It's an awesome beer

Looks and sounds wonderful mate - I used to drink Einbecker Urbock in Hannover years ago - and also Maibock - they were both strong beers and very tasty..... might be down that line of drop I suspect - well done mate! 

And by the looks you have some very willing and helpful brewery hands as well!!?!!  

Some lovely looking Wurst/Salami too by the looks ; )

You should put those lovely sausages on the Salumi Page:

 

[Rafael Pestano]

Thank you for the recommendations @Bearded Burbler!

 Yea, the kids really enjoy the brewing activities, unfortunately for now they have to be away from the mashing/boiling part.

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You should put those lovely sausages on the Salumi Page:

Nice topic! I have a second batch of sopressa almost done, I'll try to upload some pics there.

[Rafael Pestano]

Here's how I'm doing the closed transfer without the need to release CO2 in the keg. I'm just re-filling the CO2 back into the fermenter as the keg gets filled. Bryan from ShortCircuitBrewery explains this technique in details here. I hope it helps someone else, cheers! 

[Marty_G]

13 hours ago, Rafael Pestano said:

It was 8 days of fermentation,  3 days at 18C/15PSI and the rest at 22C/31PSI (raised about 1C per day till 22C). Attached is the recipe:

Wow 31psi that is high.  Think this is the 1st time I have read someone using the pressures that high.   Where did that temp and pressure schedule come from?  I rarely push my pressure past 15psi but if it can go that high with no ill effects on the yeast and the flavour I will give it a try.   I assume the high pressure was to increase carbonation of the final product.   Most lager regimes I have seen are more like 24-26c at 15-20psi.  I have had the temp as high as 30c but if doing that need to add pressure from the start.    

Edited October 15, 2020 by MartyG1525230263

[Rafael Pestano]

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I assume the high pressure was to increase carbonation of the final product.

Yea that was the main reason, and with ales I will try with 34 (fermenter limit) in the end of the fermentation. 

I don't have much experience with pressurized fermentation (also non pressure) but I think 31PSI is not so much as yeast can handle much more when we carbonate beers in bottles (e.g when bottles explode they reach ~5 bars).

I'll be doing a NEIPA this weekend (fermenter is asking for new beer ) so let's see how It goes.

 

 

 

[Marty_G]

On 10/16/2020 at 3:31 PM, Rafael Pestano said:

I don't have much experience with pressurized fermentation (also non pressure) but I think 31PSI is not so much as yeast can handle much more when we carbonate beers in bottles (e.g when bottles explode they reach ~5 bars).

Great point.  Think I may start pushing my pressure up a tad.  I have pushed the temps up and done a lager at 30c may do my next brew at 20 psi then push it up to 30psi at the end.    So where did you get the 5 bar figure from for the bottle bombs? 

Edited October 17, 2020 by MartyG1525230263

[Rafael Pestano]

 

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So where did you get the 5 bar figure from for the bottle bombs? 

Somewhere in the internet, no official source/article, e.g: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/pressure-limit-of-bottles-bottle-conditioning.135085/ but also note that when you carbonate a Hefeweizen to 3.5 vols of CO2 on bottles at room temperature that goes beyond 35psi. 

Having said that I think that after raising the pressure from 15 to 31PSI my fermentation slowed down.  The wort I had on the hydrometer side by side with the pressurised fermenter went down to FG two or three days before the one which was in the fermenter.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Rafael Pestano

[Malter White]

Fermenting under pressure - 

I spent a few weeks making some Cerveza for my son and cider for my wife. I'm now down to 3 cartons of REAL beer for me. I've currently got 46 litres of IPA brewing that I need to be ready to drink before the 3 cartons run out. That's what I call fermenting under pressure.

[Pezzza]

11 hours ago, MUZZY said:

That's what I call fermenting under pressure.

