...But there's a problem with pressurized fermentation.
@FunkedOut I am sampling a beer a dry hopped with a spunding at room temp and I taste an ambundance of DMS and diacetyl. From some cursory reading both are eliminated during primary and secondary fermentation with off gassed CO2.... trapping those in the beer during these phases has introduced significant amounts of off flavor. This similar to 'green beer' flavor which then necessitates extended aging so any gains in carbonation from this is negated by the extended aging?
Room temp. What’s your room’s temp?
I’ve read that one of the advantages of pressurized fermentation is suppressing off flavors enabling higher temperatures, shortening fermentation times.
But I’ve not yet altered my fermentation temps since introducing the pressure variable.
I just carried over my fermentation schedule and temp from the buckets.
Maybe room temp is the culprit of your off flavors?
What yeast? What temp? What pressure? How long? How’d you accomplish the dry hop?
I worried a lot about sulfur being produced getting ‘trapped’ in with the beer by carbonating during fermentation. I read a lot on the subject and found good anecdotal information on pro brewer.
The distilled information I took away is that if you want natural carbonation, there’s no difference, taste wise and aroma wise, between the primary fermentation and priming a bottle, keg or fermenter.
I decided to try it and have not noticed any difference in the beers. I did however, keep all other variables constant.
Even in a bucket, my 34/70 schedule was 14 days @ 55*F, 4 days free rise (inside a freezer) to 68*F, then drop 5*F per day down to 32*F, fine with gelatin, then rack 3 days later.
I will say this about my pressures. My spunding valve uses a variable PRV. I sneak up on 15psi over the course of a few days.
I’ll hook it up on pitch day set wide open, where it builds somewhere less than 3psi.
Day 2, I open the freezer and smell the expelled CO2. If it’s not there, I keep it at that setting until the next day. Being a stainless keg, that’s an easy way for me to tell that the yeast took off.
Day 3, bump the pressure up a bit.
Day 4, check and see what pressure I hit, and bump up a bit more.
Day 5+, repeat day procedure until I get 15psi, without going over.
This method isn’t perfect, but the gear is cheap and I feel like 2 advantages are:
1) the yeast are not stressed by pressure as much on the first few days, making it easier for them to multiply.
2) the headspace is purged pretty quickly, getting rid of O2 and maybe some other lag phase gasses.