Fermzilla 30L All rounder ?

[Bertie Doe]

I also have a beer gun (Chinese knock off ) to bottle with

Thanks for the beer gun info MM. My All-rounder is on the high seas and is expected soon. I also want to bottle, rather than Keg. Have you got a link to the beer gun seller please? TIA regards Paul.

 

[Davegase]

Thanks for the beer gun info MM. My All-rounder is on the high seas and is expected soon. I also want to bottle, rather than Keg. Have you got a link to the beer gun seller please? TIA regards Paul.

If you're using a fermentation fridge you don't have to bottle the whole batch you can serve direct from the all-rounder at Ideal serving temperature !!

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Davegase
Recipe and process looks sound. One thing to consider would be some brewing salts, realise this is a kit and many say no need to add salts with these, but you have used fairly naked water with the RO system. Is your tap water awful? have you got a water report from the water board. If you are RO to get rid of chlorine you could use Sod Met for that. Brewersfriend water advanced water program is pretty easy and free, worth a look at.
But if I had RO I'd certainly use it for lagers and build from it and use it for my starsan.
I keg 20 litres from the fermentasaurus, drink some and bottle the rest using a counter pressuer filler. Had a lot of success with hot lagers under high pressure upto 30 psi as using kveik for them and they have been good. The pressure ferments do affect the ispindel readings though, but I don't rely on the number but the trend.

 

[Mash Monster]

Thanks for the beer gun info MM. My All-rounder is on the high seas and is expected soon. I also want to bottle, rather than Keg. Have you got a link to the beer gun seller please? TIA regards Paul.

I got mine from ELECQUEEN official store on Ali Express I think it was listed as Stainless Steel bottle filler gun will see if I can find a link for you

 

[Mash Monster]

Can’t get the link to work but there are plenty of UK Homebrew suppliers selling the same thing for £35- £40
I think I paid £25 for mine direct from China
Hope that helps

 

[fgoulding]

My cheap Chinese copy filters arrived today. You're correct, they don't have the eyelets that allow you to fix to the float ball. Luckily some 4 lb bs fishing line goes thru' the mesh screen.

Brilliant hack! Love it :)

Now I can use the ones I bought as well.

 

[Bertie Doe]

If you're using a fermentation fridge you don't have to bottle the whole batch you can serve direct from the all-rounder at Ideal serving temperature !!

No Dave, I've just got a domestic fridge and I keep a couple of bottles in it. Over the years I've invested in the swing-cage fasteners, at great expense, so can't see myself heading in the Keg direction.

 

[Bertie Doe]

Can’t get the link to work but there are plenty of UK Homebrew suppliers selling the same thing for £35- £40
I think I paid £25 for mine direct from China
Hope that helps

Thanks MM I'll keep an eye out for it.

 

[Davegase]

No Dave, I've just got a domestic fridge and I keep a couple of bottles in it. Over the years I've invested in the swing-cage fasteners, at great expense, so can't see myself heading in the Keg direction.

I've only recently got into kegging and really like the whole process.
However I wouldn't encourage anyone to go down that route unless you have the space and the budget. It can very quickly snowball !!! I just received my 4th keg today

 

[Bertie Doe]

Can’t get the link to work but there are plenty of UK Homebrew suppliers selling the same thing for £35- £40
I think I paid £25 for mine direct from China
Hope that helps

My s/s gun arrived from Ali Express or one of their suppliers. £29 quid inc postage, looks quite solid. I now await my All-Rounder plus some CO2. I'm about to start some IPA, so timing is perfect if they arrive in the next week. I'll have to tweak my recipe from 22 litres up to say 25 litres. This is the max I can manage in the grainfather assuming a 4.5 Kg grain bill. I'm reluctant to add more grain and dilute post-boil.

 

[Bertie Doe]

Hi there. All the kit is assembled and I’m ready to start a brew on Monday. Blowtie spunding valve - When I start fermenting in the All-rounder, should I start at say 5 lb psi for the 1st batch, to check for leaks?

