Pressure Fermentation Easy Guide

[David Heath]

Hi David. I recently watched your video on pressure fermenting and it really got me interested! So... after too many oxidised hoppy brews, I'm converting a corny to a pressure fermenter this weekend. I can't wait to brew my first batch. I'm struggling a bit to find information on what sort of temps are realistic, the consensus seems warmer than normal....I'm planning a session IPA using imperial flagship (chico? ) Have you, or anyone else here got any tips with this yeast? Psi? Temps? Any insight would be really appreciated!!

Cheers

Great to hear.
Within my channels FB group we have been collecting data from members about pressure fermentation levels tried and tested.
We have data for Fermentis US-05 which is also the Chico strain. The ranges that have been successful so far are as follows:-
Temperature 20-28C
Pressure 10-27 PSI
The chico strain works well under pressure within these levels for a nice clean result.
I hope this helps :)

 

[lukey_brews]

Great to hear.
Within my channels FB group we have been collecting data from members about pressure fermentation levels tried and tested.
We have data for Fermentis US-05 which is also the Chico strain. The ranges that have been successful so far are as follows:-
Temperature 20-28C
Pressure 10-27 PSI
The chico strain works well under pressure within these levels for a nice clean result.
I hope this helps :)

Thanks David, that's really helpful, does 12.5PSI at 23C (ramping to 25C) sound like a good place to start? Do you plan to publish your data on this subject? It sounds really interesting!

 

[Discordian]

For pressure fermenting I use a 10L aspirator bottle (which is similar to a water carrier used for camping but more rigid) with its tap removed (I replaced the tap with a blanking plug).

For the pressure relief valve I used a pressure relief valve from an autoclave (basically a fancy pressure cooker) we were throwing out at work, which was fitted into the lid of the aspirator along with a car tyre valve (in case I wanted to pressurize the aspirator with CO2).

On the autoclave the pressure relief valve would have kicked in at way too high a pressure to be safely used for fermenting but luckily I was able to disassemble it & exchange the spring inside for a more lightweight one, which operated at around 15psi.

Having the car tyre valve fitted to the autoclave lid also enables me to check the pressure of the vessel using a car/bike tyre pressure tester.

The operation of the pressure relief valve is fairly simple. A spring/weight loaded plug is displaced once the activation pressure is reached, so I'm sure other pressure relief valves used in heating could be adapted for pressure fermenting.