Luvyerwork Muzzy - that's GOLD 

[Tricky Micky]

Slightly off topic as I do not ferment under pressure - well at least not in the FV, suffer from Muzzy's syndrome a bit though. I've followed LabCats advice and Bulk prime in the primary FV. I choose to carb at 3.2 V CO2 works out to approximately 9g/l at least according to the calculators I'm using . It has so far worked out perfectly for my lagers (Muzzy I'm on fire). I use PET bottles. @ day 10 conditioning @ approx 16 degrees the bottles have no give whatsoever but are not deformed in any way. The end result is really good, so much better than the 2 Carb drops I used on the first brew. Very happy Jan! Thanks LC

Edited October 19, 2020 by Mickep

[Rafael Pestano]

8 hours ago, Mickep said:

Slightly off topic as I do not ferment under pressure - well at least not in the FV, suffer from Muzzy's syndrome a bit though. I've followed LabCats advice and Bulk prime in the primary FV. I choose to carb at 3.2 V CO2 works out to approximately 9g/l at least according to the calculators I'm using . It has so far worked out perfectly for my lagers (Muzzy I'm on fire). I use PET bottles. @ day 10 conditioning @ approx 16 degrees the bottles have no give whatsoever but are not deformed in any way. The end result is really good, so much better than the 2 Carb drops I used on the first brew. Very happy Jan! Thanks LC

Hi, interesting. I'm now out of kegs for my neipa which fermented under pressure in 2 days and I'll have to bottle condition half of the batch and my problem is that the beer is already partially carbonated. 

Here's what I wrote down as my plan:

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19L Fermented at 25C and before cold crashing it was at 17PSI = 1.58 vols of CO2 (see here) in the beer. Let’s assume we have 1.45 vols of CO2 because we’ll lose a bit while transferring it into the bottles. 

Desired CO2 in beer is 2.6 vols, to calculate that go to https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/ and reduce “Temperature of Beer” until “CO2 in Beer” is equal to the vols of CO2 in our beer (1.45) and then get amount of prime sugar to carbonate 8L of beer, in this case 41g of glucose/corn sugar.

The 41g of corn sugar will be diluted in 100ml of boiled water (start the boil with 120ml) to be used in 16 bottles (6.25ml of priming per bottle). Use a syringe to measure the 6ml.

Let the bottles cool down in the fridge (together with the beer gun) before transferring

Any suggestions/corrections? 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Rafael Pestano

[Rafael Pestano]

Just to give a feedback about the partially carbonated beer and priming, the strategy above worked really great!! 

[Lettucegrove]

Good to hear @Rafael Pestano. I have just bottled two tallies from my last pressure fermented lager. The beer was partially carbonated so I chose to give the "rough as fark" method a crack. I put one and half carb drops in each bottled. As per the "rough as fark" method I used what ever was close to smash a carb drop in as close as possible to a half. I will report back with my findings.

[Peter walker]

Ok hope you all can bare with me, i intense to ferment my Sam Adams Boston Lager in my fermzilla allrounder @16C with the spending valve set to 16psi, letting the brew build up to this naturaly. after a few days add dry hops and depressurise if needed to 16psi. when fermentation finished Cold crash adding pressure as required to keep 16psi then raise temp to 6C and keep pressure a 16psi for a week to force carbonate to give me approx 2.7 vol co2. then with this slightly higher vol co2 bottle from all rounder using beer gun hoping not loosing too much co2. does anyone see any problems with this?

[Shamus O'Sean]

2 hours ago, Peter walker said:

Ok hope you all can bare with me, i intense to ferment my Sam Adams Boston Lager in my fermzilla allrounder @16C with the spending valve set to 16psi, letting the brew build up to this naturaly. after a few days add dry hops and depressurise if needed to 16psi. when fermentation finished Cold crash adding pressure as required to keep 16psi then raise temp to 6C and keep pressure a 16psi for a week to force carbonate to give me approx 2.7 vol co2. then with this slightly higher vol co2 bottle from all rounder using beer gun hoping not loosing too much co2. does anyone see any problems with this?

I have never pressure fermented (yet).  But I would be worried that your bottles would lose their fizz after a short while.  I do not think that you can maintain the 2.7 vols of CO2 in the bottles if they get depressurised between filling and capping.

It is the pressure in the bottles that forces the CO2 into the liquid and keeps it there.  I think you would be better off adding some sugars at bottling to increase the pressure in the bottles back up storage pressure.  I do not know how much sugars you would need if the beer is already partly carbonated though.

I think that force carbonating in these pressure fermenters, then transferring to kegs works because once the brew is kegged, you can introduce serving pressure to the keg to keep the CO2 in the kegged brew.

Let's see what the pressure fermenting brigade have to say.

[Lettucegrove]

I too would love to know how to bottle beer from a pressure fermented brew. Are there any gadgets out there that would help?

[Peter walker]

well i was thinking of using a beergun