Does anyone do cask at home?

[Jim Brewster]

I like to support smaller breweries and noticed there's a local one doing 4.5 gallon pins for the price of £45 which seems a good price if their beer's any good, only I've never served from cask so I'm a bit unsure how to do it.

I know many of you, if not most, use kegs for homebrew so how easy is cask by comparison? There is a shorter shelf life of course.

It seems I'd have to get the below:
Wooden splices for the vent,
A tap fitting with a hop strainer
...and to start with I'd probably use a 1/2 turn downspout straight off the cask until I think about possiblybuilding a proper beer engine.
Would I have to get one of those self tilting cradles or could I make up a frame out of plywood to hold it horizontal to begin with and pack it up a little as it empties?

or is it not usually something that people do at home?

 

[Wurp]

You'd need a tap and pour straight cask... You don't need a self tilting rack, just some chocks of wood for when it depletes... It's a lot of beer though and unless you can purge with co2 it'll you'll be drunk for 2 weeks trying to get through it!

 

[Jim Brewster]

It is quite a lot about 36 pints but I'd be sharing it and would get something session strength, they do a few pale ales 3.8% to 4.2% and a bitter.

 

[Chico1980]

I used to work in a brewery in the late 90’s, pretty much constantly had a 18 of short dated beer and a hand pull in my parents garage. Was fine during the winter when nature supplied the cooling. But In summer you have to find some way to cool it. Even a 36 pint pin takes up a bit of room especially on a stillage.
Dispensing straight out of the tap is fine, beer festival style. But you really want a hand pull to make the most of it. If it’s a poly pin you’d have no choice.