[hopfenundmalz]

There are two competing stories on homebrewing forums. The first says that a CO2 blanket will eliminate oxygen exposure for your beer. The second says that the CO2 blanket is a myth, and that it doesn't exist. As is often the case, both sides have a kernel of truth to them but neither one is completely correct. The CO2 blanket is not a myth, and it can kill you if you don't understand this (although probably not in a homebrewing context). On the other hand, it is temporary at best and is not going to prevent oxygen exposure. It can reduce it, but not eliminate it.

From safety training videos in an automotive lab, I remember that you can die if the O2 concentration drops to 18%. The video showed a flame also sputtering and going out at that level.

Touring the PU brewery we watched a video at first. It showed the master brewer Vaclav Berka Walking in the old cellars with a candle. I wondered if that was to warn of too much CO2? It was, watch this video from PU.

https://youtu.be/AnnTsT8jAmc

The candle flame has sharp edges, so it also helps to check for clarity. Learned that today.

[jeffy]

There are two competing stories on homebrewing forums. The first says that a CO2 blanket will eliminate oxygen exposure for your beer. The second says that the CO2 blanket is a myth, and that it doesn't exist. As is often the case, both sides have a kernel of truth to them but neither one is completely correct. The CO2 blanket is not a myth, and it can kill you if you don't understand this (although probably not in a homebrewing context). On the other hand, it is temporary at best and is not going to prevent oxygen exposure. It can reduce it, but not eliminate it.

From safety training videos in an automotive lab, I remember that you can die if the O2 concentration drops to 18%. The video showed a flame also sputtering and going out at that level.

Touring the PU brewery we watched a video at first. It showed the master brewer Vaclav Berka Walking in the old cellars with a candle. I wondered if that was to warn of too much CO2? It was, watch this video from PU.

https://youtu.be/AnnTsT8jAmc

The candle flame has sharp edges, so it also helps to check for clarity. Learned that today.

Many years ago on a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery, I leaned over the catwalk and took a big whiff of the open fermenters to see what they smelled like.  I almost fell in.

[denny]

There are two competing stories on homebrewing forums. The first says that a CO2 blanket will eliminate oxygen exposure for your beer. The second says that the CO2 blanket is a myth, and that it doesn't exist. As is often the case, both sides have a kernel of truth to them but neither one is completely correct. The CO2 blanket is not a myth, and it can kill you if you don't understand this (although probably not in a homebrewing context). On the other hand, it is temporary at best and is not going to prevent oxygen exposure. It can reduce it, but not eliminate it.

From safety training videos in an automotive lab, I remember that you can die if the O2 concentration drops to 18%. The video showed a flame also sputtering and going out at that level.

Touring the PU brewery we watched a video at first. It showed the master brewer Vaclav Berka Walking in the old cellars with a candle. I wondered if that was to warn of too much CO2? It was, watch this video from PU.

https://youtu.be/AnnTsT8jAmc

The candle flame has sharp edges, so it also helps to check for clarity. Learned that today.

Many years ago on a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery, I leaned over the catwalk and took a big whiff of the open fermenters to see what they smelled like.  I almost fell in.

Fell or jumped?   

[BrewBama]

Many years ago on a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery, I leaned over the catwalk and took a big whiff of the open fermenters to see what they smelled like.  I almost fell in.

I’m ~30 miles South of the Distillery. Great fun.


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[Megary]

I'm a bit confused with the setup.  Assuming that the fermenter is placed higher than the keg, will gravity be enough to push the beer through the tubing and fittings for transfer into the keg?  Part of balancing kegging lines is getting some resistance to the flow.  And, which post do you connect the line from the fermenter spigot to?  Thanks in advance for your advice.

If you click on the link to my site (the globe icon, I think) and go to BREWING PROCESS, I have some pics.

