Pressure fermentation

[MashBag]

I would really like to hear the opinions of people who pressure ferment?

Why do you?
What are there any benefits for non lager type beers?

 

[Andrew Booth]

I pressure ferment most beers (i have four pressure fermenters).

The pros
Clean fermentation
Turns round faster
Can push to a higher temperature without off flavours
Good for heavily hopped beers and closed transfers
Your beer/lager gets carbonated throughout fermentation naturally

The cons
Most of the pressure fermenters have only got a two year lifespan
They can be painful to clean
No point in wanting a beer with yeast esters or using yeasts like verdant for example

Having said all that I don’t brew extremely hoppy beers, I’m on a Brewday tomorrow brewing a historical beer that needs yeast esters so I am fermenting that in a bucket.

Predominately I use Lalbrew Nottingham Yeast and at 20 degrees I’ve seen beers drop to final gravity in four days I still don’t cold crash or keg until day 10 especially if I’m dry hopping which involves placing the dry hops in another pressure fermenter flushing with C02 and tran force transferring the brew from one fermenter to the one with the dry hops in using a keg jumper

 

[MrJay83]

As above but I'd only disagree about using yeast like verdant. No pressure till the first dry hop then ramp it up. I've done the same recipe in my bucket and my all-rounder. The pressure fermented one tasted very similar but far nicer (hard to explain). I think it's down to letting the yeast do it thing at the beginning and the closed loop transfer from my AR rather than filling the keg from the bucket.
I'm the opposite of Andrew above as most of my beers are hop heavy but I did a saison recently in my 30l and I don't think it would have been benefited from being under pressure. The rice lager I did before that definitely benefited from being under pressure in the AR. All down to what you are brewing I suppose.

 

[MashBag]

Thank you for those two valuable insights. I have often wondered if it is somthing to try.

 

[Andrew Booth]

It’s a fairly cheap method in the scheme of things you can get 10 litre king keg fermenters to do split batches with might be a method to try.

 

[MashBag]

I like a new something to fiddle with as much as the next, but in the list I can't find anything to get excited about.

 

[Old Fart At Play]

I'm getting interested in this now, mainly due to the possibility of serving direct from unitank rather than bottling or kegging. But as I have never bothered with fermentation temperature control (beyond leaving fermenter in a room with fairly constant temperature), control via pressurised fermentation instead seems attractive too.

 

[Andrew Booth]

If you are wanting to try it out the outlay for a pressure fermenter, Spunding Valve isn’t that expensive compared to the current craze for stainless steel. I have on occasion served direct from keg king Juniors 20l fermenter instead of kegging most of the time I just use closed transfer to keg.