Video of cascade effect in homebrew using ultrasonics instead of nitrogen

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sput

Active Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2012
Messages
29
Reaction score
4
PHP:
I was bored and emptying the junk out of the ultrasonic cleaner while having a pint and decided to see if I could get a guinness like head out of homebrew without the fuss of nitrogen and restrictor faucets.

Apparently you can. This is an irish red ale I have kegged (my first kegged beer) and while the head is very nice and creamy it doesn't hold it's peaks like a real good pint of guinness would. Force carbed at about 9psi I believe. I'll have to try again with a stout and see how the protein content effects the density. The bubbles making up the head are very small and reasonably long lasting.

Oh, and I apoligise for the video quality and cleanliness. Having never posted a video before I wasn't sure how it would look online but you get the point. I'll try some more beer and post the results although it takes for friggin ever to upload so I'll just post pics unless a video is specifically requested.

P.S. When in Ireland, at 13yrs old, meeting my great uncle Sidney, he taught me to always draw a smiley face on your pint of guinness and I've done it ever since.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
That is pretty incredible! I just went to Amazon to price out ultrasonic cleaners, lol. The price point is way lower than a nitrogen setup, especially for someone who doesn't keg yet...
 
That's a good point. They use pint sized ultrasonics for jewelery that are probably really cheap. It's after noon so I'll take one for the team and try a bottled irish stout. Results to follow!
 
I suppose that your pint was flat after taking all that Co2 out of suspension.
 
It wasn't any more flat than if I'd poured it with a head of its own. Perhaps if I had taken longer to drink, it may have been flatter towards the end of the glass, or ran it longer in the first place. I don't like my beers super carbonated, and this was an Irish ale anyway. I don't see using this on a lager.

This was using the degass wave. I'll try it using some different settings to see if there is a difference in nucleation with other frequencies.
 
Alright, it def works better on lower carbed beer! Which, from what I understand, is how a nitro stout would be carbed. Somewhere around 1.2vols? A second or two on full bottle carbed beer like this dry irish stout (my first beer) which used 5oz of corn sugar (poured at 50degF) was enough to overflow the glass on degass. The beer, poured gently from the bottle, still created a very nice head of its own. Next was a left hand brewing milk stout (non nitro bottled). This one when poured gently into the glass created no head of its own and still overflowed. As you can see the head was very thick and dense, enough to float a bottle cap on and create reasonably stiff peaks.

First up is the dry irish stout straight from the bottle
2nai1vl.jpg

2rrth5c.jpg

2qns7ch.jpg

qquxrl.jpg
 
Surprise surprise, so they have! Part I find interesting after seeing that is the "special draught beer" requirement which apparently isn't special, it's just exactly what would be in the keg. I presume that is somehow different from bottled guinness?
 
It works on the same principle as a nitrogen tap, which is to knock out CO2 from the beer. The smaller the nucleation sites, the more cascading effect and frothier head. The purpose of a nitrogen tap is to force beer at high pressure through a disk with five really small holes in it, effectively releasing some of the dissolved CO2 from the beer while being poured. You're essentially doing the same thing with your ultrasonic cleaner - knocking CO2 out of solution with small nucleation sites.
 
It works on the same principle as a nitrogen tap, which is to knock out CO2 from the beer. The smaller the nucleation sites, the more cascading effect and frothier head. The purpose of a nitrogen tap is to force beer at high pressure through a disk with five really small holes in it, effectively releasing some of the dissolved CO2 from the beer while being poured. You're essentially doing the same thing with your ultrasonic cleaner - knocking CO2 out of solution with small nucleation sites.

sciencecat-sciencetime.jpg
 
Wow, that is really cool. So the Nitrogen would provide the nucleation sites for the co2 to escape in a nitro setup? I assumed that the nitrogen escaping was the cascading effect but obviously that is not true.

Also, from casual reading it looks like ultrasonic cleaning creates voids in the liquid, but doesn't introduce air? Seems like a great way to degas wine without introducing oxygen?
 
Wow, that is really cool. So the Nitrogen would provide the nucleation sites for the co2 to escape in a nitro setup? I assumed that the nitrogen escaping was the cascading effect but obviously that is not true.

Close, but not quite. The nitrogen (usually a mixture of CO2/N2 - "beer gas") is used to push the beer instead of pure CO2 because of its properties. For example, a negligible amount of nitrogen, if any, dissolves into beer at common pressure/temperature found in draft systems. You could also use argon to the same effect.

For stout taps, the goal is to knock some CO2 out of solution during the pour to create the cascading effect and give smooth, frothy head. One way is to create small nucleation sites for the full volume of beer being poured. To do this, a stout tap pushes beer, which has been carbonated to lower volumes of CO2 than typical CO2 drafts, through the small holes in the disk inside the tap faucet at high pressure - more than twice the pressure of typical CO2 draft systems.

