Keg King Chubby Fermenter - real world review!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- I bought this a few weeks ago when I discovered a spoiled batch of lager. I ended up tipping the batch and the fermenter. When looking for a new one I found this chubby and was immediately drawn to it due to its pressure capabilities. These are available at brew2bottle.co.uk who so far have provided me with great service and swift delivery!
No, you need the security of that extra 35psi valve. But i have the pre set 15psi valve in my spunding valve. It's fairly accurate and far less faffing about to set. You just see to that its clean and plonk it on. Job done.
Hi mate another fantastic video. I use a party tap for taking samples that is permanently connected and it works well. And I heard you can suspend a hop bag above the ferment with a large stir bar and a magnet on the outside. When it’s time to drop pull away the magnet and in the dry hop bag goes. It will also purge the hop pellets of oxygen during fermentation. I haven’t tried it yet but one pitfall would be the lack of free movement of the pellets due to the bag size. You could also buy a dry hopping fermenter where you could close transfer your beer onto the dry hops and off the yeast cake. Ps I just looked at what you get for the price and that is a very tempting piece of kit considering all the extras on an All Rounder come included on the Chubby, just a shame it won’t fit in my under counter fridges.
Cheers mate! I am tempted by the other vessel called the junior. Same material but 20 litres. Could be used as a keg... Tempted to sell a couple current kegs and get a couple juniors. Can use them as secondary or as kegs
Great video, nice adding the cleaning cycle at the end. The keg washer is perfect for that fermenter. Cheers 🍻
Thanks bud!, Yes weirdly it fit so perfectly on the keg washer bucket that my foaming sanitiser didn't really over flow too!
Great video! One way to transfer with less CO2 is by using gravity with a beer-beer and a gas-gas line. It is slow, but it is my preferred way of transferring from my fermentation keg to a serving keg. Place the fermenter/keg with the beer higher than the serving keg. Purge your serving keg. I like purging it through the gas and the beer line alternatively, so get the lines full of CO2 as well. Then pressurize your serving keg close to the pressure in your fermenter. Hook up the gas-gas line. This equalizes the pressure in both kegs. Now hook up the beer-beer line. Give the pressure release valve on the serving keg a pull to release a tiny bit of pressure. This will get the beer flowing, and if all goes well it will finish without needing additional CO2.
I also got one of those cheap fruit/veg weighing scales that can go up to 40 or 50kg. No more guessing how full a keg is when transferring!
Oh, and last tip. Get some carbonation caps if you don't have some. Then keep an empty 2L coke bottle on hand for when your serving keg gets full and you still have some beer left in your fermenter. You can force carb the beer in the 2L bottle and drink it the next day.
Thanks for all the info bud. I used to do gravity transfer when I had an SS fermenter with triclamp, good idea.
Don't know if someone said already but you can put your dry hops in hop bag with magnets and remove magnet from outside to drop hops in.
Yeah cheers a couple people have met me know. I still haven't done it yet because I am a lazy bar steward! 🤣🍻🍻
you could try a hop bag and 2 silicone covered magnets one in the bag one outside holding it to the top
I use food safe magnets to hold a bag of hops above the wort, then just let it drop when it's time. Will solve your problem
Cheers Shane! Have had a few people tell me that, will definitely give it a bash 👍👍
Nice one Chris, I’ve placed a order myself for a chubby via B2B. Looking forward to getting into pressure fermenting. Great tutorial. Love that keg Washer btw
Cheers mate, hope all is well with you! Keg washer was also from B2B. Pretty good price point for both bits of kit 👍
Excellent job! I got one recently and have some brews planned for it but haven't put it to use. I am planning to add a filter to the floating diptube.
Cheers mate! You have reminded me to get back to my brewing. Have taken the whole summer off! I personally don't think you need a filter even with dry hopping unless you cannot cold crash 👍
Ive recently got a Fermzilla all rounder (pretty similar). For gravity measurements I’ve been using a picnic tap to get samples off (much cheaper than an ispindel!).
When dry hopping to try and stop O2 ingress I’ve been connecting my CO2 line to the diptube and running a bit of CO2 in. I don’t know how effective this is, but it makes me feel better!
The keg washer looks like it saves a lot of effort, I may have to invest in one!
Thanks for the tips! I have a picnic tap kicking around somewhere! If I paid that with the magnet trick mentioned in another comment I reckon I am golden. What I did after the dry hop is purge it like I would a keg but I should really have put it back to 15psi again to keep its carbonation. Thanks for watching!
I hope you didn't b***** up your gauge at the end of transfer !
I usually do a closed transfer using gravity to save gas. You just need a gas to gas line the same as your liquid line except using gas posts. First over pressurise the keg by 1 or 2 psi. Set up so that chubby is at a higher level than the keg. Then connect gas post to gas post, that will equalise the pressure. Then connect liquid to liquid. Then a quick lift of the pressure relief on the keg will start the transfer. Gravity will do the rest with no danger to spunding valve or gauge. 🍻
Thanks yes I used to gravity transfer all the time but this has worked well for me, nothing been damaged yet 👍🍻🍻
Dry Hop solution - Magnets!
