Closed Yeast Cropping

[zachblake]

Hi Everyone, I'm brewing on a 20 bbl system and was wondering if some folks have some procedural suggestions for yeast cropping in a closed enviroment. Our current procedure is to clean and sanitize all parts of a ball-lock corny keg and attach a sanitary 1 1/2'' hose; then select the yeast I'm looking for after dropping trub to the drain. We're using the obvious indicators of yeast health, consistency, weight, colour and smell. I know these indicators need to be taken with a grain of salt without a proper cell count with a microscope and a Haemocytometer.

What I'm looking for is some advice on other brewer's close cropping procedure, we don't have a yeast brink. I'm imagining attaching a blow off and hose to corny and filling up the keg that way after dumping my lazy floccers to the drain. Any other advice for brett/clean beer harmony would be awesome.

Is there anyone out there consistently weighing their yeast crops that can speak to their assumptions about pitch rate?

Cheers, Zach Blake
Red Arrow Brewing Co.

[BemidjiBrewing]

Reach out to Deutsche Beverage and inquire about their yeast brinks - half the price as others (~$150 last time we ordered). A true yeast brink will save you many headaches than rigging up something else. As you know, corny kegs have lots of small parts, places for nasties to hide and really have too much flow resistance to push a nice creamy slurry compared to a 1.5" TC butterfly valve.

Besides that, get yourself a decent scale that can weigh a full keg and you will be 90% of the way there.

Cheers,
Tom

[theomuller]

Before we got brinks, we were just using regular kegs. Easy to clean, fewer tiny little parts in the coupler.

Valve - sight glass - hose - valve - sanke coupler with valves and blowoff on the gas hookup.

[Bainbridge]

Yeah, we had one too many corny poppets get gunked with something and refuse to pour out later on. Best to use brinks, but sankes will do in a pinch.

I like to do tank bottom valve -> sight glass -> valve and from there use a drain hose to dump trub, once it looks good, remove hose, sanitize and attach sanitized transfer hose (usually a small guy, 5/8s or so, we only have 20bbl tanks). With two valves and the sight glass you can throttle the flow so its nice and steady and you don't pull the center of the cone out. And the sight glass lets you keep an eye on the creaminess, crustiness, or beeriness of your yeast harvest and make the cut accordingly. Bleed pressure off the brink/keg and just move over nice slow and steady.

[BemidjiBrewing]

What Russell said. That's the same way we do it - the additional valve after the sight glass but before the transfer hose is key to gaining the control necessary to tailor your harvest. As mentioned, just vent off the brink/keg a bit whenever you want to allow more slurry to flow and watch the sight glass for the speed and progress of the flow. Prior to the harvest we'll add 3 - 4psi to the tank, then open the bottom dump valve all the way, then open the second valve as much as needed to control the flow. Once the brink and tank have equalized pressure all valves can be opened fully and the flow can be controlled by slowly and periodically releasing pressure on the brink. We usually try to get everything sanitized and setup early on in the day and then just vent the brink every few times we walk by it. It might take us an hour or more to fill a brink, but we have yet to blow out the center of the cone and have been getting excellent, creamy slurries.

Cheers,
Tom

[Kevin Inglin]

Thanks for posting info, guys.

I've been having problems getting my yeast out of my 7BBL fermentors because it turns to liquid far too quickly. Assumed I was creating a channel inside the cone that was allowing beer to rapidly flow through, and now you've confirmed with explanation of the dreaded "blowing out the cone." I tried to slow the flow down, but still didn't have great results ... guess I have to go even slower!

#patience

Kevin

[dinobrew]

good flow control

We found that getting good flow control with a butterfly valve was very hard, it was either too fast or it slowed to a stop in a few seconds. A lot of times to get the right amount of flow the handle would be precariously balanced atop one of the teeth that hold the handle in place. I highly recommend using a sanitary diaphragm valve ( http://www.gwkent.com/sanitary-diaph...lve-316-l.html ) you can get the precise flow rate easily. it also works great for yeast dumps and if you have to throttle down the output of a pump it shines there too. I would also advise budgeting for a dedicated brink, there are way too many nooks and crannies for bugs to set up house in sankes or cornies. As a side note do crannies ever exist on their own or are they always accompanied by nooks???

[BemidjiBrewing]

Todd,

Good call on the diaphragm valve - have these been easy to keep clean? We'll often times disassemble our butterfly valves for a full soak, sani, and reassemble but it can be a pain if there are more than a few of them to tackle.

Also, I think nooks are required for the crannies to exist. Or are they the same? Like odds & ends?

Cheers,
Tom

[dinobrew]

Tom,
They are much easier to break down and reassemble than a butterfly valve, all you need are some wrenches to unbolt the housing. The diaphragm also wears down much quicker than other valve seats so frequent inspection of the diaphragm is a good thing.

[BemidjiBrewing]

Good to know, thanks for the insight!

Cheers,
Tom