I think its time for a nitro set up i have questions

[Dmanshane]

OK SO I HAVE BEEN WANTING TO DO A NITRO SET UP NOT BIG JUST FOR 1 CORNY KEG. I THINK I AM GOING TO GO WITH THE QUINESS BEER DESPENSOR OFF OF BEVERAGE FACTORY http://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/guinness-dispensing-kegerators/Kegco-K199B-G.html

SO I HAVE THAT FIGURED OUT HOW TO SERVE THE BEER ..... NOW SOME QUESTIONS

WHEN I KEG THE BEER DO I GO STRAIGHT TO NITRO? OR CARB ON CO2 AND THEN PUT THE NITRO?

WHAT TYPE OF PRESSURE DO I RUN I HAVE SEEN A COUPLE VIDEOS WITH REGULATOR ON 30PSI??? I KNOW WITH CO2 THAT WOULD BE FOAM HAHA

AND IS THERE ANY OTHER THINGS I SHOULD OR NEED TO KNOW

THANKS FELLOW BREWERS! CHEERS!!!

 

[Dmanshane]

Oh and also do i need to get the beer gas 75% nitro adn 25% co2 or can you use plain nitro

 

[LLBeanJ]

Yes, you want to use 75/25 beer gas. 30 PSI is about right.

You can carb with CO2 and then dispense with beer gas or you can carb with beer gas. The straight CO2 carb would be faster and less expensive, but the chance of back and forth overcarb/undercarb is much greater until you get some experience with it.

 

[Dmanshane]

yes, you want to use 75/25 beer gas. 30 psi is about right.

You can carb with co2 and then dispense with beer gas or you can carb with beer gas. The straight co2 carb would be faster and less expensive, but the chance of back and forth overcarb/undercarb is much greater until you get some experience with it.

10-4 good buddy i have just been texting our gas guy from work he thinks they offer beer gas but he is going to be at my work tomorrow so ill have to make sure trying to decide on a 22 or 33 cubic foot tank

 

[Powercat]

I was going to go Nitro and then I read as article about using an irrigation syringe. The beer gas that is dispensed is 80% nitrogen and 20% CO2. The air we breath (atmospheric air) is 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. It you take an irrigation syringe and suck up 3-5 ml of stout beer and inject this back into your glass of beer you will have the same nice foamy head that you get buy going with the nitrogen setup for $300.00 plus. I understand that sometime ago that Guinness provided a syringe with a six pack so that you could have a nice head on your beer. But again it would be nice to pour a nice head over my stout beer.

 

[LLBeanJ]

It you take an irrigation syringe and suck up 3-5 ml of stout beer and inject this back into your glass of beer you will have the same nice foamy head that you get buy going with the nitrogen setup for $300.00 plus.

There you go being all practical. We got no use for that here!

 

[Dmanshane]

I was going to go Nitro and then I read as article about using an irrigation syringe. The beer gas that is dispensed is 80% nitrogen and 20% CO2. The air we breath (atmospheric air) is 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. It you take an irrigation syringe and suck up 3-5 ml of stout beer and inject this back into your glass of beer you will have the same nice foamy head that you get buy going with the nitrogen setup for $300.00 plus. I understand that sometime ago that Guinness provided a syringe with a six pack so that you could have a nice head on your beer. But again it would be nice to pour a nice head over my stout beer.

Wow that's crazy

 

[socalboomer]

A nice head is all well and good, by nitro is much more than just a nice head. The head is thicker than you can get with co2, nitro makes the beer slightly less bitter (due to nitrogen not forming carbonic acid like co2 does) and has creamier mouthfeel.

I have nitro tap and have compared back to back, and a friend has his stouts on tap at his brewery both co2 and nitro so people can compare.

 

[ajdelange]

Nitrogen does nothing but push the beer through the sparkler plate. It does not dissolve in the beer (to any appreciable extent) does not form an acid and does not affect the flavor. Therefore, you can get the nitro effect w/o nitrogen but you still need the stout faucet or more particularly its sparkler plate. What you must do is carbonate the beer to the same level as it would be carbonated with 75/25 mix. This is about 1 volume and is achieved with about 1 atm at reasonable temperature. Put the beer in the keg, pressurize, crank the regulator screw way back and bleed the keg. Now slowly advance the screw until the needle is just off the pin. This is only a wee bit above 1 atm and is the correct pressure for carbonation to about 1 vol. Now allow carbonation to take place (a couple of weeks). When ready to serve crank the regulator up to 20 - 30 psig (whatever gives the best pour) and have at it. When finished back the screw all the way out again and bleed, then advance until the needle is just off the pin again.

