Cask Conditioning

Can someone explain cask conditioning? And can you do it in a keg? How?

Thanks!

Gilbey

If your keg is a Jerkin or Pin, then yes.

Cask Conditioning is much like bottle conditioning in that a secondary fermentation takes place under pressure in the final containment vessel of the ale.

Where they differ, is what takes place after the seal is breached. Cask conditioning allows the beer to breathe a little through the use of a pourous stile.

The best site I've fond for describing the process is Camra's publication on Cellarmanship.

http://realale.warwickcompsoc.co.uk/articles/cellarmanship.html

Here's another good link:

http://www.whitehorsesw6.com/misc/fullstory.php?article_id=24&cat_id=2

MoreBeer (among others) sells a settable pressure relief valve for a corny, so you can let your beer carbonate to whatever pressure you want in the secondary. Then, to dispense, you attach your tap line to the 'gas-in' connection of the corny (instead of the 'out' connection). Now put your corny upside down to allow the weight of the beer feed the tap instead of pressure.

That's how you cask in a corny.

Uncle Fat said:

MoreBeer (among others) sells a settable pressure relief valve for a corny, so you can let your beer carbonate to whatever pressure you want in the secondary. Then, to dispense, you attach your tap line to the 'gas-in' connection of the corny (instead of the 'out' connection). Now put your corny upside down to allow the weight of the beer feed the tap instead of pressure.

That's how you cask in a corny.

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You'll never get carbonation in a corny unless you use a CO2 tank. Why? Because the lid won't seal unless you pressurize the keg. If you rack to the corny, prime, then seal the lid, all your precious CO2 will just leak right out. You need to pressurize the keg with a blast of CO2 to seal it.

Since you are using CO2 anyway, why not just use it to carbonate as well? That way you avoid the sediment from priming, which is one reason to keg in the first place.

I disagree bikebryan. I've conditioned several beers in cornys and never once had to use a burst of CO2 to seal it. Thank goodness for keg lube.
Real Ale or conditioned beer is considered live beer which makes the sediment part of the real ale experience.

Wild

bikebryan said:

You'll never get carbonation in a corny unless you use a CO2 tank.

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My last four of five batches would disagree with you.. I usually have a keg on tap, so I just do my secondary in a corny with a pressure valve, and by the time I'm done with what's on tap, the next batch is naturally carbonated and ready to drink.

Uncle Fat said:

My last four of five batches would disagree with you.. I usually have a keg on tap, so I just do my secondary in a corny with a pressure valve, and by the time I'm done with what's on tap, the next batch is naturally carbonated and ready to drink.

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same here, actually no sugar priming, been using unfermented wort from the fridge (save a ball jar from every batch to do it), and get plenty of carbonation


- one question tho,
put the corny upside down and do a gravity feed to use it as a cask, ok straight-foward enough, but how does the corny get more air in it to allow the beer to flow if its upside down? you guys fitting them with a different blow-off valve or just turning it right side up when it starts movin slow?

kneemoe said:

- one question tho,
put the corny upside down and do a gravity feed to use it as a cask, ok straight-foward enough, but how does the corny get more air in it to allow the beer to flow if its upside down? you guys fitting them with a different blow-off valve or just turning it right side up when it starts movin slow?

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The upside down thing I haven't done myself (only read about). It's supposed to be a more authentic cask expericnce... If I were doing it (might try this soon), I'd put an open-ended ball-lock connector (or maybe one connected to a filter) on the "out" connection (attached to the down-tube) to let air in. Pretty much just the oposite of normal keg operation.

duh - how completely obvious can an question/answer be, and still leave me scartchin my head, lol
im gonna haveta try that with the next bitter i brew, and invite all the friends i can over to kick it in a night
i've tasted enough 'bad' cask beers to know to avoid *that* (they're only bad cuz they weren't sucked down quick enough)

True. Good time to break out the 2.5 gallon keg...

Uncle Fat said:

The upside down thing I haven't done myself (only read about). It's supposed to be a more authentic cask expericnce... If I were doing it (might try this soon), I'd put an open-ended ball-lock connector (or maybe one connected to a filter) on the "out" connection (attached to the down-tube) to let air in. Pretty much just the oposite of normal keg operation.

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I guess you plan on drinking that entire corny in a day or two? Letting just plain old air into it is NOT a good thing and if you don't drink it quick it'll start to go bad pretty quick with room air entering it!

bikebryan said:

I guess you plan on drinking that entire corny in a day or two? Letting just plain old air into it is NOT a good thing and if you don't drink it quick it'll start to go bad pretty quick with room air entering it!

