What did you get delivered today
- Thread starter Ozarks Mountain Brewery
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Ah beautiful looks like a bundle of joy and mischief all rolled into one
Put 'em to work! If only you could train it to wash bottles...
My stepson dropped this off yesterday. Still has 1000 PSI in the tank. I was a bit surprised to find it still charged.
![IMG_3067[1].JPG](https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/attachments/img_3067-1-jpg.22654/ "IMG_3067[1].JPG")
Now I gotta get the stout outta the fermenter, and see what happens if I put a few PSI on it for pressure transfers. I'll do it with water to avoid wasting a batch, of course. What better way to clean the fermenter and filling bucket?. I just want to see how much pressure it'll take to push finished beer into a bottling bucket sitting up on the benchtop. Then I can just connect a hose to the bottom of the fermenter and to the spigot on the bottling bucket, and transfer away. Assuming of course I don't blow the top off the fermenter. It isn't pressure rated, but perhaps I'll get away with a few PSI. A half-inch column of beer 6 feet tall shouldn't be real heavy. If I can get it done without damaging the fermenter, who cares if I push a few CO2 bubbles through the batch in the bottling bucket. If not, I'm probably looking at a new fermenter anyway so I can experiment with pressure fermenting down the line.
Now I gotta get the stout outta the fermenter, and see what happens if I put a few PSI on it for pressure transfers. I'll do it with water to avoid wasting a batch, of course. What better way to clean the fermenter and filling bucket?. I just want to see how much pressure it'll take to push finished beer into a bottling bucket sitting up on the benchtop. Then I can just connect a hose to the bottom of the fermenter and to the spigot on the bottling bucket, and transfer away. Assuming of course I don't blow the top off the fermenter. It isn't pressure rated, but perhaps I'll get away with a few PSI. A half-inch column of beer 6 feet tall shouldn't be real heavy. If I can get it done without damaging the fermenter, who cares if I push a few CO2 bubbles through the batch in the bottling bucket. If not, I'm probably looking at a new fermenter anyway so I can experiment with pressure fermenting down the line.
The diameter of the line has little to do with it. You'll need maybe 5 or 6 psi, 3 to get liquid up 6 feet and a couple more so it moves. The fermenter might not like that.
It does depend on the surface area of the liquid in the fermenter. PSI is pounds per square inch, how many square inches times pressure equals pounds of force.
(A column of liquid about 32 feet tall is 1 atmosphere, about 15 psi. 6 feet is 3/16 of that, or about 3 psi.)
I'm well acquainted with PSI. You should see how much and how fast oil will come out of a large transformer with only 15 PSI on it (which is about 10 PSI too high). Or what happens to the roof of a pump house for a swimming pool when the filter lid lets go at 20 PSI because someone didn't tighten the clamp on it right, and it launched like a Saturn V rocket. Or how a cast iron valve body for a M-68 tank transmission will essentially explode like a bomb when a positive displacement pump dead-heads into it at 4000 PSI. A steel door and inch thick Lexan sheet saved my life that day. Not to mention, what a 1200 PSI steam leak will do to the straw end of a broom (cuts it like a shear). Yep, I know what PSI is. I have no doubt the tank would probably hold 30-40 PSI, and the valve certainly will. It's just the lid that makes me feel a little squirrely.
Surface area inside the fermenter is quite large at starting volume, and I have no doubt the tank and ball valve will hold up to the pressure. It's a pretty solid piece of plastic and a Schedule 80 PVC valve. It's the lid I worry about, and whether or not I can get a good enough seal on the O-ring on that, or whether it'll hold the pressure without slipping the threads on the mouth of the tank. The lid is roughly 6" diameter, maybe 7, the surface area at 5.5 gallons is roughly 13.5 inches. Unlike the Fermzilla hardware, the FF7.9 lid was only designed to keep critters out and a very slight positive pressure during fermentation, whatever an air lock will hold back. I just don't think it'll hold even low-pressure long term (pressure fermenting) and would likely be a CO2 bottle eater. Short term isn't an issue, e.g. transferring, if it will hold sufficient pressure.
By my calculations, a 6-foot long 1/2" diameter column of liquid has a total volume of 56.55 Cubic inches, ergo, a total weight of 2.039 pounds of water that has to be lifted at peak head pressure at the fermenter ball valve with a 6-foot lift. This is a ballpark number and would need a bit of calculus for curvature of the hose, horizontal displacement, tighter measurement of actual lift, etc. etc. but for grins and giggles and a SWAG, I'm considering it a vertical 6 foot lift straight up from the bottom of the valve, i.e. worst case scenario to get from bottom of fermenter to top of bottling bucket. The CSA of a 1/2" ID hose is .7854 sq. in. To lift 2.039 pounds of liquid, I gotta have a minimum of 2.6 PSI just to hold the level at 6 feet, a bit more to get it to move. If I can do it with 4 PSI (or less), I THINK the lid will stay on it, and I might even be able to do some low-pressure spunding with it later when I get the bits and bobs to do that with, assuming I can seal the bugger up well enough. I may get some clever minute force amplification from the conical shape, but we are talking static head pressure based on the volume of the hose and total lift. It'll be interesting to run the experiment.
For now, though, the biggest problem is pin-lock bulkhead fittings simply are not to be found (certainly not within my patience with the Amazon search engine), so I'll likely be buying ball-lock posts and replacing the pin-lock hose fittings as well. I need a couple other bits for my QD hoses on the hot side too, so should be placing another order this week before I bottle the stout. I want to know if I can do this before I commit the next batch to the FF7.9. Water's pretty cheap to play with.
"Hey yall, hol' muh beer and watchiss!"
The AllRounder is one I’m considering. Another issue with the FF7.9 is the height with the airlock installed. The AllRounder is nearly a foot shorter, but perhaps the yeast collection isn’t quite as convenient
Yup, bigger pipe has more squinches, so pressure needed is about the same.
Curvature of the tube indeed!
Got an email from Williams brewing that the conical fermzillas were on sale…like $40 off. So next batch I’ll be using that Giving the ACT next Saturday and that will make me even
Giving the ACT next Saturday and that will make me even
Plenty hose connectors, no bulkhead posts. Don’t need more pin lock hose connectors if I don’t have posts to connect them to. I found post removal sockets, replacement poppets, and plenty conversion options for ball lock stuff. Just no bulkhead posts. No biggie, I’ll convert to more common ball lock.
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But the cleaning is so much simpler.
Precisely why it's so attractive to me, considering the amount of cleaning that bottling adds. Disassembling PVC ball valves and cleaning without scratching them and creating leaks or hiding spots for baddies gets pretty old. Can't see a butterfly valve being any better for that matter. I don't brew enough to really benefit from yeast collection, but I occasionally do it to get a good strong pitch on 2 maybe 3 generations if I really like the recipe I'm doing. I could still use a rinse technique for that, though it's probably the most dangerous way to recover yeast. Well, dangerous to the yeast. I ALWAYS smell and taste the cover beer when I repitch. The nose knows.
Hard to find colanders that don’t have soft plastic frames which aren’t designed for sustained heat. The missus got me a stainless one that has telescopic arms that will bridge a pretty big kettle/pot. I used to line that with muslin to strain some of the chunky bits out of the wort while it was still hot (transferring kettle to fermenter). The kettle with a valve and torpedo screen took care of a large part of the mess.I received a custom Wilser brew bag and 13 inch colander today. The generic Amazon bag and perforated pizza pan (say that 5 times fast
This is one is all metal
Fermzilla has arrived and been assembled