In doing the above you are using CO2 to do nitrogen's pushing job but not leaving the pressure on long enough for the beer to become over carbonated. It is a PITA fiddling with the gas everytime you want to drink stout and if you want stout on tap continuously then clearly mix bottle or a blender are called for but for the occasional glass or two or three the CO2 only method works well.

 

[Dmanshane]

Nitrogen does nothing but push the beer through the sparkler plate. It does not dissolve in the beer (to any appreciable extent) does not form an acid and does not affect the flavor. Therefore, you can get the nitro effect w/o nitrogen but you still need the stout faucet or more particularly its sparkler plate. What you must do is carbonate the beer to the same level as it would be carbonated with 75/25 mix. This is about 1 volume and is achieved with about 1 atm at reasonable temperature. Put the beer in the keg, pressurize, crank the regulator screw way back and bleed the keg. Now slowly advance the screw until the needle is just off the pin. This is only a wee bit above 1 atm and is the correct pressure for carbonation to about 1 vol. Now allow carbonation to take place (a couple of weeks). When ready to serve crank the regulator up to 20 - 30 psig (whatever gives the best pour) and have at it. When finished back the screw all the way out again and bleed, then advance until the needle is just off the pin again.

In doing the above you are using CO2 to do nitrogen's pushing job but not leaving the pressure on long enough for the beer to become over carbonated. It is a PITA fiddling with the gas everytime you want to drink stout and if you want stout on tap continuously then clearly mix bottle or a blender are called for but for the occasional glass or two or three the CO2 only method works well.

sounds like too much work ill stick with my nitro set up

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[Kjuckett1025]

Socialboomer, you seem rather knowledgable on the subject.

If I ran a normal system ( perlick 650 flow controls ) with beer gas after carbination, would I see any significant difference?

Or is using a standard faucet defeating the purpose?

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[ajdelange]

He's making it sound a lot more complex than it is.

It's really not complex at all though it may sound so. I've got all the gear including a blender and have decided that it's just easier not to fiddle with that stuff but rather just adjust the CO2 pressure to serve or store/carbonate. Whether you or anyone else finds it so is, of course, dependent how you feel after you have tried it. If it sounds too complex keep it in mind anyway as you can use it in a pinch if you run out of beergas.

The significantly higher pressure with Nitro (30psi vs. 10psi) definitely has an effect.

Yes it does. Sparkler plates don't work very well at 10 psig. But it doesn't matter what you push the beer with as long as it is properly carbonated (about 1 vol) and the push gas is effectively inert. Nitrogen is cheap and readily available but argon or helium would do. CO2 also works fine because that's already in the beer and in an hour or 2 it isn't going to pick up much more at 30 psig relative to its 1 vol level.

First - Nitrogen does dissolve in water at approximately .0138g/L at 1 bar.

Taking that number as correct that amounts to .0138/28 = half a millimole which is approximately .01 liter i.e. its solubility is 0.01 vols. The solubility of CO2 at 1 bar is about 1 vol - 100 times greater than than of N2.

CO2 dissolves at .0089g/L at 1bar (source, http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-solubility-water-d_639.html ) That's nearly 1.5x the rate of CO2.

Read the page carefully. That the solubility of oxygen. The solubility of CO2 is about 100 times that of N2. Use common sense. If you put some water in a saucepan and heat it does it 'fizz' with vigor in any way comparable to the fizzing of a low volumes ale put in saucepan and warmed?

Second, it's creamier partly because N2 bubbles are significantly smaller than CO2 bubbles.

So small they don't exist! Or not in any appreciable number. Supposing that you pressurize with 2 bar absolute N2 and 1 bar absolute CO2 (45 psia, 30 psig) given the 100x solubility ratio of CO2 the nitrogen bubbles, if they even formed, would be at most 2% of the total bubbles.

Injecting air into a glass (air being 80% nitrogen) may get you bubbles, but really, you're only releasing the CO2 - not injecting N2 into solution and getting the very persistent, very tiny, very thick bubbles that you get on a real Nitro system.

