Let the Spunding Begin!

Postby **mpietropaoli** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:40 am

Racked our helles last night, ended up with about 2.5 kegs full (the third orange-topped keg is about 1/2 full). Gravity was 1.012 (OG 1.048)

We were missing a piece for a third spunding valve, but am not sure how well naturally carbing it would work anyway. Hopefully I can get it built and installed in the next few days anyway.

The purging recommended in the paper was a breeze.

The racking went really well and was actually easier than our prior method (no need to watch and make sure we don't overfill kegs).

As I told Bryan, the beer had an intense malty taste, but there was a good bit of yeast bite (WLP833) and sulfur, so I need to reserve judgment. One side of me feels as though if we 'aren't sure' if we have it, we categorically DO NOT have it, but on the other, I recall the fermenter sample of the wort tasting like fields of German sunshine.

Trying to think of where O2 might have entered the process, but as I said, I will wait for the finished beer..

Prosit!

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Postby **wobdee** » Wed May 04, 2016 11:43 am

Nice, I'll get there some day

Postby **Owenbräu** » Wed May 04, 2016 12:31 pm

Excellent!

Postby **mpietropaoli** » Thu May 05, 2016 6:38 am

Hmm, 24+ hours and no pressure registering on the valves. (We calibrated and set to 10 psi prior to attaching)

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Postby **Owenbräu** » Thu May 05, 2016 6:53 am

Any chance you have a leak? I always hit the keg with 5-6 psi to seat the lid and then spray for leaks. It's such a small volume of initial CO2 that I don't worry about it.

Postby **Bryan R** » Thu May 05, 2016 8:13 am

Yes, seat the lid first. Also without a FFT, you are not sure where you are at with extract and what not.

Postby **ajk** » Thu May 05, 2016 10:35 am

What's the collective wisdom on spunding for Weissbier? Does it result in too much sulfur dioxide being retained? I always get a ton of SO₂ with the Weihenstephaner strain, and I depend on force carbonation to scrub much of it out.

Postby **mpietropaoli** » Mon May 09, 2016 9:22 am

Looks like we may have transferred too late. We only have 4 PSI pressure in one of the kegs, so we'll need to force carbonate in a few weeks. Would a small dose of SMB be worthwhile since manmade CO2 has some O2 in it?

Postby **Owenbräu** » Mon May 09, 2016 9:28 am

Do you have any sulfite test strips? Your yeast should have left you some sulfite in the beer. If you are under 10-25 ppm, then you might try a small dose of SMB.

Postby **Owenbräu** » Mon May 09, 2016 9:29 am