Pinter for all grain…

[Keruso]

Afternoon folks,
Just watched a YouTube video from MM. They brewed an all grain recipe using a Pinter. What interested me was the way the Pinter has been designed. Wort (plus dry hops if you wish) and yeast are added to the fermenter, the lid is shut until fermentation completes. Beer carbonates with the CO2 produced during fermentation. Then serve direct from the Pinter so the beer never comes into contact with oxygen. Today I have a Grainfather G30, plastic fermenters and two fermentation freezers, I keg and serve from a kegerator. I’ve just ordered a Pinter so next brew I’ll put 5 Liters of wort and some dry hops into the Pinter and the rest into my fermenter as normal. Interested if anyone has experience of the Pinter, especially if making all grain wort and using dry hops.

 

[Its6pmsomewhere]

You'd be better off with a 10l minikeg and a spunding valve to do the same thing. Granted the pinter has the advantage of being able to remove the yeast cake but a minikeg is versatile, the original pinters became paperweights. They seem to be flooding the youtube beer channels with freebies for reviews. By plastic fermenters do you mean buckets or pressure rated ones? There are much better things out there to invest in

 

[MashBag]

Yeah I had the same idea. But came to this conclusion.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/pinters-with-own-wort.105326/

 

[borischarlton]

Hello,

Just to cover off a few points. Firstly, we had no contact whatsoever with PINTER, we purchased the unit directly from the PINTER website, it wasn't sent for free.
For those that want to brew smaller batches, test different yeasts, hop combos etc the unit has been excellent. Added to the fact that there are thousands of them out there, we were trying to open peoples eyes that rather than sticking with the PINTER extract kits, with a little more time and effort, amazing beer can be produced.
There are always going to be different ways of the brewing process, using different equipment to the same end. But, what we have proved is that if you have a Pinter already, especially in the latest version, it can be a handy tool.

 

[Keruso]

You'd be better off with a 10l minikeg and a spunding valve to do the same thing. Granted the pinter has the advantage of being able to remove the yeast cake but a minikeg is versatile, the original pinters became paperweights. They seem to be flooding the youtube beer channels with freebies for reviews. By plastic fermenters do you mean buckets or pressure rated ones? There are much better things out there to invest in

Interesting, I have a 6 litre minikeg collecting dust in the garage too. Might get a spunding valve and give it a go to, the Pinter arrives tomorrow, it had a big discount ! With the minikeg I assume i'll need a little hop sock if I want to put some dry hops in at the beginning of fermentation?

 

[borischarlton]

Interesting, I have a 6 litre minikeg collecting dust in the garage too. Might get a spunding valve and give it a go to, the Pinter arrives tomorrow, it had a big discount ! With the minikeg I assume i'll need a little hop sock if I want to put some dry hops in at the beginning of fermentation?

You can put the hops in a bag, but how you going to get them out? A big advantage of the PINTER is being able to remove the trub.

 

[tondy79]

Interesting... would it be possible to dry hop after trub removal? This is what I'm thinking:

1. Remove dock with trub as normal.
2. Clean/sanitise dock
3. Add hops to sock and tuck inside the dock, under the lip
4. Reattach dock and stand back on end
5. After e.g. 2 days carefully turn the pinter and dock over so the dock is on top, to let the liquid drain back into the pinter
6. Remove dock and hope the sock is still tucked inside (aided by hop expansion?)

Maybe too much hassle for not much benefit

 

[homebrewdev]

Re 6 point, there is fair amount of pressure.... so dock could fly high.... There is a couple on yt doing Pinter stuff A&E do brews and dock has been reattached by reversing undocking....

 

[tondy79]

I wouldn't imagine that the pressure is any different from when you would initially undock it, but of course normally you would release the pressure with the dock at the bottom instead of the top.

 

[Its6pmsomewhere]

Interesting, I have a 6 litre minikeg collecting dust in the garage too. Might get a spunding valve and give it a go to, the Pinter arrives tomorrow, it had a big discount ! With the minikeg I assume i'll need a little hop sock if I want to put some dry hops in at the beginning of fermentation?