Probably the best way to demonstrate the fallacy of this statement would be to draw a pint of English ale from an engine equipped with a sparkler. I think we have lost sight of the fact that all Guiness's research on mixed gas and widgets and on the near universal use of beer gas in pubs in the UK was done in order simulate the foam on a glass of sparkler drawn ale without having to deal with the capital costs and maintenance of the traditional hand pumps.

On Wednesday, I will try to post pics of the same beer, same batch, one keg served on Nitro, one keg served on CO2. There is a definite difference. I'd do it from home, but I don't have two kegs of the same brew to demonstrate (not right now, anyway. . .)

Be sure to include one of a pint drawn through an engine.

Third, the APPARENT taste is slightly sweeter on Nitro. Why? Well, CO2 does dissolve in water, but it changes to Carbonic Acid (H2CO3(aq)) albeit only about 16% of the CO2 does so. But it has an effect on our taste - we taste the slight increase in bitterness.

There is just as much CO2 in properly conditioned stout (about 1 vol) whether it is pushed by an engine through a sparkler or nitrogen or CO2 through a sparkler plate. Thus any difference in taste when pushed by different means cannot be explained in terms of the CO2.

If you take distilled water (pH 7) and carbonate it at 1 bar, it will have a pH of about 5.7 and will taste distinctly sour or bitter.

At a bar it would actually be under 4.

The reason we like carbonated beverages has little to do with the pH of the beer. It is the bursting of the bubbles on our tongues which release CO2 close to nerve endings. That CO2 forms carbonic acid in/on (?) the cells which stimulates a pain response. Small enough and far enough apart these pain responses are pleasurable. This comment is based on my shaky memory of an article I read a couple of years ago about which I have no more specifics.

Nitro CAN displace some of that CO2 and thus make a smoother and slightly sweeter (apparent) taste.

As noted above based on the gas laws nitrogen does not displace anything. It is its physical effect on properly carbonated beer that gives the lovely creamy head. The reason the creamy head is nice is because of its texture. But drinkers knew that before anyone ever experimented with driving beer with mix. They knew that when it was driven by the arm of a sturdy lass pulling the handle on a beer engine.

What does nitrogen taste like?

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[theck]

I love my nitro tap... I carb up with my reg old co2 hookup, usually I pull it in a week, usually most mine carb up in 1 to 2... then put it on the nitro at 30psi. I pour the glass over half full pulling the tap towards myself, wait for a good bit and then push the tap forward towards the keezer to fill the rest. Not sure if that's proper but it turns out great for me. I've put on pub ales, stouts, and ipa... all turned out good.

 

[ajdelange]

Sorry, bud. You, yourself, didn't read the page.

No, I didn't. I took took your number to be correct.

0.0138g/L = 0.0138(g/L)/28(g/mol) = 0.0005 mol

0.0005mol*22.4L/mol = 0.011 Liters of nitrogen dissolved in 1 liter of water when the gas is released from the water at STP.

Since you have repeated the same number I assume you still think it correct. I haven't checked. Assuming your number, 0.0138 g/L is correct the solubility of nitrogen in water is about 0.011 volumes and CO2 is, on a volume basis, about 100 times more soluble. The weight of CO2 in beer/water exposed to 1 atm CO2 (resulting in about 1 vol) is approximately 2.5 grams/L so on that basis CO2 is approximtely 180 times more soluble than nitrogen.

 

[ajdelange]

All of your arguments are based on the supposed insolubility of nitrogen in water...

Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/water/nitrogen/nitrogen-and-water.htm#ixzz3O9naK7Ot

From that site: "Nitrogen (N2) solubility at 20oC and pressure = 1 bar is approximately 20 mg/L."

You are aware that a mg is 1/1000th of a gram? Thus 20 mg/L = 0.02 gram.
Beer at 1 vol contains, as I noted in my earlier post, about 2 grams of CO2. To obtain the ratio write 2/.02 = (2*100)/(.02*100). To multiply .02 by 100 you move the decimal place two positions to the right. 100*.02 = 2. So now you have 2*100/2 and that equals 100 (you divide numerator and denominator by 2. Result: 100 times as much.

Believe it or not you aren't the first person to think about this but you are doubtless one of few who has concluded from experimental data that nitrogen is more soluble than CO2. If you don't understand the physics try the inaptly named 'common sense' approach I sketched yesterday.

