Cask Ale

[Devonhomebrew]

How does cask ale work????????

My dad said he would get me 2 casks and i wanna know how they work.

 

[shocker]

Darcy !!!!

 

[Darcey]

Darcy !!!!

Bonjorno!

Casking is the process of 'conditioning' the beer. In the same way that you would bottle condition your beer to give it some fizz you can cask beer to do the same. Usually you would rack your beer accouple of gravity points before its FG, this way the beer in the cask forms some pressure of Co2 which conditions the beer. This is a very useful process as it meens for the most part you only have to ferment for afew days (depending on yeast and style). Casks are not designed to handle high pressure and only usualy condition the beer to 1-1.8~ Volumes of Co2. The target for a cellar conditioned beer is 1 volume of Co2 however the aim of conditioning is slightly higher than this.

If you cant predict your FG then adding some priming sugar will do a similar job. Then as with a bottle you leave to condition at 'room temperature' before storing for a min of 3 weeks at 12C. You will prob want to add some finings as well to make your beer clear as you will be racking it off before its fully fermented and will need some help to go crystal clear.

I shall post more when its not 12.30am.

The main disadvantage of cask conditioning is that if you are serving your beer from the cask you will usually only get 5days of 'best' quality beer... advantages are that its easy and time effective.. and also personally I think produces a better mouth feel and more authentic 'condition' (dont tell my cornies!!).

If your a member of CAMRA is not real ale unless it comes from a cask!

D

 

[jamesb]

If your a member of CAMRA is not real ale unless it comes from a cask!

Only the socks, sandle and beard brigade believe that.

 

[Stone Cold]

you will need to get some Shive's and Keystone Bungs. they dont cost much at all but if you cant find any il pop a few in post for you. youl need

clean cask
keystone
shive
spike
beer
hammer

you can prime the cask with about half a cup of sugar the same you would a bottle to the same ratio. bit of finnings may help you aswell.

 

[shocker]

Casks in this case are vented to the surrounding atmosphere ? Thus making a clean environment a must ? I ask because I was talking to a St Austell brewery pub landlady recently and she told me they now vent CO2 into their cask ales . Admittedly these would be metal casks she was talking about but the same theory....I think....

 

[jamesb]

Shocker; soinds like a cask breather setup to me. Fantastic things despite what the CAMRA Militant wing think.

Mind you, it does depend on the beer. To me, beers such as Pedigree and London Pride benefit from a little contact with oxygen.

 

[Devonhomebrew]

[/quote=]Mind you, it does depend on the beer. To me, beers such as Pedigree and London Pride benefit from a little contact with oxygen.[/quote]

I brew milds and prime with 30g of sugar but i leave the top open for 1-2 days after fermentation.

 

[Hirsty]

Never heard of venting CO2 into a cask before. Perhaps this is a mix up between keg and cask?

There have been cask ventilators spiles (such as this) which allow excess CO2 out of the cask.

 

[Stone Cold]

cask vents are great but devon doesnt need to think about these.
the basic theory of a cask and using a soft spike is fine has worked for hunderds of years in clean AND soggy damp smelly cockroach infested pub celler. so dont worry about the inviroment it is in.
when yur dads got you the casks drop me a pm with ur address i will send you the bungs you need.
30g of priming sugar sounds spot on to me off the top of me head but i bung it up straight away and leave in warm for a week to condition. then leave it as long as ur little impacient self can!

 

[Stone Cold]

oh and you will need about 9gallons of beer brewerd mate

 

[Darcey]

Co2 aspirated casks using a fancy gas system draw Co2 in during service rather than surrounding air. This has the advantage of letting the beer keep longer than 3 days at prime. What you can do is just to spray a burst of Co2 in to your cask after you have drawn the first few pints off and then occasionally between servings this acts as a co2 barrier. in the pub systems the Co2 is never more than atmospheric pressure so as to 'carbonate' the beer... this if your a CAMRA bod.. is NOT real ale... (this is also why I dont join CAMRA :evil: :twisted: )

 

[Stone Cold]

from our pub cellar we have up to 10 casks at a time in various stages of tapping and consuming. the job of carbonating/conditioning the cask is safe, get the beer in the barrel, prime, hammer the bung into barrel job done. when it comes to tapping it release the pressure from the cask with a hard spike and hammer, (theres a small hole that will pop out when you strike it) then replace the hard spike for a soft one (soft wooden spike acts like a air filter). then hammer the clean tap in, leave to settle.

beers in the cask, the atmospheric pressure is nowhere to be seen.

 

[shocker]

All starting to make sense now .....the reason I brought up the vent issue was because I didnt think Devon was wanting to consume 9 gallons in three days , which I HAD thought was what you needed to do .

But now I know different it means I dont have to drive up to Devons place and help him neck all those gallons in a 3 day sesh . Bugger . :cry:

 

[micmacmoc]

Shame, you could have picked me up on the way shocker! Always willing to help a brewer out!