Bright Beer Tank Pressure Question

[jcwilde1]

We are getting ready to carbonate our first beer on our new 2bbl system this weekend. We want to make sure we have all our parts and processes lined up. We connected our C02 to the bright tank filled with water last night as a test and were struggling with leaks from the lid, so we are going to clean the lid gasket tonight and try again.

But that did make me think we are missing some parts. Are we missing something:

- Pressure relief valve at top
- Carb stone on bottom part of tank
- pressure gauge on lid
- 2 butterfly valves on bottom

Questions:
How do you manually bleed off c02 if you discover a leak and you need to take the lid off?
Do you need to bleed out the oxygen that is in the headspace during carbination?
Any reason to have a racking arm on this tank?

[timbro81]

We are getting ready to carbonate our first beer on our new 2bbl system this weekend. We want to make sure we have all our parts and processes lined up. We connected our C02 to the bright tank filled with water last night as a test and were struggling with leaks from the lid, so we are going to clean the lid gasket tonight and try again.

But that did make me think we are missing some parts. Are we missing something:

- Pressure relief valve at top
- Carb stone on bottom part of tank
- pressure gauge on lid
- 2 butterfly valves on bottom

Questions:
How do you manually bleed off c02 if you discover a leak and you need to take the lid off?
Do you need to bleed out the oxygen that is in the headspace during carbination?
Any reason to have a racking arm on this tank?

There are a lot of questions that this post raises.
1. Is this tank pressure rated?
2. Are you force carbonating in the brite? If so a carbstone near the bottom is going to be necessary.
3. If you are force carbonating, how will you know tank pressure without a pressure gauge?
4. Are you able to add a PRV and racking arm this late in the game? You could probably get by without but...

You will need something (ballvalve) to bleed out O2 BEFORE you transfer beer into this tank. I don't know your process but I like have a few lbs. of CO2 on the brite before I transfer, that way I know my tank has no leaks that may sneak up on me later. Either bleed off as you transfer or connect an umbilical line back to your fermentor to equalize pressure.

[OneMoreBrewer]

If you don't remove all oxygen, you will oxidize your beer. We never expose our bright to oxygen at all. It was filled with water, purged with co2, and kept under pressure (10-15 psi) at all times. Even when empty. When doing CIP procedure we bleed most of the pressure but we basically fill our pipe work with the caustic, ect to purge the lines we are attaching to the bright.

We carb in fermenters, and transfer under pressure so we use an umbilical from top of bright to CIP arm of fermentor, to equalize pressure like timbro81 said. We have no racking arm in bright, but we also filter, so it isn't necessary for our purposes. If you don't do a umbilical, think of it as counter-pressure filling your bright.

I wouldn't bother filling with water until your bright holds pressure. I'd just pressurize it with the oxygen inside, see if the pressure holds, then if it does, fill with water and push it out with pure co2.

Also a factor will be your temps, obviously the colder the better as far as co2 dissolving.
If you have a leak, you are already screwed and you need to move your beer somewhere else (like back to fermentor) and fix the leak. This is why you want your bright under pressure first!
Check your PRV's, they are prone to leak eventually.