As for a beer engine, those seem to be even more scarce than nitro systems so, no, not going to chase one down, ask the owner if I can hook up my corny to it so I can post a pic for you.

No need. It was another attempt to conjure up common sense. I would expect most experienced brewers to either have a beer engine or know someone who has one or to have been in a English Pub or even any of the many craft breweries in the US that have them. I was trying to remind you (and anyone else who has an interest) that the whole nitro thing was done in an attempt to duplicate the creamy head that a beer engine (with a sparkler) produces.

However, reinjecting beer into beer? Ok, will try that this evening, but it's not going to come close to nitro, as the far earlier pic pretty clearly shows.

No it isn't nor should it. The earlier picture shows a beer that is over carbonated. A properly poured stout (using beer gas) should have about half and inch of cream on the top.

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[dobes]

I have a nitro tap and love it. I don't know all the ins and outs about it but I do really enjoy my beers on nitro.

I carb mine with co2 to around 1 to 1.2 volumes.

I've tried beers that were carbed more than that and they were just to foamy.

A lot of good info posted here about it though. Looks like I can afford to spend a bit more time learning what's going.

 

[theck]

I have a nitro tap and love it. I don't know all the ins and outs about it but I do really enjoy my beers on nitro.

I carb mine with co2 to around 1 to 1.2 volumes.

I've tried beers that were carbed more than that and they were just to foamy.

A lot of good info posted here about it though. Looks like I can afford to spend a bit more time learning what's going.

Ya why I pull mine early, I made the mistake of leaving one on for 2 weeks and didn't come out right. I ended up turning down the pressure and just wasn't the same.

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[ajdelange]

Let me try this a different way. You're still underestimating the amount of N2 that gets into solution into water. Here are a couple of graphs showing the solubility of CO2:

Here's the solubility of N2:

Note that at 10C, they're virtually the same, at 0C CO2 is about .5gram/kilogram water higher, while as the temperature rises, N2 overtakes CO2.

You keep posting additional data that keeps supporting the fact (and it is a fact even if you don't see it yet) that CO2 is about 100 times more soluble than N2. Please look at your graphs. At 10°C the solubilities are NOT the same. CO2 is 100 times more soluble (at 2.5 g/kg - about the same number I put in my last post) than N2 at 0.025 g/kg. 100*0.025 is 2.5. Why can't you figure this out? Have you never discussed this with a more knowledgeable brewer? Have you never seen the Zahm and Nagle (ASBC) table nor the McDantim curves?

Stop the music!!! Is it possible that you are unaware that the US is one of few countries in the world where 1/100 of a gram is written as 0.01? Everyone else, including the authors of these curves would write it as 0,01. Thus 0,025 g on the Nitrogen curve means, in US notation, 0.025 g or 25 mg. If you misinterpreted that then 2,5 g (2.5 g in US notation) should have confused you too.

Again, your arguments center around the assumption that N2 does not get into solution into water.

It's not really an argument but a simple statement of fact.

Since I think it's been shown that N2 DOES get into solution (and at a comparable rate to CO2 - but WITHOUT the conversion to carbonic acid)

The 3 web pages you have posted make it quite clear that this is not the case but you seem to be unable to interpret these. I've tried to help you see your problem in terms of confustion of mg and grams and of the difference between US and ROW notation. If it doesn't lie in one of those areas I can't think how to help you any further. Try talking to some other brewers or the owner of a bar that has a nitro system or a skin diver. They will know about nitrogen solubility. Here's a quote from McDantim's web page at http://mcdantim.com/using-mixed-gas-for-beer-dispense/

"Nitrogen is one hundred times harder to dissolve in beer than CO2. "

You might want to have a look at their website (they make blenders). At least you will see in print that I am not the only guy who can do the math and come up with 100.

- if we take a 10psi keg under CO2, and put it on beergas (25%CO2/75%N2) at 30psi not only to raise pressure but also to serve, a good amount of Nitrogen is going to get into solution. We've just tripled the pressure, which increases the amount of gas that gets into solution, obviously, so the new gas getting into solution is going to be 3:1 N2 vs. CO2.

You can do all the reasoning you want but if your departure point is a flawed assumption you are going to come up with flawed conclusions.


Note: 10 psig --> 30 psig == 25 psia --> 45 psia is a factor of 1.8, not 3

 

[socalboomer]

..

