Using Argon to serve wine on tap

[bobsbeer]

Has anyone used argon to serve wine from a keg? As an inert gas it seems ideal to serve the wine from a keg rather than a bottle. Argon seems to be easily available as it is used as a welding gas.

 

[bobsbeer]

With all the wine makers on here, has no one tried or thought of using argon? :wha: I'm guessing not as no one replied. So I have ordered a small canister of argon to give it a try. Assuming it hasn't finished me off, I'll report back the results once I have tried it in a few weeks. I have also seen sparklet sized argon cylinders which may be useful for using in 5lt mini kegs.

 

[BIGJIM72]

http://www.ehow.com/facts_7702498_toxic ... lding.html

Not that keen on the description to investigate further

 

[chrig]

You may have already come across this article, but you seem to be on the right track;

When dispensing wine on tap, it is best to use a mix of argon or nitrogen with Co2 to help maintain the Co2 found in wine after fermentation. “Since we’re dispensing wine under relatively low pressures, and assuming that the wines will not be served above 60˚F, a readily available premixed gas of 75% N2 and 25% CO2 works pretty well,” Neal and Gunn said.

http://wineontap.net/?page_id=195

 

[bobsbeer]

I've looked at the safety issues, but using argon in wine is different to using in a welding situation. With welding the gas is used to create an envelope around the area being welded to prevent oxidation. To do this the gas needs to flow continuously and will in time affect the environment it is being used in. Hence the ventilation requirement. But with wine the only time a volume of argon would be produced is during the process of de pressurisation before cleaning etc. The same would apply for any beverage gas, such as co2 or nitrogen. Both in high concentration are not conducive to good health.

I have looked at a few commercial draught wine systems which all use either nitrogen, argon or a mixture. Co2 on it's own is not used due to it being readily dissolved. I hadn't thought of using 75/25 n2/co2 or argon/co2 due to the level of co2, as I usually try to eliminate co2 rather than introduce it. But maybe a test is in order. To start with I'm going to try argon on it's own and see how it does. Temperature control will be an issue, especially with full kegs, but service should be via a kegerator at home and transferred to bottles while away for short term storage in the fridge. I tried this with my ecofass keg and it worked well. The ecofass is a bag in a keg system, so no gas is introduced into the wine. But I want to try it in my 20lt sankey kegs.

 

[tonyhibbett]

I tried to produce a system using co2 and a pressure barrel for dispensing wine but found the collapsible bag in a box with tap (20 litre polypin) a much better option. I also found than carbonating wine with a Sodastream sometimes produced unpleasant results. CO2 is is quite acrid in high concentration. It is, after all, a mammalian waste product of breathing air, farting herbivores (cows) and vegetarians and, for that matter, fermentation generally, not to mention a major greenhouse gas emitted by power stations, cars and gas fired central heating. Toxic waste. But we humans like our toxins. Dom Perignon tried to get it out of champagne, but people said no, we like it!
As a buffer against bacterial infection, it's very useful, but sulphites are used to do the same job in commercial production. At the same time, limited contact with air does much to improve wine during barrel maturation and in the short term by allowing a bottle of wine to breathe for even up to 24 hours, including white wine.
As for argon, there are levels of impurity which are acceptable for non food use. It is worth bearing in mind the way that beer production became the pursuit of max profit at the expense of quality and it was only a result of CAMRA that at least some brewery products returned to less profitable traditional methods of production and ingredients, while of course still pandering to the lager lout culture that they had created.

 

[DrD]

With all the wine makers on here, has no one tried or thought of using argon? :wha: I'm guessing not as no one replied. So I have ordered a small canister of argon to give it a try. Assuming it hasn't finished me off, I'll report back the results once I have tried it in a few weeks. I have also seen sparklet sized argon cylinders which may be useful for using in 5lt mini kegs.

That's just if Argon were to replace the air in the room, you'd suffocate. Argon is safe to breathe, it is already in the air and is used in diving bottles with Oxygen (Argox).

As for using it in wine, I'd try it if I had a need to dispense wine with gas.

 

[bobsbeer]

It is worth bearing in mind the way that beer production became the pursuit of max profit at the expense of quality and it was only a result of CAMRA that at least some brewery products returned to less profitable traditional methods of production and ingredients, while of course still pandering to the lager lout culture that they had created.

Not sure how that relates to wine in a keg. I'm not using the argon to carbonate or should that be argonate? :wha: As I don't age my wine in a wooden barrel the difference between a stainless steel keg with a layer of argon rather than bottles or in a plastic container of some description for aging shouldn't make much difference. Although plastic is not impervious to oxygen like stainless steel. My reason for doing this is to save bottling. But unlike keg beer I can't use co2 as my wine is still. So an alternative inert gas has to be used to push the wine out.

 

[beermaker]

Safety concerns aside, is it not just expensive? Speaking as a tight fisted Yorkshireman, I was horrified at the cost of Argoshield so I run my mig welder on pub gas unless its a special job. As mentioned before, maybe try nitro mix gas? I got some once in midget widget cylinders for a Guinness clone I'd brewed which I didn't want to over carbonate and it worked a treat.