The Co2 bottle now has a dual gauge and reg

CO2 Regulator

The AliEx bottling gun come with no instructions, so would appreciate help with connections. I have lots of flexible tubing but no clue as to what connects to what. Thanks in anticipation. Regards Paul.

32.52US $ 33% OFF|Beer Bottle Filler 304 Stainless Steel Counter Pressure Beer Bottle Filler Home Brew CO2 Beer Tools|Beer Brewing| - AliExpress

 

[Bertie Doe]

I realise now that the Blichman gun was the forerunner of bottle fillers, as most of the UTube vids relate to this. It also has the advantage of having a "trigger" lever for dispensing, thus freeing up your other hand. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Anyway I did find a handy diagram on my gun. If you scroll down halfway, you'll see that the 'T' valve on top, selects either beer or gas. The round bleed valve on the side, adjusts flow-rate of beer. I'm a bit confused by the term "Beer Out" on one of the top inlets, as Beer In would make more sense to me :-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...&terminal_id=499e31125c0240c495700c1943b87a03

 

[Mash Monster]

It’s only a guess but ‘ Beer Out ‘ might mean overflow or run off
Just a suggestion

 

[Bertie Doe]

It’s only a guess but ‘ Beer Out ‘ might mean overflow or run off
Just a suggestion

Thanks, I'll light the fire and kick the tyre on the Grainfather tomorrow. I'll set the Spunding valve to 5 lbs psi for this first batch of IPA. If all is well, I'll be bottling in two weeks time.
It'll all happen in the bath, so if the short tube next to the Bleed Valve starts squirting - it'll be an easy mop-up.

 

[Bertie Doe]

Update : Sorry folks, I should have spotted this Youtube video earlier. I spotted my gun under 'counter pressure system' with thanks Bitter Reality Brewing for this quick tutorial. He's showing a number of methods, so fast forward to 7 minutes.

As suspected earlier, the "Beer out" connection in earlier post, connects to the beer outlet on Fermzilla AR. All I need is a couple of Ball Lock Disconnects and I'm good to go. BRB thinks it's a 2 man operation but I use swing cage bottles, so should be straightforward. All the best.

 

[Mash Monster]

It’s only a guess but ‘ Beer Out ‘ might mean overflow or run off
Just a suggestion

Ignore my last I have just seen the instructions Beer out obviously means beer out of fermenter / keg sorry for my earlier post

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Hi there. All the kit is assembled and I’m ready to start a brew on Monday. Blowtie spunding valve - When I start fermenting in the All-rounder, should I start at say 5 lb psi for the 1st batch, to check for leaks?

The Co2 bottle now has a dual gauge and reg

My routine is to pressurise the fermenter to about 10 psi after the yeast is pitched to check for leaks and dial in the spunding valve, allows you to set it to whatever your start pressure is going to be.

If I want a beer to have some yeast expression esters etc then I don't put any pressure on at first just leave the prv open. If the krausen is going crazy then I do build up a minimum of pressure to get it calmed down. You don't want it erupting out of your PRV or spunding valve.
Other option is to put a blow off tube in the place of prv and then pop the prv in a few days later.
If dry hopping plans then I have those in the top of the fermenter on magnets so they can be slid in when needed.

I start the pressure towards the end of fermentation say 1.025 if aiming for 1.010 and normally just set spunding to my final intended carb volumes.

That can be 20 odd psi if at say 18 celsius.

I also use a jumper tube if kegging to flush the keg of starsan and pressure the keg as well ( but I think you are bottling ).

 

[Bertie Doe]

My routine is to pressurise the fermenter to about 10 psi after the yeast is pitched to check for leaks and dial in the spunding valve, allows you to set it to whatever your start pressure is going to be.