 

[ajdelange]

The site went TU for a couple of minutes and while it was out I see that a couple of posts have been pulled. No worries but I did do a wee 'common sense' experiment whose results might be interesting in terms of this discussion. I took a syringe and filled it with 20 mL of water which is in equilibrium with the air. Thus, under the assumption that CO2 and nitrogen are about equally soluble I should have a bit less than 1 volume of N2 dissoved (20 mL) and if I stop the end of the syringe and pull back on the plunger the water should fizz and N2 should come out of solution. Some gas (N2 and O2) do come out of solution when I pull on the plunger (I can't move it) in the form of tiny bubbles on the rubber plunger face on the inside of the syringe. As soon as I take the pressure off they disappear. So yes, there is N2 (and O2) dissolved in the water but at a fraction of the volume of CO2 which it would hold at room temperature. Apparently shooting beer into beer is pretty effective at getting the traditional Guiness head.


Second comment: while waiting for the site to recover I went and read the McDantim web page. Very interesting. They seem to think that Guiness (and others) 'go to great pains to dissolve nitrogen in the beer, which improves the quality of the head.' Amazing! I guess marketing doesn't talk to engineering. I think they probably got this idea from reading about how the 'widget' works. In that process a ping pong ball with a tiny hole or 2 is dropped into the can (I assume it is first filled with nitrogen), a couple of drops of liquid N2 are fired into the can and it is then quickly filled with carbonated beer and sealed. It then goes into the pasteurization tunnel where, at the high temperature encountered there, the N2 droplet(s) vaporize and the total gas pressure in the can gets very high: partial pressures of CO2 and N2 combined. This forces beer into the ping-pong ball which was, remember, at atmospheric pressure when it was put into the can. The can cools and when it is cool the partial pressure of CO2 is about an atmosphere (the proper level for the desired carbonation level) but the partial pressure of N2 is well above that (just as it is in a beer mix cylinder). Each liter of beer contains about 2.5 g of CO2 and 2 or 3 x 25 mg of N2. When the top is pulled the headspace goes immediately to atmospheric and gas starts to come out of the beer. At 1 volume the foaming from CO2 isn't very impressive and neither is that from N2 if there even is any - probably more like what I saw in my syringe experiment. But the ping pong ball contains liquid beer at I'm guessing 2 - 3 atmospheres gauge. The result is a very small diameter (hole is small) stream of beer at high velocity shooting through the can of beer. The orifice is partially tangential (I think) which causes the ball to spin as it squirts beer. This jet disturbs the beer in the can enough to cause the tiny CO2 bubbles to form and produce the creamy Guiness head. Very ingenious, IMO (and they apparently spent millions and millions of £ on its development).

Yes, then, the canned (and bottled) Guiness does contain dissolved nitrogen (at a couple of percent of the dissolved CO2). As with the draught systems the N2 is there to do physical work (push the beer out of the widget). AFAIK the keg stuff does not contain any N2. What would be the point? The N2 necessary to push the beer through the sparkler comes from the beer mix tank or blender.

Comment on Beer Engines: They are very popular around here. The pub where I do most of my drinking (other than home brew) has, I think, 4. My club has an annual Real Ale Festival competition in which all the entries are served from engines. They stay on tap after the competition and the members at large then spend the afternoon pulling pints. I think there must have been 25 - 30 engines hooked up in Nov.

 

[socalboomer]

No big deal. You chased me off the thread.

Your own referenced page noted the

Nitrogen (N2) is the ingredient responsible for the “whipped-cream-like” foam in Guinness and other beers like Pyramid DPA, Boddingtons, Abbott’s, Caffrey’s, Murphy’s Stout and Beamish Stout. N2, in the right proportion, is required in the gas used to push these beers. Without it, the dissolved N2 would come out of solution and these beers would not be the same.

You can do what you like. What I know and can see, empirically, is that the beer that comes out of my Nitro system has a "whipped-cream-like" head but when I put it through my CO2 system, it has a vastly lesser head. When tasted back to back (with head scraped off) people can tell the difference between the two.

Your statement that N2 is not soluble in water still flies in the face of other statements that say it's "harder" - which means it IS soluble. No big deal - thread is yours. You're the expert who can make whatever claims he wants to. Chase people away by denigrating them any way you want to. You know it all. I don't. We don't. Demonstrate your VAST knowledge.

