Determining the correct SG to transfer to keg for natural carbonation

[Brewenstein]

So I've been reading through some of the LoDO information here and trying to get my head around it. For now I am limited by my cold side techniques, and these are what I want to work on first, especially because without them any hot side work will be mostly moot. One of the seemingly easier things I can do is to transfer to kegs before final gravity to help with any residual O2 in the kegs as well as to decrease any O2 exposure from the slight amount of O2 that I understand is still in the CO2. My question is how to determine when I am the 3-4 gravity points away from FG without actually opening the fermenter to draw a sample. At present I don't have the ability to spund.

On a side note, if one transfers before FG and the yeast drops, can the yeast left in the primary still be used for pitching into a new batch of wort? Or will this result in too much selective breeding for better flocculating yeast?

 

[Murphys_Law]

An easy (but not cheap) solution is to buy a Tilt. Those little things are great!

 

[h22lude]

Without taking samples, there is no way of knowing. I have heard mixed reviews about the Tilt. My take on it, they are cool to see how fermentation is going but isn't reliable enough to use for something like this. I have read people saying the readings go up and down throughout the day. When you are looking at a small gravity change like 4 points, you need it to be accurate 100% of the time. Your beer could go from 4 points above FG to FG in less than a day.

If you don't want to spend a lot of money, you could simply use a bottle bucket. You can take samples for the spigot. And also use the spigot to transfer and put the CO2 hose in the airlock bung. You won't need more than 1psi for this. Use gravity to transfer the beer. The CO2 is used just to fill the head space instead of letting air in.

If you do want to get a nice FV, look into a SS Brew Bucket

 

[beersk]

After a while you get the hang of where your beer is at, gravity-wise, by how the air lock activity is. Once you start to see it slowing down - for me, it was 5 or so days for ales, and 7 or so days for lagers - I'd check the gravity and it was usually within a day or so of being ready to transfer to spund. When it's around 1.020, I know I have another 24-36 hours and I'm ready to transfer to spund. I don't have a spunding valve. Works out pretty nicely for me. You really don't need fancy equipment to do this. And don't worry about opening the fermenter to take a sample if it's still fermenting and if it still has a krausen.

 

[mongoose33]

I keep an eye on the fermenter, and it's mostly done when the krausen falls--but what I don't know is how close it is.

If I have a spunding valve, does it matter how close I really am? I know I'll get some yeast settling out but if I'm maintaining pressure, there's no oxygen ingress, and excess pressure will be vented. What am I missing here?

 

[jdonley]

My brother did this with a milk stout and he let the beer ferment out completely boiled up the proper amount of DME to achieve desired co2 level. Let it cool dumped it into his keg racked his finished beer on top, sealed the keg, purged it with co2 then just left it alone for a month.

 

[Big Monk]

I keep an eye on the fermenter, and it's mostly done when the krausen falls--but what I don't know is how close it is.

If I have a spunding valve, does it matter how close I really am? I know I'll get some yeast settling out but if I'm maintaining pressure, there's no oxygen ingress, and excess pressure will be vented. What am I missing here?

If you are keg spunding it is less important than if you are bottling with extract remaining. In that case you need to be pretty sure of yourself and your transfer gravity.

For kegging you are trying to balance between taking too much or too little yeast over to the spunding vessel. Most people find it sufficient to transfer with 1% extract remaining (~ 4 gravity points) and attaching the spunding valve to fine tune. Once people get a feel for when to transfer, most abandon the valve altogether and just seal the keg.