Pressure transfer to keg using a plastic FV

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donchiquon
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Location: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France

Pressure transfer to keg using a plastic FV

Post by donchiquon » Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:58 pm

I've been doubling up on brewdays recently and ending up with two fermenting brews, one brew in a conical and one in a plastic FV. I usually pressure transfer from the conical to keg and after fitting out the latest brew in the plastic FV with a blow of tube (rather than a bubbler) I started wondering about using the same kit to do a pressure transfer from the plastic FV.

I had a go today and thought I'd stick up a few pics in case anyone was interested. Please note that extra care and precautions are necessary as unlike the conical the plastic FV has no pressure release valve - it would be very easy to blow up the FV!!! :shock:

I wedged a short piece of 3/8 beer line in the FV lid bung and then used PVC hose to couple up to my low pressure CO2 line (see pic). This is connected to a tertiary reg (if that is the right term!) that has a 15psi gauge which I use to set the low pressure transfer levels.

Whilst the beer was crashing I added CO2 at somewhere around 0.5psi (same as I do with the conical). At this point I quickly realised that the best pressure gauge was the lid of the FV which inflates like a balloon. Although I was able to set the reg so that it cut out when the lid was only gently inflated I would not trust this method without a pressure release valve so I just turned off the gas at this point.

I used the same method to do the pressure transfer to keg once I had connected up the FV tap using 1/2" silicone tube, and a 1/2" stainless coupler (from MM) to step down to some smaller diameter silicone hose. This smaller hose was then hose-clipped onto the black disco on the keg.

The whole procedure took about 10 mins and worked well, despite the extra baby-sitting required to monitor the FV lid pressure. It was interesting to see that the transfer worked at a very low pressure - somewhere around 0.5psi or less. I would definitely repeat again (as I have all the necessary kit set up permantly for the conical transfers) but next time I would try and test a crude pressure release valve perhaps by adding in a T-piece in the gas line.
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Ian

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