Cheers - I'll go elsewhere.

 

[ajdelange]

I'm not concerned about the vastness or lack there off of my knowledge. I am concerned with your misunderstanding of a very important, fundamental fact that underlies the theory of mixed gas dispense systems and widgeted cans which is, in fact, common knowledge. To be honest, it is not your lack of knowledge that concerns me so much as it is that your repetition of misinformation may poison other readers' learning.

Just so the record is straight: I never said that N2 is not soluble. In every post I stated what the solubility of it is, based mostly on data provided by you, and then compared it with correct numbers for CO2 solubility.

If you wish to run away and lick your bruised ego then that is your choice. If you stick around and try to see where you went wrong (I'll just bet it's not understanding 0,025) you might learn something and not make the same, or a similar, mistake again. The ego hit is the down side. You've already taken that. Why not go for the up side?

On common sense: When common sense and the data don't agree, check the data!

 

[jpc]

No big deal. You chased me off the thread.

Your own referenced page noted the

You can do what you like. What I know and can see, empirically, is that the beer that comes out of my Nitro system has a "whipped-cream-like" head but when I put it through my CO2 system, it has a vastly lesser head. When tasted back to back (with head scraped off) people can tell the difference between the two.

Your statement that N2 is not soluble in water still flies in the face of other statements that say it's "harder" - which means it IS soluble. No big deal - thread is yours. You're the expert who can make whatever claims he wants to. Chase people away by denigrating them any way you want to. You know it all. I don't. We don't. Demonstrate your VAST knowledge.

Cheers - I'll go elsewhere.

FWIW...

He IS an expert, and he is correct. There is very little N2 in solution, and it is the CO2 that causes the carbonation. The showerhead has very tiny holes which forms very small bubbles of CO2, and that is what causes the cascading and the creamy head.

There is a lot of misunderstanding out there, but aj is not the source of it.

 

[socalboomer]

Sigh - it's not a bruised ego. It's the frustration of running against someone who seems to look at nothing except his numbers.

I'm more empirical. Listen - not everyone is an engineer. Not everyone sits looking at equations all day. I look at the results - most of us do. But you come in and denigrate the things we non-elite see, taste, and feel (mouthfeel, not touchy-feely) with a superior air. We're not worthy. We don't know about the Zahm and Nagle (ASBC) table nor the McDantim curves.

Honestly - I know a number of successful professional brewers and those topics have never come up - btw, when I search for "Zahm and Nagle ASBC table" (or even Nagel) it doesn't give anything but a fairly common CO2 chart that has been reproduced elsewhere and doesn't have anything about Nitro on it. They're a purveyor of carbonation equipment - same as McDantim. They have an agenda - sell their equipment. Do you have any academic information - I work at an academic institution and if it weren't still Winter Break, I'd cross the street and ask the O-Chem profs to help out (they're fairly easy to get info from, esp with a bottle of brew or two. . .) - but I trust academic information more than I do commercial information.

I looked at a bunch of other of your posts and this seems to be a trend. YOU are the expert. YOU have the numbers. The rest of us can either bow down and accept your word for it or be buried under a TON of verbiage - little of it backed up, btw. I provided most of the sources in this conversation (even if I screwed up my numbers) - look at the conversation you had with a PROFESSIONAL lab tech. YOU were the expert, questioning him at nearly every turn. Really?

Yes - I screwed up my numbers. I'm just an IT guy who's a welder, writer, and whatever else needs to be done on the side. I brew good beer, my wife likes it, a few recipes are being brewed at a local place. My stouts are highly regarded, and are great on Nitro. But whatever - I'm not a retired engineer so discount me. Blah blah blah.

It's not bruised ego - it's your mannerism, your tone, and your condescending superiority. Had you approached this with an actual friendly tone, a NICE conversational mode, it may have gone another way.

But instead, you come in saying that what we (the mere lay person, the lowly homebrewers without your lofty knowledge) know, taste, feel, see about Nitro is WRONG. We're imagining things. Nitro does NOTHING. Sorry people, you're wrong about what comes out of that faucet. Ignore what you see. Ignore that head that you can scoop with a spoon an turn upside down - that's nothing but an illusion. . . you could do that without Nitro.

Yep - "not me-eth, you'eth"

 

[socalboomer]

FWIW...