Very timely video on the Chubby, not unboxed mine yet.
Did you shorten tube for the floating dip tube?
Cheers mate 👍🍺
Howdy pal, no I left it at full length...I couldn't see much sense in shortening it because it floats. Yes it will eventually get to the bottom of the fermenter but I honestly can't see it being an issue as, by that time, all the best will be gone🤣🤣🍻🍻🍻 cheers mate and happy pressure fermenting!
@@SafferBrew Brilliant thanks mate, I will probably leave full length as well then for now.
Keep up the videos, really helpful.
Cheers, David.👍🍺
If you’re not harvesting the yeast you can serve from the chubby. Beer sitting on the trub does nothing at all to the taste of the beer making transferring to a corny redundant. It’s rated to 35 psi so you can force carb in it if needs be. Apparently. Magnets in the hop sock to hold above the beer until needed will cure the dry hop problem, sorted.
Yes, everything has changed since my last video and I am rebuilding the man cave from scratch internally. My 4 tap bar will become a small 2 tap keezer. 2 corny kegs only just fit in. Chubby is too bulky to have multiple even in my 4 keg keezer.
@@SafferBrew 👍
Why didn't you just tap straight from the fermenter?
Nice video mate been thinking of getting a chubby my self at some point next year
Life's better with a chubby! 🤣🤣🍻🍻🍻
Magnets mate...place one in the dry hop bag the other on the outside !!!! BOOSH ! :-)
Sometimes it's the simplest ideas!!! Great one. Will see what I can do on my next batch!
@@SafferBrew th-cam.com/video/uRwkvd1Td10/w-d-xo.html
04:10 on the video; he's a great guy too.
@@DrunkDelilahBrewery thanks for that! Have seen this channel before but wasn't subscribed but I am now. His videos are well compiled...I need to get better at framing
@@SafferBrew I’ve been watching your channel since I first got started in the home brewing. I love them mate. Your Man Cave is a thing of pure jealousy !!! Keep going, your framing is just fine.
@@DrunkDelilahBrewery thank you very much for the positive feedback! Yes, I feel blessed having the Man Cave MK2, I practically live in there hahaha!
Hi, what is it that is circulating the water when cleaning please? Thanks
Nice video mate but i have a Couple of things to suggest if i may.. 15psi is too high mate. My best results come at 5psi for both lagers and ales and the VERY most I'd ferment at is 10psi. Also means when you drop the pressure for dry hop the beer doesn't foam like crazy as yours did.
Fermenting under pressure allows you to ferment at room temp and not have any of those off flavours you get when doing so with lager yeast for example so you dont NEED to temp control at lower temps, allows you to fully ferment clean lagers in a week, instead of 2-3 plus lagering..
That chubby (like the fermzilla) is a uni tank. Meaning you can serve straight from the fermenter.. you're wasting gas by transferring to a keg and risking oxidisation if you mess it up. Simply cold crash the uni tank after fermenting and connect the gas and beer line and your good to go! No need to clean extra kegs etc..
Keep it up, plastic unitanks are the future of homebrew in my opinion. Never bottle or keg again!
Cheers and thanks for the tips. The reason I transfer to keg is usually because my next batch is ready for fermenting and also because I have a 4 keg setup and 4 unitank pressure fermenters would not fit in my chest freezer. I watched loads and read loads on pressure fermenting and from what I watched I am aware that 15psi is in the upper range and that 10-15 was recommended by most. I will try at 5 for the sake of experimentation but honestly haven't had bad results with the current method. Have also been advised to prepitch the hops using the magnet method which I have yet to try. One of the benefits of higher fermentation pressure is that it's also carbonating my beer while it ferments.
Thanks for watching!
@@SafferBrew yeah fair point mate about your reason for transferring. It's still worth mentioning about not needing to keg anymore with this system for those viewers watching this as a review on the fermenter capabilities.
I've been fermenting under pressure for years now, using the fermzilla. Don't worry I've done all the research also on it haha, but I've also done years of trial/sample/ try again on top of that. At 5psi the beer still carbonates in the fermenter, especially when you cold crash before transferring as you should (even with the floating dip tube) you can boost up the gas pressure to serving pressure and its done nicely by the time its ready to transfer. Tje benefits of lower pressure is that you don't suppress EVERY yeast flavour and ester but still stops that bad stuff like Diacetyl
I watched your review because I'm looking to buy 3 of these and ditch all of my 5 corny kegs, I believe for my system where I can fit 2 in my fridge- there is absolutely zero need for kegs any more and uni tanks remove the extra step of cleaning and sanitising more equipment.
Ah got you, yeah if I had the space it would be awesome. I did also buy the junior which is about the size of a corny. Maybe I will get a second one and start to brew bigger batches again. I went through a phase of double batches a few years back and it may be time to get back to that! Ferment and serve is definitely a great idea 👍🍻🍻 cheers
Did it come with the handles? I couldn't tell on brew to bottle.
Yes mate you need to assemble them but if comes with everything you need including the handles.
@@SafferBrew legend, it's on my Christmas list. 😂
Thanks
i would say no to bleach and yes to starsan/chemsan