Now I have capacity, casking ales?

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Eric
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by Eric » Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:10 pm

Indeed, as you say PeeBee, a significant proportion of CO2 is pulled out by the engine.

My last pin finished a week ago today having been tapped and vented 15 days earlier with one of these devices. It doesn't require the shive to be spilled. Put simply, the capped insert is malleted into the keystone and the yellow valve is turned to vent internal pressure. The cap is removed and the extractor inserted into the beer and screw fastened as was the cap.

A demand valve between the extractor outlet and beer engine inlet stops beer flowing to the engine if the yellow vent is closed, and pressure builds from slowly carbonating beer.

With the vent open and internal cask pressure at ambient, as the engine lever is pulled, pressure in the beer line drops to both raise the beer (from the cellar) and overcome resistance (friction) in the line. This releases CO2, the amount of dissolved CO2 in beer depending upon both temperature and pressure. The result is beer with separate CO2 dispensed at speed into the glass at speed and mixing with air.

You can never pour a bottle of carbonated beer into a glass and get the same result and to do anything remotely similar it is necessary to empty the bottle into a larger vessel and stir it like crazy for a while until much of the carbonation is released, then pour from height into a glass.

Beer poured by tap with gas pressure from behind cannot replicate beer through an engine.

My brew previous to the current one was of 50 litres, it filled an old Boots 6 gallon plastic barrel, a plastic pin and 5 bottles. A further 22 bottles were filled from the Boots barrel and when the pin was tapped, all 3 types were available and the beer from the pin through the engine was the best by some margin.
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MashBag
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by MashBag » Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:08 am

Eric, that is a smashing explanation thanks.

I understand the beer engine reduces the dissolved co2, and then adds air. Could similar be achived by conditioning the bottles with less priming sugar and then pouring from height - or all least with a little flourish at the end?

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Eric
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by Eric » Sat Nov 27, 2021 3:04 pm

MashBag wrote:
Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:08 am
Eric, that is a smashing explanation thanks.

I understand the beer engine reduces the dissolved co2, and then adds air. Could similar be achived by conditioning the bottles with less priming sugar and then pouring from height - or all least with a little flourish at the end?
I'm sure you could achieve something approaching similarity with a bottle, particularly one holding a gallon or so. Put a cap on the top with a valve slightly above the bottom, kept static at cellar temperature. The The cap could be opened to vent the bottle and after equilibrium returned, the beer could be poured from the tap into a large jug, from which tankards of glasses would be filled by pouring from a height to form a suitable head. In the south of our country, a head was optional, while in the north, beer without a head would be rejected.

But joking aside, beer was served from wooden casks in that very way in inns, taverns, pot-houses and wherever else until relatively recent from just one piece of the many great developments by William George Armstrong created the beer engine. It not only saved the innumerable journeys to the cellar and back, but supplied a better pint.

I doubt lightly carbonating bottled beers will help. You have likely seen clips on Youtube, or other places, showing novice tapping of casks with unexpected consequences. Many, including some who frequent here, know of my own exploits with errant keystones, and the benefits of a driveway sloping down to the street, but suffice it to be advised cask pressures can be significantly larger than might be thought by those on the other side of the bar. A vital part of the process is the venting of casks, done differently by many, while extensive Googling for soft spile and what they do helps towards understanding cask ale.. All this is apart from providing a pressurised layer of CO2 over the beer.

My latest brew is a Mild of a 1952 recipe vintage. It was racked on Monday, a week in the FV, to a pin, the 6 gallon Boots plastic barrel and the remnants into 1 bottle. The pin will likely be vented in time to tap for Christmas and New Year, but the barrel was jus sufficiently carbonated on Wednesday for a first trial, which suggested my heavy handed addition of Brown Malt might have been more than it should. So the pressure was released, the top removed for a short while and replaced with a quick squirt of CO2. That was repeated on Thursday evening and yesterday the beer was vastly improved. A coffee aroma from the dark malt with liquorice on the tongue from the dark invert sugar and a vastly less acrid component, due I believe, from venting. Oxygen entering the beer during that process will be absorbed and put to some purpose by the yeast, but won't exactly replicate either the life of beer in a cask or in that with a permanent shield of CO2. Beer from a bottle doesn't have the same life expectancy while open to the elements, making replication more difficult.

I'm not against bottling beer, it's a quick and easy solution for visiting friends and family, staying in a hotel where you might be though to want Carling and it's handy to put one in the fridge in summer, but it is different. Not wrong, just different.
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by MashBag » Sat Nov 27, 2021 4:26 pm

Hmm. Properly food for thought.
I like no faff brewing, and I like to think I have achieved that and a decent house beer, of "real ale" texture which is bottled. But at no more than 2 pints a night I would struggle to get through a cask or cornie in much under 3 weeks. Too long I fear.

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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by herms bay » Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:43 pm

I like the look of it but the difference in a pulled pint to a tap pint is massive. The mouth feel is totally different. If you take on a project it is surely always an objective to get the best you can. The journey is the fun and the end is the reward.
Saying that, if you prefer tapped ale with the extra bite of CO2 (and some beers are better this way) thats great but especially bitter and mild are best in a beer engine
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by herms bay » Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:44 pm

They do little 10l pressure casks I believe. If you store under pressure and tap one every so often it should be fine
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by herms bay » Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:34 pm

I have tried the engine and am happy with the results. I use the sprinkler head and not just the pump neck. (maybe thats a northern thing) but the head was creamy and great mouth feel. My Dad used to say you could tell a good pint if you could see the rings and the head stuck to the side....dont know if theres any validity in that but thats what i got. This is my attempt at a Loweswater gold style ale.
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Honestly love, I haven't bought any more brewing gear!

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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by herms bay » Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:36 pm

Didnt add any finnings to this but did clear, the cloud you see is mostly bubbles
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Eric
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by Eric » Sun Nov 28, 2021 2:30 pm

Yes, that looks perfect. One of my engines is Northern pour and the other southern pour, but usually run both without a sparkler and rarely need one, but they do make a difference. In earlier times there was a spiral fitted inside the spout making the beer wind around the glass, the head forming in turbulence, but that wasn't like the current preferred head like that in your photograph.

Fining with protafloc, or the like, chilling in the kettle and fermenting with more flocculent yeasts does soon produce bright beers without further action, that is until you want to move your beer to another location. That's when isinglass works its miracles.
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by clarets7 » Sun Nov 28, 2021 2:48 pm

bitter and mild are best in a beer engine
I think that really does depend on the style of beer - bitter covers a wide range. The best pint I have ever had was Adnams bitter at the Queens Head in Newton, just south of Cambridge in the early 70's, straight from the barrel. As Eric said, it was still quite common in those days to fill jugs from the cellar, a few of the pubs I frequented used to regularly serve that way. On holiday in Suffolk last September I was lucky enough to find an Adnams pub that still serves all its cask beer that way, the Bell at Middleton. Both the bitter and Ghost Ship were excellent, although on balance I still prefer Ghost Ship through a hand pump.
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by herms bay » Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:16 pm

I had some isinglass but had just left it out on a shelf for weeks then read the pack and it said keep chilled so didn't use it.
I agree that not all ales are best in an engine, i have one so desperate to use it :D
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Re: Now I have capacity, casking ales?

Post by Dads_Ale » Sun Nov 28, 2021 5:55 pm

Really glad you got the beer engine to work. There is nothing better than a hand pulled beer.

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