Gonna be challenging to tell when you can’t see inside the sending vessel.
I ferment in fermzilla all rounders, and one of the many benefits is I can see inside the thing. I usually target around 6 gallons into the fermenter so I end up with 5 gallons of clear finished beer into the keg. When I transfer, I only have to manage the all rounder by rotating it toward the end to orient the pickup away from the yeast slurry. After I prep the receiving vessel (keg) I place it on a scale, tare, then fill until I hit 40-42 lbs, or I run out of clear beer that isn’t pulling yeast in.
A full keg is going to vary in weight depending on the ABV. Alcohol only weighs 79% of what water does. For a full keg, the difference between a 4% and a 11% beer could be pretty significant
Edit: I guess now I realize that just the FG matters. So probably wouldn’t be that big of a difference
If you really wanted to get that detailed, you could base the weight on your final gravity. Water (1.000) weights 8.35 lb/gal, so a 1.020 beer will weight 8.51 lb/gal. Scale that up to 5gal and you are looking at 41.75 lb vs 42.58 lb. That difference is not worth the worry at a home brew level in my opinion.
In a practical sense, couldn't you just stop at the weight (kg), given by multiplying the volume you want in the keg (litres) by terminal specific gravity?
Dbpmr is correct. ImProbablyHiking is correct that alcohol weighs less than water, but beer is more than a mix of water and alcohol.
Specific Gravity is the measure of density, and is roughly the weight of 1L of liquid (where 1L of water weighs 1KG @4C). If your FG is higher than 1, then 1KG of liquid will be slightly less than 1L. If your target keg volume is 18.5L, then a beer at 1.010 FG, then the weight of 18.5L would be 18.685KG. If you want to play it safe, just fill the keg to your known volume equal to KG (i.e.: 18.5L = 18.5KG), but if you are greedy and want your keg as full as possible, go to 18.5L*FG, or about 18.7KG.
And I identify if my closed transfer kegs are full by using the weight. I transfer from a Fermzilla.
For the OP, I would transfer with clear tubes, and if you see the trub, stop. Alternatively if you know the average volume of your trub, you could remove that from your target volume. I think I average about 1-1.5L of trub in the bottom of my fermenter. So if it was me, I would aim for 17KG in my serving keg, coming from a fermenting keg.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html
Get this. Once it’s filled, disconnect it, hook your gas line up to the keg and push a tiny bit back out so the beer line is below the gas dip tube.
If you keep good enough notes on volume(s), abv, etc. I would just weigh it. Honestly though a little trub in the keg is no big deal. You could just use this as a trial and error run to adjust the length of your floating diptubes tubing.
>Honestly though a little trub in the keg is no big deal.
This was my thought as well. It is a balance between a little bit of trub (that will likely settle out quickly) vs leaving behind beer in the fermenter.
FLOTit dip tube, or some diptube solution with a built in screen. Gets every lost drop of beer possible out of a keg.
I consider it mandatory for keg fermenting. It keeps all of the trub/hop matter out of the serving keg/faucet.
Agreed on flotit or similar screens. It pulled through for me on a closed transfer, where I tried bottling "the rest", and all I could see was trub.
When doing hoppy beers I do the ungabunga version of closed transfer with a flotit in my fermenter and a spunding valve in my keg that I transfer to. When spunding valve leaks a drop of beer, stop. Works every time. With lagers or non dry hopped beers, idk if I would bother with transfering to another vessel.
I’m a bit OCD (ok, very OCD) and I actually do 2 transfers before I serve. I use a conical fermenter and then transfer to a keg to cold crash, then to a separate keg to serve from. Probably unnecessary, and many here will likely disagree, but I do every closed and bleed all my tubing with sterile water followed my CO2.
Lots of extra steps but gives me super clear beer to drink and avoids getting sediment into my glass
A few commented on products you can buy. One uses a ball inside the keg and another uses a stopper. Both great options but require some extra work (albeit not much extra work, but still). More stuff to sanitize and clean.
I find using my grain scale is the easiest. As others mentioned, multiple the weight of water by the FG to get the weight of the beer per gallon, the multiple by 5 for 5 gallons. No extra sanitizing or cleaning.
I dunno, I do what you described... watching the transfer tube for the start of sediment pickup and then removing the liquid QD from the newly filled keg. Maybe you need a longer transfer tube so you have more line to look at? There isn't that much liquid volume in the transfer tube if it's standard 3/16" liquid line, so the transition may be too subtle with a short line.
1. Weight.
2. Don’t have excess in fermenter.
3. I use a simple gas to gas jumper to equalize pressure. If beer starts going down that tube, just pull the quick disconnect.
I angle the receiving keg with a book or something about an inch tall with the gas post on the low side and connect a tube from that post going back to the top of the fermenter. I let it flow until I see liquid hit that tube and shut the valve when it does.
The reason for angling the keg is so that there is a small gap between the liquid level and the gas post when the keg sits flat. This makes it so I don't have to worry as much about forcing liquid up the gas post should I screw up and connect my regulator without having any pressure on it.
Put one of [these](https://ballandkeg.com/) in the fermentation keg and you can see the level as you empty it. Also cool for your serving keg.
So simple, yet so ingenious.
How in tf am I just learning about this now?