Fermenter in fridge.  Silicone tubing connected to the post of an airlock, airlock inserted into plastic fermenter lid with grommet.  Hole in fridge door so tubing can go through the door and to a keg sitting on the basement floor and tubing is connected to a QD and connected to the OUT post.  In post has another QD and length of tubing going into sanitizer.  On transfer day, the fermenter is taken out of fridge and placed on top of fridge (this is a small, 4.4cf fridge), tubing from airlock is connected to spigot on fermenter, tubing in the sanitizer is connected to the airlock to close the loop.  Open the spigot and let beer flow.  The transfer is slower than you would expect because the loop is closed.  Some of the helpful people on the LO forum turned me onto this.  I don't pretend that it's ZERO O2 but it's an improvement for sure.  When the fridge is not in use I have a magnet that I cover the hole with.    Also, it's not a 'hole', it's a 'Natural CO2 keg-purging port', LOL.

Pretty interesting, using the keg as an air lock/CO2 catcher.  I like it.

I would imagine, since you can't see inside, you really need to have your volumes locked in so as not to overfill the keg.

1 question:  How or when do you seal the keg lid?  Usually my corny keg requires me to put 15-20 pounds from the CO2 tank on it to "push" the lid and O-Ring into place.  I would assume I would have to do that before fermentation or am I missing something? 

Thanks for sharing the process.

[Die Beerery]

I'm a bit confused with the setup.  Assuming that the fermenter is placed higher than the keg, will gravity be enough to push the beer through the tubing and fittings for transfer into the keg?  Part of balancing kegging lines is getting some resistance to the flow.  And, which post do you connect the line from the fermenter spigot to?  Thanks in advance for your advice.

If you click on the link to my site (the globe icon, I think) and go to BREWING PROCESS, I have some pics.

Fermenter in fridge.  Silicone tubing connected to the post of an airlock, airlock inserted into plastic fermenter lid with grommet.  Hole in fridge door so tubing can go through the door and to a keg sitting on the basement floor and tubing is connected to a QD and connected to the OUT post.  In post has another QD and length of tubing going into sanitizer.  On transfer day, the fermenter is taken out of fridge and placed on top of fridge (this is a small, 4.4cf fridge), tubing from airlock is connected to spigot on fermenter, tubing in the sanitizer is connected to the airlock to close the loop.  Open the spigot and let beer flow.  The transfer is slower than you would expect because the loop is closed.  Some of the helpful people on the LO forum turned me onto this.  I don't pretend that it's ZERO O2 but it's an improvement for sure.  When the fridge is not in use I have a magnet that I cover the hole with.    Also, it's not a 'hole', it's a 'Natural CO2 keg-purging port', LOL.

Pretty interesting, using the keg as an air lock/CO2 catcher.  I like it.

I would imagine, since you can't see inside, you really need to have your volumes locked in so as not to overfill the keg.

1 question:  How or when do you seal the keg lid?  Usually my corny keg requires me to put 15-20 pounds from the CO2 tank on it to "push" the lid and O-Ring into place.  I would assume I would have to do that before fermentation or am I missing something? 

Thanks for sharing the process.

My blog post from the way back yester-year of 2018.

http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/brewing-methods/kegging-care-guide-purging-transferring-stabilizing-finished-beer/

[ynotbrusum]

I remember reading it at that time and getting a headache, but appreciating the level of diligence to think it through.  Thankfully, the take away for me was to do the sanitizer purge then the fermentation purge and then rack the beer at the right time to spund.  Catching that optimal point for spunding is always the key and I must say that I frequently miss it, because I'm lazy and my fermentations are much quicker these days.

Cheers!

[Village Taphouse]

I'm a bit confused with the setup.  Assuming that the fermenter is placed higher than the keg, will gravity be enough to push the beer through the tubing and fittings for transfer into the keg?  Part of balancing kegging lines is getting some resistance to the flow.  And, which post do you connect the line from the fermenter spigot to?  Thanks in advance for your advice.

If you click on the link to my site (the globe icon, I think) and go to BREWING PROCESS, I have some pics.

