Why does this keg have a hole in the side?

Hi. I just bought 3 kegs off a guy locally. One of them is a 1/4 barrel but it has a hole in the side of it with a wooden bung.

It looks like this:


Is this keg any use to me as a homebrewer? I'm going to turn the other two half barrels into a Brew kettle and hot water tun.

Was he using that to ferment in, or store wine? Looks like a fermentation barrel, except it's a keg...

its a cask! it looks like it belongs to clipper city brewing company.

Either that or he was using it to age beer. Kind of looks like the barrels used to age wine, only a keg.

EDIT: Yeap, probably a cask. I know Clipper City casks some of their stuff, I've had it before. Never actually seen the cask, though!

I believe it is a cask, often referred to as a "Firkin" used for English style real ale.

Just do a Google Image Search for cask and you'll see tons of stuff like this. A few more hits in Maryland. I guess we like our cask beer here.

so this is used when microbrews make "cask conditioned" ales?

I've had some local bells beer (hopslam) on tap on a firkin before. It was great.

Whats the point of putting the beer into a cask? Is it any different than aging in a cornie?


edit: I want to note that the picture isn't of the cask I just purchased but looks very similar.

As far as taste goes, I feel the cask ales I've had versus their non-cask counterparts have a different flavor to them. Not necessarily better, but different. Certain flavors are stronger while others are weaker.

But, there's a whole big thing with real ales and such. Much too much information to put into a post here. If you'd like to read up on it, this seems like a good place to start.

Yep, it's a Firkin. The hole in the side is usually used for dry hop additions.

and filling.

think of it as sort of like bottle conditioning in a keg. The only problem is when serving from the keg (if you dont have a cask breather) you have to drink it with in a couple of days.

acyl said:

Whats the point of putting the beer into a cask?

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heh heh [can_of_worms]

acyl said:

Is it any different than aging in a cornie?

Click to expand...

yes definitely http://beeradvocate.com/articles/554

it's a bung hole. tee hee. if you get into wine, you have a sexy vessel waiting.

Well. I still do not understand how cask conditioning is any different than what I do.

Cask conditioning is unfiltered, unpasteurized and conditioned within the same vessel from which it will be served.

The beer I brew is unfiltered, unpasteurized and conditioned in the same cornie which it is served. How is this different than cask conditioning?

the name.

phukkkk your 10 characters!!!!!!!!

I believe the big difference is in the method of carbonation. Your corny is likely carbed by a CO2 tank and the cask ale is carbonated through yeast metabolism. When you pull from a cask ale, you replace the missing beer with ambient air. That's why you need to drink it quickly. If you carb naturally in the corny and pump the beer out by adding pressurized air, you have cask ale.

I just listend to a podcast yesterday, Basic Brewing Radio, by James Spencer, that dealt with this topic. Air date Dec 6, 2007. Cask conditioning is basically what happens in bottle conditioning, using priming sugar, or putting into the keg just before fermentation finishes, to build up carbonation levels. No forced CO2 to build up pressure, and using only atmosphere pressure, or gravity, to serve. It can be done in a cornie, as long as the pressure added by the CO2 tank only keeps the pressure inside the cornie at atmosheric pressure. The guest on the show goes into pretty good detail on the advantages and disadvantages of cask conditioning beer, as well as a beginners to advanced steps and equipment needed. Good listen, and only about 40 minutes long.

Does anyone know where you can buy a firkin for a reasonable price? I want to brew up a DIPA for my birthday and put it on cask. If anyone has any used ones as well. let me know

If you have cornies, find the podcast I talked about. He goes into detail on what you need to turn a cornie into a firkin, and how to serve from it.

I saw one of these at a yard sale today for 15bucks, but it was beat to hell. So I passed on it. I had no idea what it was. But found this thread, thanks HBT!

If you don't want it, just list it on Craigslist bet you get a nice price for it.