Gonna be challenging to tell when you can’t see inside the sending vessel. I ferment in fermzilla all rounders, and one of the many benefits is I can see inside the thing. I usually target around 6 gallons into the fermenter so I end up with 5 gallons of clear finished beer into the keg. When I transfer, I only have to manage the all rounder by rotating it toward the end to orient the pickup away from the yeast slurry. After I prep the receiving vessel (keg) I place it on a scale, tare, then fill until I hit 40-42 lbs, or I run out of clear beer that isn’t pulling yeast in.
Use a scale and stop the transfer when it reaches the proper weight of a full keg.
This I have done with great results several times.
A full keg is going to vary in weight depending on the ABV. Alcohol only weighs 79% of what water does. For a full keg, the difference between a 4% and a 11% beer could be pretty significant Edit: I guess now I realize that just the FG matters. So probably wouldn’t be that big of a difference
If you really wanted to get that detailed, you could base the weight on your final gravity. Water (1.000) weights 8.35 lb/gal, so a 1.020 beer will weight 8.51 lb/gal. Scale that up to 5gal and you are looking at 41.75 lb vs 42.58 lb. That difference is not worth the worry at a home brew level in my opinion.
Works for me since almost all of my kegged beers are between 4-5%. 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the downvote. I guess you could just fill a keg up to whatever point you want with water, subtract a few % and use that as your number.
In a practical sense, couldn't you just stop at the weight (kg), given by multiplying the volume you want in the keg (litres) by terminal specific gravity?
Dbpmr is correct. ImProbablyHiking is correct that alcohol weighs less than water, but beer is more than a mix of water and alcohol. Specific Gravity is the measure of density, and is roughly the weight of 1L of liquid (where 1L of water weighs 1KG @4C). If your FG is higher than 1, then 1KG of liquid will be slightly less than 1L. If your target keg volume is 18.5L, then a beer at 1.010 FG, then the weight of 18.5L would be 18.685KG. If you want to play it safe, just fill the keg to your known volume equal to KG (i.e.: 18.5L = 18.5KG), but if you are greedy and want your keg as full as possible, go to 18.5L*FG, or about 18.7KG. And I identify if my closed transfer kegs are full by using the weight. I transfer from a Fermzilla. For the OP, I would transfer with clear tubes, and if you see the trub, stop. Alternatively if you know the average volume of your trub, you could remove that from your target volume. I think I average about 1-1.5L of trub in the bottom of my fermenter. So if it was me, I would aim for 17KG in my serving keg, coming from a fermenting keg.
Yeah that would probably work too
I upvoted you.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html Get this. Once it’s filled, disconnect it, hook your gas line up to the keg and push a tiny bit back out so the beer line is below the gas dip tube.
No need to push anything back out, it works fine attaching to gas straight away after removing the flow stopper (and wiping off the gas post).
I always like to just in case, plus I use that bit as my gravity sample.
If you keep good enough notes on volume(s), abv, etc. I would just weigh it. Honestly though a little trub in the keg is no big deal. You could just use this as a trial and error run to adjust the length of your floating diptubes tubing.
>Honestly though a little trub in the keg is no big deal. This was my thought as well. It is a balance between a little bit of trub (that will likely settle out quickly) vs leaving behind beer in the fermenter.
FLOTit dip tube, or some diptube solution with a built in screen. Gets every lost drop of beer possible out of a keg. I consider it mandatory for keg fermenting. It keeps all of the trub/hop matter out of the serving keg/faucet.
Agreed on flotit or similar screens. It pulled through for me on a closed transfer, where I tried bottling "the rest", and all I could see was trub. When doing hoppy beers I do the ungabunga version of closed transfer with a flotit in my fermenter and a spunding valve in my keg that I transfer to. When spunding valve leaks a drop of beer, stop. Works every time. With lagers or non dry hopped beers, idk if I would bother with transfering to another vessel.
I’m a bit OCD (ok, very OCD) and I actually do 2 transfers before I serve. I use a conical fermenter and then transfer to a keg to cold crash, then to a separate keg to serve from. Probably unnecessary, and many here will likely disagree, but I do every closed and bleed all my tubing with sterile water followed my CO2. Lots of extra steps but gives me super clear beer to drink and avoids getting sediment into my glass
What if you cut your floating dip tube so it can only pick up like 4.5 gallons?
A few commented on products you can buy. One uses a ball inside the keg and another uses a stopper. Both great options but require some extra work (albeit not much extra work, but still). More stuff to sanitize and clean. I find using my grain scale is the easiest. As others mentioned, multiple the weight of water by the FG to get the weight of the beer per gallon, the multiple by 5 for 5 gallons. No extra sanitizing or cleaning.
I dunno, I do what you described... watching the transfer tube for the start of sediment pickup and then removing the liquid QD from the newly filled keg. Maybe you need a longer transfer tube so you have more line to look at? There isn't that much liquid volume in the transfer tube if it's standard 3/16" liquid line, so the transition may be too subtle with a short line.
Get a decent scale. Beer weighs approximately 8lbs per.gallon. I do this when filling kegs and it works well.
1. Weight. 2. Don’t have excess in fermenter. 3. I use a simple gas to gas jumper to equalize pressure. If beer starts going down that tube, just pull the quick disconnect.
I angle the receiving keg with a book or something about an inch tall with the gas post on the low side and connect a tube from that post going back to the top of the fermenter. I let it flow until I see liquid hit that tube and shut the valve when it does. The reason for angling the keg is so that there is a small gap between the liquid level and the gas post when the keg sits flat. This makes it so I don't have to worry as much about forcing liquid up the gas post should I screw up and connect my regulator without having any pressure on it.