Cylinderless Beer Pump - Advice please.

[DrunkDelilahBrewery]

Hi all,

I usually serve my (cask-esque) beers from a corny keg at about 1.6-1.8 vols of CO2 using a Pint 365 - works great. However, I recently bought a cylinder less Angram beer pump and was wondering (before I set it up) how it works? Can I still charge my corny kegs to the same Vols of CO2 and have it pull through or do I need to increase the CO2 psi for serving pressure.

NOTE: To save those "warriors" posting on what is and isn't cask beer - I don't have the capacity to consume the 19L batches I make in 48-72 hours, but thanks for pointing it out !!! .

Thanks,

Stewy x

 

[peebee]

I don't know how you'll take this; I wasn't even aware Angram made cylinder-less pumps, but here goes:

You don't have a hand-pump! It's a keg (free-flow) tap operated by a hand-pump look-alike. It will have a small "damper" unit to provide a bit of resistance like a hand-pump. It's a sham. But as you are serving at quite a high pressure (1.6-1.8 volumes is high) you may not notice the difference.

I serve at about 2PSI (maintains about 1.1 volumes of CO2) and rely on the turbulence of a "real" pump to break out the small amount of CO2 and create the head. Served from a "cylinder-less" pump it would have little head and still be fizzy.

Because your beer will be pretty fizzy anyway, you might get away with a fine sparkler which will help break out the excess CO2. Or that might just create loads of unwanted froth? But you have one of those "pumps" now, so I'd play about with lowering the pressure a bit and trying different sparklers (different sized holes) to create a reasonable sized head and cut the fizziness. A sparkler must have a long nozzle on the "pump", so it is submerged.

 

[DrunkDelilahBrewery]

I don't know how you'll take this; I wasn't even aware Angram made cylinder-less pumps, but here goes:

You don't have a hand-pump! It's a keg (free-flow) tap operated by a hand-pump look-alike. It will have a small "damper" unit to provide a bit of resistance like a hand-pump. It's a sham. But as you are serving at quite a high pressure (1.6-1.8 volumes is high) you may not notice the difference.

I serve at about 2PSI (maintains about 1.1 volumes of CO2) and rely on the turbulence of a "real" pump to break out the small amount of CO2 and create the head. Served from a "cylinder-less" pump it would have little head and still be fizzy.

Because your beer will be pretty fizzy anyway, you might get away with a fine sparkler which will help break out the excess CO2. Or that might just create loads of unwanted froth? But you have one of those "pumps" now, so I'd play about with lowering the pressure a bit and trying different sparklers (different sized holes) to create a reasonable sized head and cut the fizziness. A sparkler must have a long nozzle on the "pump", so it is submerged.

Thanks mate,

Sorry for the late reply. I understand that pub cask ales are conditioned to the same 1.6 - 1.8 vols of CO2, hence my target. I have used my Pint 365 at lower volumes and they lack enough CO2 separation - you can certainly tell. Can I ask what serving temps you are at for 2 psi to afford a keg pressure of 1.1 vols of CO2? By my calculations, that's about 14C, which if correct is too warm for me. Still, I can aim for 1.1 vols. I don't mind if the beer engine being what it is mate, at the end of the day, whether it is force fed or vacuum fed the vols of CO2 would be the same, the temperature the same and I use a sparkler so I am not going to notice a change. I was just curious as to how they worked. Maybe if I can get the beer to serve fast enough through a sparkler at 1.1 (or 1.6 - 1.8 vols) I would use a standard tap....not sure I will get the same effect though [not interested in mixed gas for bitter]. It's all in the learning I guess. I do appreciate your time in the response though mate, thank you.

Edit: I should add that even though the beer engine doesn't have a cylinder - it does have a small chamber which acts as a check valve, so the function of the pull still forces the but of beer into the glass at pump pressure through the spout and sparkler head....not sure if that matters?

What part of North Wales are you from mate, I'm from Wrexham originally !!!!


Stewy

 

[peebee]

Some breweries may aim for 1.6 - 1.8 volumes? I put down 1.5 in my attached "essay" ("treatise", call it what you will). Some breweries (getting rarer) use intuition. It's the Pub's responsibility to get this down to serving levels through a process known as "venting". This should leave a dissolved CO2 level of about 1.1 volumes. "1.1" is a figure taken from CAMRA's book on cellarmanship, but because that was written in CAMRA's anti-CO2 days that book contains the propaganda that atmospheric pressure retains 1.1 volumes of CO2: It doesn't, it retains about 0.9 volumes. Which is why I recommend 2PSI (or less if you prefer) for homebrewers (not Pubs!) which will retain 1.1 volumes.

As experienced cellarmen (and women!) get rarer, some breweries get smarter judging the CO2 content of their cask-beer to "dumb-down" the standard of cellermanship needed to serve their cask-conditioned beer - the process of venting being a key target to "dumb-down".

[WARNING: Political statement follows] The breweries have done this cellarmanship "dumbing-down" before ... in the 1950s and 60s introducing high-pressured "keg" beers for those dumb enough to prefer it (which unfortunately turned out to be most of the population). Guinness went a step further exchanging their complicated high/low cask system for mixed-gas (N2 and CO2) keg (). Thus was CAMRA born. Does that make me a "warrior" (see original post)? Graham Wheeler (CAMRA's homebrewing guru), who read my "treatise" in its early days, certainly didn't think so!



Wrexham is not so far away. A bus journey (I am not allowed to drive) but buses around here cover some big distances ("my" bus, the T3, goes between Wrexham and Barmouth! For our overseas readers: That's an excessively big distance, over two hours, for UK local buses).