Is cask beer this simple?

[Druss]

After seeing a post from @Hazelwood Brewery in the 'what are you drinking' thread some days ago:

That’s right, it’s carbonated through secondary fermentation. The beer is in a King Keg and the beer dispensed through a tap using fairly low pressure from the natural carbonation. This is it on the day it came out of the fermenter into this King Keg with a little sugar.

View attachment 104424

I'm inspired to give this a go, but, after doing quite a bit of reading up on this, I'm still unsure if it's simply a case of bottle conditioning but on a much larger scale?

Is there more to it that I'm missing or is it literally a case of racking the beer from the primary into a pressure barrel and adding some sugar?

Is there a noticeable difference between doing it this way Vs bottle conditioning or kegging?

Will there not be oxygen ingress as soon as it's poured?

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere, I did have a browse but couldn't find anything specific.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I used to use kegs, you need to leave in the fermenter for a minimum 2 weeks or until it is clear then prime your keg and put the beer in close it and leave for at least a day

 

[An Ankoù]

I used to use Boots plastic pressure barrels. I'd rack the green beer from the fermenter into them with a bit of priming sugar: much less, proportionally, than is used with a bottled batch, and start drinking it as soon as it was carbonated and bright. It's entirely different to bottling. If I did a few bottles and kegged the rest the beers would have quite different characteristics. I preferred the kegged beer.

 

[Dazzelknight]

I do my London pride clone this way. Prime my pressure barrel and a week later it’s spot on. It lasts for months, the first couple of pints are a little lively but then pours perfectly.

 

[foxy]

After seeing a post from @Hazelwood Brewery in the 'what are you drinking' thread some days ago:



I'm inspired to give this a go, but, after doing quite a bit of reading up on this, I'm still unsure if it's simply a case of bottle conditioning but on a much larger scale?

Is there more to it that I'm missing or is it literally a case of racking the beer from the primary into a pressure barrel and adding some sugar?

Is there a noticeable difference between doing it this way Vs bottle conditioning or kegging?

Will there not be oxygen ingress as soon as it's poured?

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere, I did have a browse but couldn't find anything specific.

It is simple, and you don't have to spend a fortune setting a cask system up, I first used a cube as secondary fermenter and a gravity pour. Rule of thumb is half the sugar you would use for bottling. The bubbles are finer and no obvious carbonation which suits my taste buds.
We had some good discussions on AHB in the past about cubes as casks.
https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/cask-and-hand-pump.78151/

 

[MashBag]

Yes. Beer is as simple as you want it to be.

Says the bloke who mashes overnight, doesn't chill, ferments in the mash kettle and bottles on day 6 or 7.
...and I am looking to improve that process (takes too long)

Good beer can be simple. Its very easy to make it complicated.

 

[peebee]

Looks like the sort of thread I should have my say in?

Is there a noticeable difference between doing it this way Vs bottle conditioning or kegging?

Massive difference! Although I have come across some who have a "lighter touch" on the priming sugar and churn out perfectly acceptable "cask style" bottled beer. The emphasis is on that "lighter touch"; probably means half the priming sugar most think is a lighter touch. For kegs I usually use 12-14gms of sugar in 20 litres.

Will there not be oxygen ingress as soon as it's poured?

Even CAMRA have stopped pushing this "oxygen" twaddle. Concentrate on getting the carbonation well down to start with. Plastic "pressure barrels" are okay because use too much pressure and they burst! But they can still hold a bit too much pressure for "cask-style" beer. Regulating CO2 pressure manually is most likely doomed to failure: Everyone will be too heavy-handed with the CO2, those that do try to be careful are rewarded with air being sucked back into the beer container (which causes it to go off in a few days). It is impossible to set an ordinary regulator to a low enough pressure, even secondary regulators. People set up contraptions with mylar balloons to catch fermentation CO2 at atmospheric pressure, but I'm a proponent of LPG regulators (fitted as secondaries), especially the Spanish made "Clesse" 50-150mbar regulators which aren't lumbered with "POL" adapters (they have easy to connect up BSP threaded ports). They also have a handy adjuster: I reckon about 60-80mbar (around about a bit less than 1PSI) is about right.

LPG regulators are very reliable ... they manage explosive gases normally! (And cheap ... thousands of campers and caravaners depend on them).

And I back all this up with the ubiquitous "Treatise" document linked in my signature below.

 

[An Ankoù]

Yes. Beer is as simple as you want it to be.

Says the bloke who mashes overnight, doesn't chill, ferments in the mash kettle and bottles on day 6 or 7.
...and I am looking to improve that process (takes too long)

Good beer can be simple. Its very easy to make it complicated.

Do you bother sparging?
We had a member here who said he was going to try fermenting the whole mash. He never did report how it ended up, but I can imagine! A rare fellow fro Peterborough, I recall. I wonder what happened to him.

Off across the Great Ditch this very afternoon to visit my Nephew in Bath and pick up his kegs etc, that he's not using for the moment. Looking forward to reserving bottles for lager and strong ales.
The reason I gave up on the Boots' kegs (which I never had the slightest trouble with) is that I wasn't used to the water here and was getting some odd results, which made me think (wrongly) that I had a persistent infection. That, and not being able to get the gas for the valves they were all fitted with. I might press them back into service if our lad wants his kegs back at some stage.

 

[Druss]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm definitely sold on the idea, I bought a 2 gallon Bigger Jugs pressure barrel on Amazon this morning so I'll be giving it a go with my next brew in a couple of weeks.

Just need to find space for it now...