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Well... yeah... we'd been talking about that in the past couple of posts (using a 2.5gal corny and / or inviting a BUNCH of friends over to drink it). Of course, you could always dispense with CO2 (and/or nitro) set to very low PSI to get the "real ale" experience without letting outside air in... whatever your fancy...

Uncle Fat said:

Well... yeah... we'd been talking about that in the past couple of posts (using a 2.5gal corny and / or inviting a BUNCH of friends over to drink it). Of course, you could always dispense with CO2 (and/or nitro) set to very low PSI to get the "real ale" experience without letting outside air in... whatever your fancy...

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Ah, but if you are planning on using CO2 to keep air from getting in the keg, you might as well use it to carbonate.....

But we are going round and round in circles now.

bikebryan said:

Ah, but if you are planning on using CO2 to keep air from getting in the keg, you might as well use it to carbonate.....

But we are going round and round in circles now.

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no offense, but that's sounding like an awfully *categorical* statement to me.... if you use co2 at 1 atomosphere it doesn't do *anything* to the beer beyond create a blanket that protects from infection - no matter what the "real ale" folks want to tell ya (which is, dont ever use gas injection cuz its just not right) whats wrong with keeping my beer fresh and free from infection? especially if im not changing the beer in doing so?
obviously, not tryin to pick a fight here, but there's plenty of different views on *this* subject

I use a blast to seal. I then let the pressure out and the seal stays. The cask conditions quite well under natural carbonation. I then use CO2 @ 3lbs to serve. Works for me Bikebryan.

The CAMRA folks I've conversed with say they expect some taste of oxidation in their cask beers. I guess it’s supposed to be part of the whole Real Beer experience.

Wild

kneemoe said:

whats wrong with keeping my beer fresh and free from infection? especially if im not changing the beer in doing so?
obviously, not tryin to pick a fight here, but there's plenty of different views on *this* subject

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OK, OK, I wasn't trying to fight, but I do have a question, since you brought this up:

How does carbonating from a CO2 bottle "change" the beer? CO2 is CO2. The beer is exactly the same regardless of how the CO2 gets into it.

It doesn't really change the beer, but changes the way the beer feels in your mouth. At least this is my opinion.

-walker

bikebryan said:

OK, OK, I wasn't trying to fight, but I do have a question, since you brought this up:

How does carbonating from a CO2 bottle "change" the beer? CO2 is CO2. The beer is exactly the same regardless of how the CO2 gets into it.

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no worries
generally speaking, when you inject CO2 to dispense beer you'll add more dissolved CO2 (unless the regulator's set up perfectly) just to force the beer out the tap
if you just mean using the canister to force carb (instead of say, some form of a priming agent), i don't know that it is any different whatsoever, but im sure opinions vary on that one too

i dont know why they go for that somewhat oxidized taste, i had a bluebird last night that had just been tapped and i almost didnt want to drink it. if i'd a brewed it i'da thought i hadn't sanitized things properly.

I believe cask beer is vented the day before it is tapped. A vented spile is inserted into the bung to slowly release the absorbed CO2 during that period. This will leave flatter but still live beer to be dispensed via the beer engine.

Wild

bikebryan said:

How does carbonating from a CO2 bottle "change" the beer? CO2 is CO2. The beer is exactly the same regardless of how the CO2 gets into it.

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Sam and I were talking about this today--but don't you notice a "different" taste in CO2 from a tank and natural CO2?

I do. He does.

That's interesting. I do notice a difference too. I'm not sure if it is from some by-product of the yeast converting fermentables or the actual size of the bubbles. I have noticed that my forced carb beer has larger bubbles than the bottle conditioned beer. Maybe size does matter.

Sudster said:

That's interesting. I do notice a difference too. I'm not sure if it is from some by-product of the yeast converting fermentables or the actual size of the bubbles. I have noticed that my forced carb beer has larger bubbles than the bottle conditioned beer. Maybe size does matter.

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You know it, bubble size does matter. To me, that's what makes the beer in the UK so much better than here. It's also the reason that I will be naturally conditioning all my brews weather in the bottle or in keg.

To me, force carbonated beer isn't nearly as smooth drinking, nor does it have as nice a head on it.

ScottT said:

You know it, bubble size does matter. To me, that's what makes the beer in the UK so much better than here. It's also the reason that I will be naturally conditioning all my brews weather in the bottle or in keg.

To me, force carbonated beer isn't nearly as smooth drinking, nor does it have as nice a head on it.

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I think this is a "to each their own" issue. I've tried experiments where I've kegged part of a brew and bottled the other, then served both to folks. They've never noticed any difference when I've asked. I've never noticed the difference.

I know, it's hardly scientific. I guess if you are happy with what you are doing then go for it. I got into kegging to reduce sediment issues you have to deal with in bottles, so I see no advantage to priming and kegging - but if others do, more power to them.