Would this work for a beer engine.

My wife is from England and we spend a few weeks each summer there where I fell in love with a good English bitter. I currently bottle the bitters I brew. I'm contemplating buying a beer engine, but want to keep the cost down as much as possible and I don't have a current draft setup.

Since most beer engines draw regular air into the keg, I was told that you could hook up a fancy Co2 system and provide a blanket of Co2 over the beer without carbonating it. While this sounds like a good plan, I'm not sure I want to spend excessive money for a regulator if I'm only going to use it to replace Co2 when I draw out my beer.

So, I looked around and I found this little gadget: http://www.kegworks.com/product.php?productid=21295&cat=778&page=1

My question is, would this work with a beer engine?

I'm guessing I would press the button and release some Co2 into the keg before I then operate my beer engine to dispense my pint. Would this work in keeping things flowing?

As long as you replace the volume of fluid you release from the keg with an equal amount of gas, be it ambient air or pressurized CO2, then you should have no problem drawing a pint with a hand pump.

Are you just trying to get your beer to last longer while using a hand pump vs. a regular draft setup?

Yes, I'm just trying to keep the beer fresh for as long as possible. I'd probably carbonate with sugar, then just use this Co2 thing to keep air from being introduced when drawing a pint.

I have no idea what you mean by a beer engine, but yes, those little co2 cartridges work well for pushing the beer. You need a separate quick disconnect part. You'll also want a party hose or proper faucet.
The cost of cartridges will eventually add up.

Your best bet would be to drink it quickly.

Another trick if you don't end up using the co2 cartridges is to put a sterile filter on the inlet, this won't stop oxidation but will keep out possible contamination bacteria.

You could use 5L mini-kegs with a CO2 system and keep the pressure nice and low. I recently got an edgestar mini-kegerator with a CO2 adapter kit, I don't see any reason why you couldn't set the temperature to 55 and push with just enough CO2 to fill your glass.

What about soft plastic cube containers, using gravity to feed them? They compress down as they empty so you're not getting much O2 in.

If you set the regulator to give you ~1 volume of CO2 you can use a pump like this guy
http://cheeseaday.blogspot.com/2010/06/homebrewed-homebrew-beer-engine.html
That should keep it blanketed with co2 without introducing anymore carbonation.

If you have $450 dollars they have a beer engine at northern brewer

http://northernbrewer.blogspot.com/2011/01/beer-engines-all-aboard.html

I truly don't know much about beer engines except from what I read at the link above. They mention that it is to be a way to serve cask ale. Traditional cask ale doesn't have CO2 pressure and therefore part of the taste comes from oxydation.

If my thoughts are correct (that is a big assumption) then creating a simple pumping device should not be that difficult. I'm no mechanical engineer, but from the looks of it the NB engine is one real big hand pump.

I've been looking into a beer-engine-ish-thing, and from what I've seen, the easiest thing to do is use an RV hand pump faucet.

SumnerH said:

What about soft plastic cube containers, using gravity to feed them? They compress down as they empty so you're not getting much O2 in.

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I love this idea... I wonder though if you could carbonate in them. I was originally thinking of a mini keg system just for a Beer Engine using a cabinet with a built in mini fridge, but this would solve my Oxidation worries.

There is a couple DIY beer engine builds here on HBT, I like the one using the pump faucet and coil in a cooler full of ice, there is some discussion of drawing from cornies as well.

Jawbox0 said:

I love this idea... I wonder though if you could carbonate in them.

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One of the online places (Northern Brewer?) used to sell them and said they were only appropriate for low-carbed ales like British cask styles. Which seems to be exactly the goal.

Unfortunately there are no details on how high you can carb.

Found it:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/kegging/mini-kegs/cubitainers/5-gallon-cubitainer.html

"Or add a spigot for dispensing cask-style "real-ale" or Kellerbier (only use natural carbonation or very low priming rates in a cubitainer!), or even as a poor man's growler!"

More info here: http://beermapping.com/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1722.0

I have not tried this myself:

Here’s how it works; you brew your beer and ferment as you normally would. Then you rack to a Cubitainer http://www.bestcontainers.com/hedpak---cubitainer-cubitainer--combination-packaging.html (http://www.bestcontainers.com/hedpak---cubitainer-cubitainer--combination-packaging.html) , prime with sugar to attain 1 volume of carbonation, add finings and use a spigot instead of a cap. Leave it at room temp for a few days then move it to a cooler (with pop bottles containing frozen water) with the spigot facing down. It is then left for 1-day to settle.

The first beer to come out of the spigot will have to be discarded. The remaining beer with be like gravity fed cask conditioned beer. Since the system doesn’t allow oxygen in, unlike cask conditioned beer, the beer will last for upwards of three weeks.

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SumnerH said:

More info here: http://beermapping.com/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1722.0

I have not tried this myself:

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That sounds pretty awesome.

Thanks! This place is awesome, and it really seems like the most reasonable way to do a small volume of Cask Ale at a reasonable price. That, an RV pump, and a bit of work should yield a great, portable, DIY beer engine setup.

Thanks for all the links guys. I'm now thinking I might try the cubitainer route and just gravity feed it to start out. I don't really like the idea of beer sitting in plastic, but stainless steel casks seem a bit complicated for me at the moment.

Maybe when I go back to England, I'll look for a refurbished beer engine. They seem to be a bit cheaper over there. Can't wait to go through customs with that sucker!