Fermenter in fridge.  Silicone tubing connected to the post of an airlock, airlock inserted into plastic fermenter lid with grommet.  Hole in fridge door so tubing can go through the door and to a keg sitting on the basement floor and tubing is connected to a QD and connected to the OUT post.  In post has another QD and length of tubing going into sanitizer.  On transfer day, the fermenter is taken out of fridge and placed on top of fridge (this is a small, 4.4cf fridge), tubing from airlock is connected to spigot on fermenter, tubing in the sanitizer is connected to the airlock to close the loop.  Open the spigot and let beer flow.  The transfer is slower than you would expect because the loop is closed.  Some of the helpful people on the LO forum turned me onto this.  I don't pretend that it's ZERO O2 but it's an improvement for sure.  When the fridge is not in use I have a magnet that I cover the hole with.    Also, it's not a 'hole', it's a 'Natural CO2 keg-purging port', LOL.

Pretty interesting, using the keg as an air lock/CO2 catcher.  I like it.

I would imagine, since you can't see inside, you really need to have your volumes locked in so as not to overfill the keg.

1 question:  How or when do you seal the keg lid?  Usually my corny keg requires me to put 15-20 pounds from the CO2 tank on it to "push" the lid and O-Ring into place.  I would assume I would have to do that before fermentation or am I missing something? 

Thanks for sharing the process.

You're correct on the volume... you cannot see what's happening.  I have had beer come up into the tubing on the other side so I was overfilling the keg.  I needed to take a sanitized 100ml syringe and pull some beer out which pretty much defeats the purpose of trying to be low-oxygen.  So yes, be sure that on brewday you are getting the correct volume in your fermenter.  It may take some practice so err on the "slightly low" side at first and work your way up.  Also, when I clean and sanitize my keg I run the cleanser and the sanitizer out using CO2 (from a tank) and I also hit the big o-ring with keg lube to ensure a good solid seal.  After the keg has had pressure in it from running sanitizer through it, I connect it to the fermenter.  If my keg was not holding then I would not see bubbles in my small bucket of sanitizer.  It has happened a couple of times in 2+ years of doing this but the vast majority of the time the pressure in the keg holds and the natural CO2 (from the fermentation) entering the keg is released through the other length of tubing and into the sanitizer.  I assume there a million ways to do this, many being better than what I'm doing but I used the equipment that I had and I like how easy it is to transfer to the keg.  You just have to have a clean and sanitized keg on brewday which may not ordinarily be the case.  Again, credit goes to some of the guys on the LO forum for pointing me in this direction.   Cheers.

Ps.  Also, IIRC... the guys on the LO forum mentioned that the amount of CO2 created from one 5-gallon batch of fermenting beer is enough to purge 20 kegs.  Not sure if that's still accurate but I'm pulling that out of memory.  Also, they had a graphic for how many times you would have to fill a keg with CO2 (from a tank) and empty it so that the keg would be sufficiently purged of O2... it's many, many times.  Using this natural process is slick. 

[Die Beerery]

I'm a bit confused with the setup.  Assuming that the fermenter is placed higher than the keg, will gravity be enough to push the beer through the tubing and fittings for transfer into the keg?  Part of balancing kegging lines is getting some resistance to the flow.  And, which post do you connect the line from the fermenter spigot to?  Thanks in advance for your advice.

If you click on the link to my site (the globe icon, I think) and go to BREWING PROCESS, I have some pics.

Fermenter in fridge.  Silicone tubing connected to the post of an airlock, airlock inserted into plastic fermenter lid with grommet.  Hole in fridge door so tubing can go through the door and to a keg sitting on the basement floor and tubing is connected to a QD and connected to the OUT post.  In post has another QD and length of tubing going into sanitizer.  On transfer day, the fermenter is taken out of fridge and placed on top of fridge (this is a small, 4.4cf fridge), tubing from airlock is connected to spigot on fermenter, tubing in the sanitizer is connected to the airlock to close the loop.  Open the spigot and let beer flow.  The transfer is slower than you would expect because the loop is closed.  Some of the helpful people on the LO forum turned me onto this.  I don't pretend that it's ZERO O2 but it's an improvement for sure.  When the fridge is not in use I have a magnet that I cover the hole with.    Also, it's not a 'hole', it's a 'Natural CO2 keg-purging port', LOL.

Pretty interesting, using the keg as an air lock/CO2 catcher.  I like it.

I would imagine, since you can't see inside, you really need to have your volumes locked in so as not to overfill the keg.

