Have an amber lager brew in progress. With 7 days left in the 15 day cycle, my machine is currently reading ~30 PSI. A few days ago, with about 9-10 days left, the PSI was 24-27 --- I manually released some pressure and it went back down to about 21-23 PSI, and now it is back on the rise past 30.
Is this normal? Should I be manually releasing pressure during the brew to keep it within a certain range under 20 PSI?
During fermentation, psi sometimes can go as high as 37 psi, and there is a pressure sensor on the mainboard inside the machine to detect pressure, so the gas pipe must be connected in order to detect the pressure.
When the gas pipe is connected, the display will show the real-time and accurate pressure inside the fermentation tank.
When the pressure inside the fermentation tank is too high, the orange pressure relief valve on the fermentation tank lid will automatically release pressure. There is also an additional safety valve inside the machine to release excessive pressure, so there is no need to worry about safety issues.
To avoid over-carbonation of beer and excessive foam during tapping, it is also recommended to gently lift the pressure relief valve during the fermentation process to release some pressure and lower the air pressure.
During the end of fermentation and the beer chilling process, the machine will detect the pressure. When the pressure is too low, the CO2 cylinder will supplement the appropriate pressure of CO2, resulting in a lower pressure value.
@Jack Thanks for the reply, Jack --- regarding this advice:
"To avoid over-carbonation of beer and excessive foam during tapping, it is also recommended to gently lift the pressure relief valve during the fermentation process to release some pressure and lower the air pressure."
is there an optimal pressure to aim for during brewing to prevent overcarbonation at the end? Should I be regularly releasing pressure to keep it within a certain PSI value range? Does that optimal range depend on what type of beer I'm brewing?
For Pale Ales, ending pressure range 7-13 psi. For Amber Lagers, ending pressure range 10 to 14 psi. For Bavarian Wheat, range 15-20 ending psi.
@Jack thanks for these ranges --- will pressure likely drop during the cold crash during the final 3 days of this current brew cycle or will I need to manually release pressure to get it down to a good range?
The unit is currently at 34 PSI with 6 days left --- should I release pressure now to something lower such as the recommended end range of 10 to 14 PSI or wait and see where the PSI goes towards the end of the cycle?
The machine is equipped with dual safety valves—one manual and one built-in for automatic release if pressure gets too high. If a customer's pressure reads around 38psi without an alert from the machine, manually releasing pressure for 2-3 seconds is advised. Pressure typically starts to build from the second day of fermentation and will decrease during the cooling phase.
@Jack --- right, my question isn't about safety but just about optimizing quality of the final brew. I'm wondering if manually lowering pressure during the brew process and not allowing it to get too high (whatever "too high" may be --- greater than 25 PSI? greater than 30 PSI? etc.) will yield a better brew.
If not, and if 30-35 PSI during fermentation is what it should be and will still yield a fantastic brew, that's great and is less work and attention that I'll pay to the unit during fermentation........but if keeping the unit at some lower PSI value during fermentation will help the end product, I'll gladly manually release some pressure daily to keep it within an optimal range for the fermentation stage.
The normal pressure range inside the fermenter is 0-29psi, if the pressure is too high, the machine will alert you, and then you can manually release the pressure by loosing the tube. This is because releasing too much pressure may affect the taste.
Has anyone elese noticed that the pressure readings don't seem to be exactly real time? Hoping it's not just my unit.
It takes a minute or so for my unit to update the pressure reading if I do a manual release of the pressure, which makes getting the pressure I want a little tricky, since I have to wait a while before I can see the new pressure I'm at and then adjust accordingly.
Is this normal? Is anyone else expreiencing this?
Same here...normal operation it seems
Yeah, it does seem like normal function. I timed it out, and it seems to be checking/updating pressures every 5 minutes. So I'm assuming that's what it's programmed to do.
