DO too high - help troubleshooting

[UpsidedownA]

BBT Purging on the cheap

Reading what Larry Horwitz said above..." it takes us 6 HOURS of constant purging to get our 120 barrel BBT down below 50ppb. " is frightening. Are there any cheaper ways of doing it? Does anyone have any experience, for example, with connecting the vent off an active FV to the outlet of a BBT and purging the BBT during fermentation? Perhaps you could put a keg of sanitiser in between so the waste CO2 has to bubble through the sanitiser before going into the BBT. It seems like it would be a good idea in principle, but has anyone tried this? Aside from capacity issues could there be other problems?

[jsvarney5]

Buy a good DO meter and use it often! I'm amazed that people are buying filtration and packaging equipment for hundreds of thousands of dollars and won't spend $10k on a DO meter. I'd be a ten spot that you're getting DO all over the place. Agree with L on everything...plus it takes us 6 HOURS of constant purging to get our 120 barrel BBT down below 50ppb.

good on you for asking!

Thanks for the comment, Larry. We just ordered a DO meter and very much looking forward to getting it to know exactly where its being picked up. Although with these most recent beers being unitanked, I'm not sure how we could be picking it up all over the place. Do you have any insights on where that might be outside of dry hopping since thats the only time the tank was opened and nothing was transferred?

Also, regarding the brites, I assume youre talking about the purging the brite before starting the transfer? When I do make transfers, it takes about a half hour of purging (up to 15, purge, up to 10-12, purge, up to 8 and transfer) on our 10 barrel so that sounds in the ballpark for a 120bbl.

Any insights into your dry hopping process to keep DO as low as possible? Thanks.

[lhall]

Reading what Larry Horwitz said above..." it takes us 6 HOURS of constant purging to get our 120 barrel BBT down below 50ppb. " is frightening. Are there any cheaper ways of doing it? Does anyone have any experience, for example, with connecting the vent off an active FV to the outlet of a BBT and purging the BBT during fermentation? Perhaps you could put a keg of sanitiser in between so the waste CO2 has to bubble through the sanitiser before going into the BBT. It seems like it would be a good idea in principle, but has anyone tried this? Aside from capacity issues could there be other problems?

I think you'd want to scrub the gas coming off a fermenter to remove sulphur compounds and other undesirable volatiles before using it for anything. A lot of big brewers do this, but I'm not sure at what size it make financial sense.

[Larry Horwitz]

Not so expensive

Reading what Larry Horwitz said above..." it takes us 6 HOURS of constant purging to get our 120 barrel BBT down below 50ppb. " is frightening. Are there any cheaper ways of doing it? Does anyone have any experience, for example, with connecting the vent off an active FV to the outlet of a BBT and purging the BBT during fermentation? Perhaps you could put a keg of sanitiser in between so the waste CO2 has to bubble through the sanitiser before going into the BBT. It seems like it would be a good idea in principle, but has anyone tried this? Aside from capacity issues could there be other problems?

It's not as expensive as you might think. Not sure what you're paying for CO2. If you're paying...say...$0.25 per pound and it takes 100 pounds to purge the tank (an amount that is reasonable) that's about $25. Even a 10 barrel batch of beer has thousands of dollars worth of time, labor and raw goods in it by the time it hits the bright.

purge, purge, purge

[jebzter]

You also only purge your brites once every so many batches. You should be cleaning them with acid based cleaners between most, and then a blow down, get rid of the co2 environment and do a caustic then re purge. Every 5-10 batches would be normal for this. So its really not that much cost when you think about it.