Also, from casual reading it looks like ultrasonic cleaning creates voids in the liquid, but doesn't introduce air? Seems like a great way to degas wine without introducing oxygen?

True, and what you're describing is called cavitation.
 
It works on the same principle as a nitrogen tap, which is to knock out CO2 from the beer. The smaller the nucleation sites, the more cascading effect and frothier head. The purpose of a nitrogen tap is to force beer at high pressure through a disk with five really small holes in it, effectively releasing some of the dissolved CO2 from the beer while being poured. You're essentially doing the same thing with your ultrasonic cleaner - knocking CO2 out of solution with small nucleation sites.

What question were you answering? I don't mean to be rude but I think I missed something here.
 
Oh! I apoligise and by all means, the more the merrier. The relevance was lost on me, but I'm back on the bus. Although I did learn something. I was under the presumption the stout faucets had a single shrouded orifice in the restrictor plate and the long snout was to control efflux. Of course I hadn't actually bothered to look at one till you mentioned it. :mug: As far as size and quantity of nucleation sites, I'm dragging the keg over to a friend house so hopefully we can get a few back to back runs and vary the frequency and power levels to see if there's a silver bullet for best texture and if it can be used on beers with high carbonation levels.

And to add a little to what you said about beer gas and solubility, the higher pressures required in a stout faucet would overcarb, so nitrogen is added to maintain the partial pressure of co2.
 
Oh! I apoligise and by all means, the more the merrier. The relevance was lost on me, but I'm back on the bus.

No worries! :mug:

Although I did learn something. I was under the presumption the stout faucets had a single shrouded orifice in the restrictor plate and the long snout was to control efflux.

The "long snout" acts as a nozzle, and the restrictor plate acts as a diffuser. If that makes sense...

As far as size and quantity of nucleation sites, I'm dragging the keg over to a friend house so hopefully we can get a few back to back runs and vary the frequency and power levels to see if there's a silver bullet for best texture and if it can be used on beers with high carbonation levels.

Sounds like a fun experiment. I assume you'll report back here with your findings? :D

And to add a little to what you said about beer gas and solubility, the higher pressures required in a stout faucet would overcarb, so nitrogen is added to maintain the partial pressure of co2.

Exactly right.
 
He was answering my question about not knowing something scientific that was going on...I'm now enlightened and apparently no longer a nitro tap noob.
 
Listen, I AM a scientist (true fact) but am not about to get into it with you beer nerds, but I DO know that if you are not pulling a CLOVER into your Guinness clones, you are not pouring your dry Irish stouts properly.
 
Very cool! I've got to try it now...I think we have one of those jewelry cleaners somewhere.

Also - very good explanation of the way a nitrogen draft pour works. SOOOOO many have misconceptions about the physics involved.
 
Listen, I AM a scientist (true fact) but am not about to get into it with you beer nerds, but I DO know that if you are not pulling a CLOVER into your Guinness clones, you are not pouring your dry Irish stouts properly.

Why would you call us beer nerds? First off, it's beer geeks.

Second, you aren't that good of a scientist (true fact, Dak), because you didn't even specify whether it was a tres folium Trifolium (three leaf clover) or a quatteuor folium Trifolium (four leaf clover).

Plus, your logic fails when you neglected the post about the Irish Uncle teaching a smiley face to his teenage, underage, nephew performing slave labor in his family's pub :). Since when would a clover (OK, trifolium) ever trump the Irish Uncle's grin? Further, how can you postulate about hypotheses in regards to Guinness protocol, without factoring in data from ground zero (aka Uncle Slave master)?

(this article was not peer reviewed prior to publication)
 
Listen, I AM a scientist (true fact) but am not about to get into it with you beer nerds, but I DO know that if you are not pulling a CLOVER into your Guinness clones, you are not pouring your dry Irish stouts properly.

Why would you call us beer nerds? First off, it's beer geeks.

Second, you aren't that good of a scientist (true fact, Dak), because you didn't even specify whether it was a tres folium Trifolium (three leaf clover) or a quatteuor folium Trifolium (four leaf clover).

Plus, your logic fails when you neglected the post about the Irish Uncle teaching a smiley face to his teenage, underage, nephew performing slave labor in his family's pub :). Since when would a clover (OK, trifolium) ever trump the Irish Uncle's grin? Further, how can you postulate about hypotheses in regards to Guinness protocol, without factoring in data from ground zero (aka Uncle Slave master)?

(this article was not peer reviewed prior to publication)

I'll let you scientists duke it out while this engineer sips some homemade oatmeal stout poured from a nitrogen system. :D
 
Back
Top