He IS an expert, and he is correct. There is very little N2 in solution, and it is the CO2 that causes the carbonation. The showerhead has very tiny holes which forms very small bubbles of CO2, and that is what causes the cascading and the creamy head.

There is a lot of misunderstanding out there, but aj is not the source of it.

Ok, he can be an expert. I'm actually an expert in quite a few things as well, and when I drop in on those conversations I try not to cut people off at the knees.

So - to get back on topic - if I were to take that disc in a CO2 system, I would have the same "whipped-cream-foam" ? I can just take and fill the N2 tank with CO2 and get exactly the same effect? I have a spare CO2 tank and my Beergas tank is getting low . . .

 

[ajdelange]

So - to get back on topic - if I were to take that disc in a CO2 system, I would have the same "whipped-cream-foam" ? I can just take and fill the N2 tank with CO2 and get exactly the same effect? I have a spare CO2 tank and my Beergas tank is getting low . . .

Let me start by saying that it was never my intention to cut anyone off at the knees. Incorrect interpretations were posted several times and I don't believe it would be right for me to let those stand. Whatever the mechanisms or the effect on the palate may be it is driven in large part by the fact that CO2 is so much more soluble than N2. This is in any paper, text, magazine article etc. on the subject. This forum would be worse than useless if people came here for information and went away misinformed.

Now back to the discussion. If you took your properly carbonated stout and propelled it with straight CO2 at a higher pressure through a sparkler plate, yes, you would get a nice creamy head. This is in fact what I do rather than fool with nitrogen bottles and blenders. Would it be the same creamy head that I got when I did fool with blenders and nitrogen bottles? Perhaps not. But I am certainly not of the impression that I gave up the 'perfect pint' when I stopped using nitrogen. You may recall that a few posts back I advocated keeping this scheme in mind for an occasion on which beer gas ran low. Try it and see!

I thought I'd better go back and see whether breweries indeed do go to considerable trouble to force nitrogen into their beers and found that indeed they do. Now I'm trying to figure out why. The texts have some conflicting statements to the effect, on the one hand that N2 is insoluble (relatively) and chemically inert so that it has no flavor effect on the beer but that, on the other hand, N2 produces smaller bubbles because it is less soluble and smooths mouthfeel and operates at lower partial pressure (in 25% beer gas it operates at much higher partial pressure so this is the sort of thing I mean). Whatever the truth here breweries are spending money and they don't do that unless there is some return. Clearly a cellerman can't use the trick I mentioned practically but I don't see why he can't bring in a keg of stout with no N2 in it, put it on mix for a few days and have it at the same equilibrium that the brewery goes to so much trouble to acheive. I'm pretty sure the answer there is that the pubs don't want to tie up space and couplers for a few days waiting for this to happen.

The other theory I came up with is that most of the mixed gas dispense in the UK is 'smooth flow' ales that are, as I mentioned in earlier posts, intended to mimic cask conditioned ales. Cask conditioned ales drawn through an engine with a sparkler produce the same creamy head that one gets with mixed gas dispense. What I am wondering now is whether the object might be to get that head without the sparkler plate thus allowing lower pressure dispense and the use of the same faucets that are used to dispense lager. But here I am speculating. The other possibility is that even at a couple of percent level this chemically inert gas works some kind of magic that I haven't been able to figure out.

 

[socalboomer]

Okay - I have a medium body beer that's only been on CO2. I will try it through the stout faucet on straight CO2 (at 30psi and at 12psi) to see what we get. I will post pics. This should be pretty easy - just swap the bev lines.

I'm not really interested in any "perfect pint" - my wife loves the creamy head and mouthfeel. To me, a "perfect pint" differs depending on the beer, but even then, at home I go for a "decent pint" - I don't have the ability to change the volume of CO2 per each different beer. They get the same pressure, period. I'd love a multiple regulator but. . .

 

[ajdelange]

Sigh - it's not a bruised ego. It's the frustration of running against someone who seems to look at nothing except his numbers.

I'm more empirical. Listen - not everyone is an engineer. Not everyone sits looking at equations all day. I look at the results - most of us do.

Jean de Clerck (one of fathers of modern brewing) wrote:

"A distinction is frequently drawn in the industry between the theoretical man and who tries to explain everything from a scientific point of view, and the practical man who relies on empirical knowledge and experience. A good brewer should be able to steer a middle course between these extremes."

