I was lucky enough to recently get a nitrogen system for my home bar. I have a nice stout ready to hook up but have a question regarding carbonation. Would you force carbonate with the nitrogen or do you still have to use the CO2 and then vent the keg after carbonation and switch to nitrogen to pour? Thanks for the help with this - I am looking forward to having a good set up and enjoy a frothy stout!
carbonating with nitrogen
- Thread starter ddknight
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Congrats on scoring the nitrious setup. The latter is right; nitrogen doesn't get absorbed into beer, so you still need to carbonate with CO2, then use the nitrogen to pour.
That sounds great! Thanks so much for the help! I'm looking forward to tasting the stout the way it was meant to be! Thanks again.
Apparently I'm missing something on how the effect is created. Does the creamyness come from just having a very high dispensing pressure and regular amount of dissolved CO2?
Nanobru
Well-Known Member
The best nitro beers I have had are created by force carbonating (natural would be even better) to about 1.5 volumes of CO2, versus the normal level of about 2.5. Then hook up the nitro to push it out the special nitro faucet which has a screen in it that mixes the nitro with the beer as it flows into the glass giving it the bubbles that flow downward and the characteristic creaminess that we all desire.
Thanks for the reminder about the pressure as well. I had forgot about that and I definitely want to avoid having the beer go flat. Is there a pressure that you have used before or heard of using when dispensing a stout?
sjvicker
Well-Known Member
http://docs.northernbrewer.com/homebrew_nitrogen_system.html a little more reading
b767fo
Well-Known Member
The gas used for dry stouts and such is called draft blend and is 75% N2 and 25% CO2. When I keg my Murphy's Clone I just put it under ~44psi for a couple of weeks and it carbonates fine. You will need a stout faucet with a flow restrictor otherwise at those pressures the beer will go all over the place.
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just read this quote and i have a question:
so if i have my co2 reg set at say 14psi w/ say fridge temp at 40 degrees F, i would need to set my nitro reg to 42 - 56psi??
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this was very helpful, thanks! i love how under the "pouring with a stout faucet" #2's directions are to "admire" ....specifically 2. Admire the cascading bubbles while you allow the beer to settle 12 minutes.