1 question:  How or when do you seal the keg lid?  Usually my corny keg requires me to put 15-20 pounds from the CO2 tank on it to "push" the lid and O-Ring into place.  I would assume I would have to do that before fermentation or am I missing something? 

Thanks for sharing the process.

You're correct on the volume... you cannot see what's happening.  I have had beer come up into the tubing on the other side so I was overfilling the keg.  I needed to take a sanitized 100ml syringe and pull some beer out which pretty much defeats the purpose of trying to be low-oxygen.  So yes, be sure that on brewday you are getting the correct volume in your fermenter.  It may take some practice so err on the "slightly low" side at first and work your way up.  Also, when I clean and sanitize my keg I run the cleanser and the sanitizer out using CO2 (from a tank) and I also hit the big o-ring with keg lube to ensure a good solid seal.  After the keg has had pressure in it from running sanitizer through it, I connect it to the fermenter.  If my keg was not holding then I would not see bubbles in my small bucket of sanitizer.  It has happened a couple of times in 2+ years of doing this but the vast majority of the time the pressure in the keg holds and the natural CO2 (from the fermentation) entering the keg is released through the other length of tubing and into the sanitizer.  I assume there a million ways to do this, many being better than what I'm doing but I used the equipment that I had and I like how easy it is to transfer to the keg.  You just have to have a clean and sanitized keg on brewday which may not ordinarily be the case.  Again, credit goes to some of the guys on the LO forum for pointing me in this direction.   Cheers.

Ps.  Also, IIRC... the guys on the LO forum mentioned that the amount of CO2 created from one 5-gallon batch of fermenting beer is enough to purge 20 kegs.  Not sure if that's still accurate but I'm pulling that out of memory.  Also, they had a graphic for how many times you would have to fill a keg with CO2 (from a tank) and empty it so that the keg would be sufficiently purged of O2... it's many, many times.  Using this natural process is slick.

That’s a wild solution to an easy fix. 

Overfill, disconnect everything.
Hook up co2
Hook up tap, open tap, thus filling a container
Be done. 


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[BrewBama]

One of the things I picked up that I really like is to connect your fermenter to a keg during fermentation so the CO2 from fermentation will purge the keg.

I’ve contemplated this but always worried about blowoff ending up in the keg.


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I was thinking that using this in between the fermenter and keg would catch any blow off allowing the CO2 to continue on to the keg to purge it. You wouldn’t even need the second jar until after the keg.




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[Wilbur]

I've been pretty pleased with the cold crash guardian from brewhardware (link below) at preventing ingress during cold crashing. I don't really have the space to hide a keg near my fermenters though.

http://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ccguardianv3.htm

[erockrph]

There are two competing stories on homebrewing forums. The first says that a CO2 blanket will eliminate oxygen exposure for your beer. The second says that the CO2 blanket is a myth, and that it doesn't exist. As is often the case, both sides have a kernel of truth to them but neither one is completely correct. The CO2 blanket is not a myth, and it can kill you if you don't understand this (although probably not in a homebrewing context). On the other hand, it is temporary at best and is not going to prevent oxygen exposure. It can reduce it, but not eliminate it.

The real protection from oxygen in open fermentation is that the yeast are still actively fermenting. The off-gassing CO2 can minimize O2 exposure, but the active yeast will scavenge what O2 does make it through.

[ynotbrusum]

There are two competing stories on homebrewing forums. The first says that a CO2 blanket will eliminate oxygen exposure for your beer. The second says that the CO2 blanket is a myth, and that it doesn't exist. As is often the case, both sides have a kernel of truth to them but neither one is completely correct. The CO2 blanket is not a myth, and it can kill you if you don't understand this (although probably not in a homebrewing context). On the other hand, it is temporary at best and is not going to prevent oxygen exposure. It can reduce it, but not eliminate it.

The real protection from oxygen in open fermentation is that the yeast are still actively fermenting. The off-gassing CO2 can minimize O2 exposure, but the active yeast will scavenge what O2 does make it through.

The same concept applies to spunding of the fermenter as it approaches, but has not reached, terminal gravity.