Wassail!
Phil

 

[Bernie]

It would not be too different from nitrogen but is welding argon gas approved food grade?

As an aside, I think the anoxia from an "inert" gas filled room (N2 or Ar) may be more severe than suffocation as breathing it would actually deplete the blood of oxygen, unlike holding ones breath.
There was a case of a person (my old work place)) who walked into a confined space where there was a nitrogen leak and he passed out immediately. Secondly, a reduction of O2 down to 16% would have noticeable effects so the room would have to be filled with Ar or N2.

 

[bobsbeer]

but is welding argon gas approved food grade?

That I don't know, but unless it's contaminated with oil, it is an inert gas, and should be safe. Argon constitutes about 1% of the air we breath everyday so again in small concentrations is safe. Any company providing contaminated argon for welding purposes would soon be out of business as the effects on the weld could be critical. However the more I read the more I'm leaning towards pub gas. Easily available and at 25% co2 should not be sufficient to cause carbonation in the wine. Nitrogen being the main constituent is also inert so also a good candidate for use as the propellant. And unlike pubs who need high pressure to push beer through long lines, my run will be short and need less pressure than will cause carbonation problems even in an uncontrolled environment. And unlike beer that needs to maintain it's carbonation I don't need to use 4 x the pressure that would be required if were using pub gas to maintain normal carbonation. But when taking away in the caravan the small argon canisters may be a good way of achieving draught wine on the move. My research would indicate that nitrogen and argon do not combine and remain separate inert gases. Similar to our atmosphere of 78% nitrogen and 1% argon, but without the 20% oxygen.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Gas will still push it out, carbonated or not, while preventing fresh air coming in. It's just a matter of preventing a vacuum. However, a small amount of air is beneficial to the maturation of wine, which is how a wooden barrel works and to some extent plastic containers like PET, which is gas permeable, unlike glass, steel, concrete and aluminium. To prove the point, take a bottle of cheap white wine, open it, taste a glass and replace it in the fridge with the cap or cork removed. Try it the next day.

 

[bobsbeer]

Your right. But the wine will not be kegged till nearer consumption time. So is going to be as good as it gets before kegging. This method is not new in the commercial world, as many bars etc serve it this way. Especially in the USA. I'm trying to scale it down to homebrew size with a method that is reasonably cost efficient and above all labour efficient. As well as portable.

 

[tonyhibbett]

I used to go camping loaded up with bottles of my wine, which worked very well. Going further afield, as far as Nepal, I simply drank the local wine, with no complaints!

 

[bobsbeer]

For years now I have religiously bottled my wine. I did have a short foray into using 5lt polypins, but soon gave up on that one as they took up too much room in the fridge. And went back to bottling. I usually bulk age my wine in 23lt polyethylene ex pharmaceutical containers. Then bottle. With my beer I nearly always keg. It was this that made me think, why not keg my wine? If it's good enough for high end commercial producers, then it's good enough for me. Hence the questions. From the answers it's not something that has been done by home wine makers on here, so I will just have to experiment until I get the system perfected. I'll post back the results. All I need now is some connectors to convert the 4mm od hose coming from the regulator to 3/8" sankey gas connection, then it's kegging time.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Way back, I salvaged an aluminium beer keg which worked fine for beer for a while, but it developed a taint which I could not remove, and so abandoned it as a liability. No doubt the modern keg is made of different stuff.

 

[bobsbeer]

Experiment started. I have kegged my wine into a 20lt sankey keg. I have attached it to a disposable argon cylinder and regulator. The gas hose is 4mm coming from the regulator so I have had to use a couple of bits to get the hose up to 3/8" to fit onto the sankey connector. To serve I have it attached to a party tap at present, but plan on serving from a countertop tap once I get my brewery sorted. As it's not in a kegerator I plan to fill a bottle or two at a time and put in the fridge. I need to sort the pressure as initially it foamed like crazy, but soon settled. I then lowered the pressure and with the tap wide open it poured fine with no foaming. Doing it this way I don't need to steralise the bottles, just clean. The wine won't be in the bottle long enough to spoil. :lol:

As for taste, the wife could not tell the difference between the bottle I filled when I kegged and the wine out of the keg.

 

[Gcarr]

This will be a little late for you but what ever you do do not use an industrial gas. What welders use is not fit for consumption.

I specalise in draught wine and it is true that people use Argon and Nitrogen (we use Nitrogen) but the gasses that you should use always has to be food fresh so it does not contaminate the wine and so that it does not make you ILL.

If you would like any more help with Draught Wine, i supply to the on-trade (restaurants and stadiums etc) then drop me a message and i will gladly help.

All the best

Glenn

Has anyone used argon to serve wine from a keg? As an inert gas it seems ideal to serve the wine from a keg rather than a bottle. Argon seems to be easily available as it is used as a welding gas.

 

[Dutto]

Er ..... apparently, "bobsbeer" hasn't posted since 04-04-2014 which is less than a month after his last Post on this Thread.

I'm left wondering if his experiment with Argon had catastrophic consequences!

Does anyone know what happened?