If I want a beer to have some yeast expression esters etc then I don't put any pressure on at first just leave the prv open. If the krausen is going crazy then I do build up a minimum of pressure to get it calmed down. You don't want it erupting out of your PRV or spunding valve.
Other option is to put a blow off tube in the place of prv and then pop the prv in a few days later.
If dry hopping plans then I have those in the top of the fermenter on magnets so they can be slid in when needed.

I start the pressure towards the end of fermentation say 1.025 if aiming for 1.010 and normally just set spunding to my final intended carb volumes.

That can be 20 odd psi if at say 18 celsius.

I also use a jumper tube if kegging to flush the keg of starsan and pressure the keg as well ( but I think you are bottling ).

Ah, I should have read your post before I started the brew. Next time I'll start the ferment with the bubble trap for the first two days and then swap with the spunding valve. I started with the SV fully closed (big mistake) expecting things to happen slowly but this morning (just 12 hours into the brew) the SV needle was hard against the stop. This is a 15 ppsi SV, so I adjusted it down to 8 ppsi. I don't think any damage has been done.

You mention you go 20 odd psi at 18C towards the end of fermentation. I brew and ferment in the bathroom which is likely to be a lot warmer. As I write the temp is 26C. If there's no change in temps when I bottle in a week or two, should I be aiming for a higher or lower pressure. Thanks Paul

 

[RoomWithABrew]

You mention you go 20 odd psi at 18C towards the end of fermentation. I brew and ferment in the bathroom which is likely to be a lot warmer. As I write the temp is 26C. If there's no change in temps when I bottle in a week or two, should I be aiming for a higher or lower pressure. Thanks Paul

Doubt any harm done, once went to 35 psi when spunding valve not able to work due to my setup error.

Higher pressure seems to mitigate against the side effects of higher temps.

I use this calculator
https://drhansbrewery.com/beercarbonationcalculator/and set the final spunding pressure for the vols I'm aiming for at the temp that the brew is at that time.

Hence if I want to have a beer at 2.4 vols and fermenting at 23 celsius using calc above get a pressure of 29.16 psi this seems high.

But when this beer is cold crashed to 6 celsius ( try it in the calculator yourself ) you'll see the pressure falls to 12.6 psi.
You don't have to spund or release for the pressure to drop as the pressure drop occurs as the CO2 above the wort goes more into solution as the temp falls.

FWIW I don't bother very often with a blowoff tube I just leave the prv open and then spund if the krausen out of control and likely to bubble out.

Might be worth standing your all rounder in some water in a bin perhaps might be a good fit and that would help to keep it cooler. You should try and get it all as cool as possible before bottling otherwise you will get a lot of foam. I use the williams warn counter pressure filler, but that could cope with the higher temps and pressure as it really is sealed until the capping moment.

 

[Davegase]

Doubt any harm done, once went to 35 psi when spunding valve not able to work due to my setup error.

Higher pressure seems to mitigate against the side effects of higher temps.

I use this calculator
https://drhansbrewery.com/beercarbonationcalculator/and set the final spunding pressure for the vols I'm aiming for at the temp that the brew is at that time.

Hence if I want to have a beer at 2.4 vols and fermenting at 23 celsius using calc above get a pressure of 29.16 psi this seems high.

But when this beer is cold crashed to 6 celsius ( try it in the calculator yourself ) you'll see the pressure falls to 12.6 psi.
You don't have to spund or release for the pressure to drop as the pressure drop occurs as the CO2 above the wort goes more into solution as the temp falls.

FWIW I don't bother very often with a blowoff tube I just leave the prv open and then spund if the krausen out of control and likely to bubble out.

Might be worth standing your all rounder in some water in a bin perhaps might be a good fit and that would help to keep it cooler. You should try and get it all as cool as possible before bottling otherwise you will get a lot of foam. I use the williams warn counter pressure filler, but that could cope with the higher temps and pressure as it really is sealed until the capping moment.

I use the same carbonation calculator, it can also be found on
Brewgoat. Carbonation Calculator