CO2 or beer gas

What do you guys use for your kegs? I use straight CO2 from a welding company, they just swap tanks with me. I can't find a place that fills tanks. A local micro uses beer gas that is mixed, he has seperate tanks and some type of mixing regulator. Is there really any difference?

Beer gas contains a mixture of nitrogen and CO2. It is used for those instances when you want to emulate the carbonation of Guiness or Boddingtons or any of those beers you can buy with the "widget" (although to properly emulate them with beer gas, you also need the special faucets). For most (if not all) styles, straight CO2 is appropriate to use.

Edit: Oh, I use only CO2 for my kegs. Mainly because I don't want to spring for a special faucet.

I use Co2, although once I have my keezer built and a stout faucet or two I will be using both.

I think there are 2 types of beer gas, one for stouts that has more nitro and one for regular beer. N\Now that I thought about it more I think the microbrewery is using it because they have to push the beer a very long way.

Definition: Beer gas is a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen used in draught systems. The presence of nitrogen results in smaller bubbles than carbon dioxide alone. This produces beer with a denser head and a creamier mouthfeel. Beer gas is popular with darker styles of beer such as stout. Beers served with beer gas instead of carbon dioxide alone are sometimes called nitro.

nyer said:

I think there are 2 types of beer gas, one for stouts that has more nitro and one for regular beer. N\Now that I thought about it more I think the microbrewery is using it because they have to push the beer a very long way.

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The distance the beer needs to be pushed has nothing to do with the type of gas used. All they would need to do to overcome the increased distance is increase the pressure of the CO2 or beer gas, whatever they were using.

Some bars use beer gas that is 60% CO2 and 40% nitrogen, they need to run at higher pressure than normal to push the beer longer distances which could overcarbonate the beer if using straight CO2. The nitrogen does not get absorbed into the beer and does not affect flavor. The Guiness gas mixture is 70% nitrogen and 30% CO2. I have a stout tap and nitro setup on my kegerator but have a hard time finding the Guiness gas mix.

I thought that I had read that the "beer gas" originated in Europe, from the need to push the beer from the kegs or casks that were located in the rear of the long narrow pubs.

If you were to use Co2 to push the beer 30 feet or more you would have to increase the pressure at the keg so high that you would increase the volumes of Co2 over time out of the style guidelines. With nitrogen in the mix, it will not dissolve into the beer like the Co2 and in turn is better suited to push the beer over a greater distance.


EDIT: VolFan beat me to it.

bad67z said:

I thought that I had read that the "beer gas" originated in Europe, from the need to push the beer from the kegs or casks that were located in the rear of the long narrow pubs.

If you were to use Co2 to push the beer 30 feet or more you would have to increase the pressure at the keg so high that you would increase the volumes of Co2 over time out of the style guidelines. With nitrogen in the mix, it will not dissolve into the beer like the Co2 and in turn is better suited to push the beer over a greater distance.

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Huh, looks like you and volfan are right. I retract my earlier comments. Well that's my new thing learned for the day...

Wouldn't a larger ID beer hose work the same way to balance the system. All of the long narrow pub/bars I've been in only had beer taps at one location, directly above the keg/cask storage area.

Wouldn't a larger ID beer hose work the same way to balance the system.

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yes it would. but sometimes going up one size will reduce your restriction too much. or it means spending $$ to replace all your hardware and beer line with a different size. or it means you would have a lot of pints worth of beer sitting in your line, which isnt really a good thing.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
nitrogen solubility@ 0C = 0.03g/kg
CO2 solubility @ 0C = 3.35g/kg

putting nitrogen on your beer realistically only effects the pressure at which you serve. nitrogen barely disolves into the beer, so the direct effect it has on mouthfeel or bubble size is very small. the "guinness effect" mainly comes from being able to push the beer thru a stout faucet at a much higher pressure than you could on pure CO2.

you can get many different mixes of nitrogen and CO2- really anything between 0/100% and 100/0%.

Try this cheap and easy solution, article from brew magazine.

http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/743-head-games