Festival Pilgrims Hope

I didn't get around to starting my next brew until June 2022 but I was looking forward to using my new equipment, I had the Fermenter King Gen 3 and two kegs and no overall plan, I was just going to see how it went, first I mixed up the kit in the old brewing bucket as per the instructions.

Once filled I stirred in the dextrose brewing sugar and and then I used a jug to transfer the mix to the Fermenter King Gen 3, I added the yeast and sealed the cap, I then moved the lot under the stairs, I then dropped the temperature gauge of the Inkbird down the thermowell of the Fermenter King Gen 3 and set the temperature to 22.5℃ the attached the heating belt.

Under the stairs it's very dark but I liked how I could see what was going on in the Fermenter King Gen 3, I fitted the BlowTie valve and gauge and waited for the brew to start.

Within 22 hours the brewing had started and the pressure had started to rise, I was happy so went to the pub, next morning when I woke up I went to check in the brew and to my surprise I found this.

The pressure was up and the beer had a good head, I had no way to set the pressure with the BlowTie so I slowly let the pressure out to bring it down to around 5 to 10 PSI as I wasn't sure how a high PSI would affect the brewing process.

About six days later my beer was not far off ready, while I was waiting for the brew to be ready I had been reading about "closed transfer" and I wanted to give it a go but I had no CO2 tank and regulator at the time, I was also reading about filling the keg with sanitiser and using the free CO2 from the fermenter to push out the sanitiser to leave a keg full of CO2 ready for the brew, I read about this too late as I had let the pressure go down to under 10 PSI and I couldn't do this, but I did connect up the keg filled with sanitiser to see if it would work, and with such a low pressure it did.

I decided to get a CO2 tank and regulator as I needed to build up the CO2 to push out the beer in to a keg anyway, so I ordered a regulator for a Soda stream bottle online and I went in to town to get a bottle for about £18 with a refundable bottle.

I cleaned out a keg with sanitiser and with the keg open I added a measured quantity of the priming sugar, I then fitted the CO2 tank to the regulator and connected to CO2 to the gas in on the fermenter and a line from the beer out to the beer out on the keg so that it fills the keg from the bottom, I turned on the gas slowly to under 5 psi on the regulator until the beer started flowing then turn off the gas, I did this a number of times until the keg was nearly full, about 18 litres, I then fitted the lid on the keg and repeated this with the another keg but this time I stopped when the beer got down the the yeast in the Fermenter King Gen 3, this keg was filled to about 5 litres, I then fitted the lid on this keg and purged the oxygen from both kegs with the CO2 tank, the put the kegs away undisturbed for a few weeks.

I then spent an age cleaning out the fermenter and everything else.