Small Batch American Pale Ale with Closed Transfer - Brew Dudes

We sample a small batch American Pale Ale and utilized closed fermentation and transfer techniques to preserve and emphasize great hop character.

Mike has been exploring brewing smaller batches for convenience and less waste. Part of that has allowed him to repurpose some of his 5 gallon equipment for fermentation and closed transfer.

Trimming the dip tube in a 5 gallon corny keg makes an excellent instant fermentor. Not only can you use it for pressure fermenting but it also works well for doing complete closed transfer transfers. Using a jumper set up you can go from keg to keg through the beverage posts and CO2 pushing in from the gas side. This way you never have to open the keg.

If you do need to open the keg, as in the case of this APA with dry hopping, you can hook up your CO2 to gently keep the keg under positive CO2 pressure while you open it up to drop in dry hops. WORKS GREAT.

More on all of that in the future.

CHEERS!

#AmericanPaleAle #ClosedTransfer #brewdudes

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[andrewbarker]

Good advice on the dry hopping. Another way to approach it, at the cost of a full purge (until the end) is to sanitise and empty an interim keg, add the hops loose, attach a filtered floating dip tube to underside of the GAS post. Purge with some CO2. Then fill the keg with beer down the liquid post. Once full, attach gas to the liquid post, then pull the prv. CO2 goes down the dip tube, comes up through the beer and foams. When foam starts to escape the prv, shut it off. You've effectively capped the keg on foam. After 3 days contact time, transfer to serving keg. Mike, your way is simpler and I'm not sure what factor of difference my method makes but seeing as Charlie Bamforth wrote 'a thimble of oxygen can ruin a swimming pool of beer' it's small percentages that we're playing with.

[timothy]

I love fermenting in a Corny keg. I was seriously considering buying one of those proprietary pressure fermenters but something was holding me back which I realised was that I just did not want to own or mess about with all that plastic 'stuff'. Sure you may miss some functionality fermenting in Corny key but it is such a simple and elegant solution, it makes life nice easy.and also keeps my head and brewing space uncluttered!

[grahamhawes]

Grain bill sounds great, I may try that for my next pale ale.

I purge my serving keg with the gas produced by fermentation. I run the gas through the liquid line so it goes to the bottom of the keg. Someone did the math and figured the huge volume of CO2 produced should be at least as effective as purging with sanitizer. I like it because I’m lazy, and it seems to work.

I think I’m going to pick up one of those new mega mouth 6gal kegs as my main fermenter, and sell off a stainless bucket.

[gregpiotrowski]

Going to try and brew this recipe! Thanks!

[SunePedersen]

If you ferment in a keg, I would recommend installing a really short dip tube and getting a floating dip tube as attachment that has it's length cut so you don't get any trub.

[RobertJohnson-udbn]

Yes yes yes! All of the above, I been thinking about this a lot lately, I usually make smaller batches because I like variety as well and I don't have a lot of friends that like the beer I brew yet. I think I'll try the floating dip tube and cut it slightly shorter than the 5 gallon keg. Thank you very much for recovering this this process

[HopKillerBrewery]

I recently started fermenting in corny kegs as well after downsizing my system (Now using a Brewzilla Gen4 35L) and so far, it’s been great.

Instead of cutting a dip tube I’ve just used a floating dip tube and I too fill up a serving keg full of sanitize and push it all out with CO2. It’s somewhat wasteful but the results of freshness are well worth it.

[wd]

I think that fits the hazy pale ale guidelines. Maybe that's not a bjcp thing yet but it will be.

[brianbarker]

Interesting video, thanks. Mike have you considered doing a video on the process you described?

[beeroquoisnation]

Simple recipes facilitate repeatability. Sounds like something to keep on the regular list.

[jafarym]

Been doing closed transfer since I bought my kegmenter in 2020. I'm glad I did switch to that and ditched the carboys.

[thebackyardbrewer]

I've switched to smaller batches recently as well for exactly the same reasons. I can turn over beers quicker and try different different hop and malt combinations much quicker and if its not great its only about 15L maximum of beer! The only difference is i ferment in a PET keg made by kegking, i think blichmann sell those in the USA now as well 🍻

[JP_Idols_of_Torment]

Just ordered the ingredients for this recipe - sounds awesome. Gone through a few Belgians and Christmas Ales in the last few months, an APA will hit the spot. I scaled up to 5.5 gals with the hops and added a little cascade charge at flameout. Also added 8oz of carapils because I couldn’t get that Belgian pilsner. Just want to make sure there’s some enjoyable body.

[kobrewing]

I love Verdant yeast. There's really fewer and fewer benefits to liquid yeast when you can use something like Verdant, which performs as well as 1318 at half the cost.

[marklpaulick]

Yup good one - I love fermenting in kegs. Even tho I bought a fancy unitank, I almost always ferment in kegs these days. It’s easier and maybe better! It works to use two kegs 3 gallon each for a “full batch” but it’s been really worth it for me to get the 7 gal kegmenters.

[ianbuchanan]

Great video! I also ferment in a keg. I use a 6.5 gal torpedo keg so that way I can do a full 5 galleon batch still. So nice to be able to close transfer to a serving keg.

[philphy]

Great method to get great beer. I have been doing something vaguely similar to this for a couple of years for all of my beers and wouldn’t do it any other way. Only difference is that I put the dry hops in at the same time as pitching the yeast so no need to expose the beer to O2 ever. It works great !!

I replaced a few of my keg lids with the ones with additional liquid posts that I now use as fermenters for split batches. The result is 3 small kegs of unique beer. One for each yeast and a third with a mix of both.

[rodneyguest]

I use those 3 hops in diferent ratios in a lot of my beers. I really like the way they play with each other. I have been meaning to have a go at Verdant yeast, will have to go get some and give it ago now. Might have to give closed transfers a go to help keep those aromas and flavours fresher longer.

[graemesmith]

Dudes, great video and I am a big fan of fermenting in the Corny. I’m using a floating dip tube rather than cutting the beer out line. Just put your recipe into BeerSmith for 5 gallons and ibu’s comes in at 67 ibu for a OG:IBU ratio of 1.2. Is that correct? 5 kg of grain.