Does it have a corny keg type lid or one of the small openings? If corny then hop sock will be fine but if it's one of the small ones then getting the sock out will be a challenge. I dry hopped in a commercial keg with a sock once and spent longer than I'd like to admit trying to pry it out when cleaning time came around. Now I just throw the pellets in loose, they'll settle to the bottom anyway. The filter from the oxibar kegs will fit through the small minikeg openings so if you had one of those you could just throw them in loose but in a vessel that small I'd go cryo to keep hop matter to a minimum

 

[Keruso]

Does it have a corny keg type lid or one of the small openings? If corny then hop sock will be fine but if it's one of the small ones then getting the sock out will be a challenge. I dry hopped in a commercial keg with a sock once and spent longer than I'd like to admit trying to pry it out when cleaning time came around. Now I just throw the pellets in loose, they'll settle to the bottom anyway. The filter from the oxibar kegs will fit through the small minikeg openings so if you had one of those you could just throw them in loose but in a vessel that small I'd go cryo to keep hop matter to a minimum

Thanks my mini keg has the same lid as a corny so no problem removing a bag if needed.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Interesting, I have a 6 litre minikeg collecting dust in the garage too. Might get a spunding valve and give it a go to, the Pinter arrives tomorrow, it had a big discount ! With the minikeg I assume i'll need a little hop sock if I want to put some dry hops in at the beginning of fermentation?

Don't forget you also need a blow off valve. Spunding valves can fail or become clogged and if that happens you have a small bomb on your hands. I assume the Pinter has a secondary emergency blow off valve.

 

[GhostDoggyWoofWoof]

Pinters break easily, I have had 5 fail so far. (Got 5 free, I'm not daft). A 10 litre cornie is a far better way of pressure brewing small batch. There's now way to tell if a Pinter has finished fermenting and since the PRvs frequently allow the Pinter to over pressurise fermentation can fail. They are a fun toy to a point, but poor build quality lets them down. I still have 2 Pinter 1s and a 2 functioning and I occasionally use them to split an extract kit, but I wouldn't buy another one.

 

[borischarlton]

Interesting... would it be possible to dry hop after trub removal? This is what I'm thinking:

1. Remove dock with trub as normal.
2. Clean/sanitise dock
3. Add hops to sock and tuck inside the dock, under the lip
4. Reattach dock and stand back on end
5. After e.g. 2 days carefully turn the pinter and dock over so the dock is on top, to let the liquid drain back into the pinter
6. Remove dock and hope the sock is still tucked inside (aided by hop expansion?)

Maybe too much hassle for not much benefit

The problem is you are going to introduce a load of Oxygen when you reattach the doc, you will hear it bubble through the beer and it will make you cry!

 

[tondy79]

The problem is you are going to introduce a load of Oxygen when you reattach the doc, you will hear it bubble through the beer and it will make you cry!

Ah yes! Good point, I don't want any tears.

 

[GhostDoggyWoofWoof]

Also, when you reattach doc the Pinter is under pressure. When you abruptly repressurise dock it can break a lug and forcibly detach. As I found out trying to do a dry hop. Get a 10l cornie, a floating dip tube and a spunding valve. You can depressurise, chuck in hops and purge.

 

[tondy79]

Agree that a small corny is a better option but just to come back around to the original posting, if you already have a Pinter, then the approach shown in the MM video is still of interest!

 

[Keruso]

Agree that a small corny is a better option but just to come back around to the original posting, if you already have a Pinter, then the approach shown in the MM video is still of interest!

After watching the MM video I bought a new gen 3 Pinter, plus 20 pints of their beer for £79, the trub removal and making a beer that hasn't come into contact with oxygen on the cold side really appeals. When I brew on my AIO system I can stick 5 litres in the Pinter and some hops like MM did and compare the result or try something different. As an all-grain brewer i'm not interested in using the extract kits.. I've ordered a spunding valve and some hop tea bags too to give pressure fermenting in my minikeg a go.

 

[GhostDoggyWoofWoof]

I have an AIO and a stainless fermenter but I do like fermenting small batches in a 10 litre cornie. Great for a Helles or Weiss that doesn't need dry hopping.

 

[Davegase]

Interesting... would it be possible to dry hop after trub removal? This is what I'm thinking:

1. Remove dock with trub as normal.
2. Clean/sanitise dock
3. Add hops to sock and tuck inside the dock, under the lip
4. Reattach dock and stand back on end
5. After e.g. 2 days carefully turn the pinter and dock over so the dock is on top, to let the liquid drain back into the pinter
6. Remove dock and hope the sock is still tucked inside (aided by hop expansion?)

Maybe too much hassle for not much benefit

And sounds like a good way to oxidize your beer