[MattyAHA]

 if i decided to buy a beer engine what other things do you need? i love my stouts on nitro but i cannot get my tank filled anywhere near me i gotta drive 45-60 mins and to me its not worth it but if i can get the same thing out of a beer engine, its got my wheels turning

[narvin]

Beer engine is designed for cask ale, so you're going to want to carb it really low (around 1 volume).  Also, it's intended to be replaced with ambient air, meaning oxygen enters the keg, and in that case you'd want to serve it quickly over a few days.  You can hook up CO2 "cask breather", which is nontraditional but another part to buy.

[MattyAHA]

Right on Narvin thanks, i just took a look at beer engines and they are not cheap, might be better to drive 45-60 mins

[denny]

You can do what Guinness did before they started using nitro.  Uwwe a syringe to wudk some beer up and shoot is back into the glass. You get a creamy head, and like nitro, it knocks carbonation out of the beer to give you the creaminess.

[MattyAHA]

Thats a cool little trick, Hey denny want you to know you single handedly helped me become a more pragmatic brewer and fuss less, thank you bud

[denny]

Thats a cool little trick, Hey denny want you to know you single handedly helped me become a more pragmatic brewer and fuss less, thank you bud

Glad to help.  Keep it up!

[ynotbrusum]

Denny, Thanks for that little insight - That "frother" is a neat little trick.  I am going to have to remember that one.  I will give it a try on a bitter that I have on tap.

[BrewBama]

I’ve been looking at these beer engines that can be fitted to bag-in-box. It eliminates the cask spile or breather question by simply pulling the beer from the bag — no air is introduced to the beer. The bag collapses as the beer is pulled.

After fermentation (or a cpl points before finishing), the beer is transferred into the bag vs a cask, primed, and allowed to secondary ferment/clear/condition etc. and clean up any inadvertent O2 pickup.

The spigot on the bag is then connected to the Beer Engine via a connector and push fit hose. The bags come in various sizes (3, 5, 10 liter etc.) and are reusable. The soft drink industry has been using them for years (which is why we could buy their used corny kegs).

I’ve seen one guy put the bags in plastic totes vs the cardboard box and stack them. He had a cpl different beers in different totes that could be easily interchanged. Pull it out, hook it up, pump a pint or three, disconnect the bag, and re-refrigerate until next session.

Pretty cool way to solve the staling issue while serving thru an engine.


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[majorvices]

So, a lot of stuff covered here but you can't "get the same thing" from a beer engine as you do from a nitrogen stout gas mix. Beer engine is going to be a lot nicer over all but the beer will only last for about 2-3 days before it goes bad unless you are using the trick mentioned above by BrewBama with a bag in the cask. You don't need a cask since you can design something to work with a corny keg (I saw some BYO article years ago on how to do it but I can't remember exactly. Doesn;t seem like there would be any challenging steps.)

Nitro will preserve the beer indefinitely or for the shelf life of your beer.

As far as getting your tank filled 45-60 min away unless you are really serving a lot of homebrew I can't imagine you would need to go through a tank of beer gas more than once a year even for a 5 lb tank.

[Saccharomyces]

I have been looking at acquiring a beer engine for a long time.  For me, the CO2 cask breather is the only via option.  One my LHBS shops had this setup several years ago and it was very good.  Low carbonation combined with the beer engine sparkler was genius.

[reverseapachemaster]

I have been looking at acquiring a beer engine for a long time.  For me, the CO2 cask breather is the only via option.  One my LHBS shops had this setup several years ago and it was very good.  Low carbonation combined with the beer engine sparkler was genius.

Same. We are going to redo some of our basement this year and turn part into a bar which I'd like to add in a beer engine. I will probably run it off of a corny keg with a cask breather because I'm just not getting through even a three gallon keg in a couple days.

I have a few of those old party pigs which put out beer pretty close to a sparkler-free cask pour that I also intend to add Schrader valves to so I can add an additional serving option.