I am 100% on board with that and that is the course I try to steer. In this case I have the empirical evidence that I have poured many a fine pint of stout without nitrogen (and many a fine one with) and I have the CO2 models from the ASBC tables and the N2 data from many other sources which can explain why and that's what I tried to do here. It is entirely possible that there is more to it than I know (in fact that is certain) but experience, common sense and data seem to converge here.

But you come in and denigrate the things we non-elite see, taste, and feel (mouthfeel, not touchy-feely) with a superior air. We're not worthy. We don't know about the Zahm and Nagle (ASBC) table nor the McDantim curves.

The only thing I denigrated (and I didn't mean to do that) was the insistence that CO2 and N2 are equally soluble when the data you posted showed they aren't.

Honestly - I know a number of successful professional brewers and those topics have never come up - btw, when I search for "Zahm and Nagle ASBC table" (or even Nagel) it doesn't give anything but a fairly common CO2 chart that has been reproduced elsewhere and doesn't have anything about Nitro on it. They're a purveyor of carbonation equipment - same as McDantim.

The ASBC (Zahm and Nagle) tables are familiar to people who deal with beer carbonation questions (such as brewers) and the McDantim curves (I don't see them on the website any more) simplify the process of setting dispense pressure for mixes - very handy for pub owners.

They have an agenda - sell their equipment. Do you have any academic information -

Well the ASBC tables are part of the MOAs (a compilation of methods for analyzing beer used by most breweries that do any analysis which I guess isn't all of them) and before a method is accepted it is thoroughly researched and tested in inter laboratory collaborative studies.

I work at an academic institution and if it weren't still Winter Break, I'd cross the street and ask the O-Chem profs to help out (they're fairly easy to get info from, esp with a bottle of brew or two. . .) - but I trust academic information more than I do commercial information.

Be careful there!

I looked at a bunch of other of your posts and this seems to be a trend. YOU are the expert. YOU have the numbers.

In some cases I am. I've acquired the knowledge or done the experiments and I have the data that other people don't have. In most cases, of course, I am not.

The rest of us can either bow down and accept your word for it or be buried under a TON of verbiage - little of it backed up, btw.

I can, and usually do back up most of what I say. Often with a simple demonstration/experiment that I can do in a few minutes. I won't say that I haven't gone out on a limb from time to time, though. Can you point me at an example?

I provided most of the sources in this conversation (even if I screwed up my numbers)

Well I didn't have to provide any here as you did. The question was of your interpretation of those references.

- look at the conversation you had with a PROFESSIONAL lab tech. YOU were the expert, questioning him at nearly every turn. Really?

Quite possibly. If the guy was posting misinformation should I have let it go? I sometimes think that this is what society demands of us now. It is better to ignore the most glaring errors than to hurt someones feelings by pointing out the mistake. Can you refresh my memory as to what that particular conversation was about?

Yes - I screwed up my numbers. I'm just ...I'm not a retired engineer so discount me. Blah blah blah.

If I got short (for which I apologize) it was because you went three rounds of screwed up numbers and ignored two explanations as to why which says I'm typing and you're not reading and that gets a little frustrating. OTOH I do have so say that given the heat that got developed here you probably won't make the same mistake again and in that sense I have been, pedagogically speaking, successful.

It's not bruised ego - it's your mannerism, your tone, and your condescending superiority. Had you approached this with an actual friendly tone, a NICE conversational mode, it may have gone another way.

I'm often a little short on nice conversational modes when talking tech stuff. I do try to be friendly, though.

But instead, you come in saying that what we (the mere lay person, the lowly homebrewers without your lofty knowledge) know, taste, feel, see about Nitro is WRONG. We're imagining things. Nitro does NOTHING.

You imagined that. 90% of the discussion was on the relative solubility of CO2 and N2.

Sorry people, you're wrong about what comes out of that faucet. Ignore what you see. Ignore that head that you can scoop with a spoon an turn upside down - that's nothing but an illusion. . . you could do that without Nitro.

Well I think you can but you are going to try it and see, right?

 

[ajdelange]

I'm not really interested in any "perfect pint" - my wife loves the creamy head and mouthfeel.

That phrase has special meaning with respect to Guiness:

http://www.brobible.com/lifestyle/alcohol/article/how-to-pour-a-perfect-pint-of-guinness/

 

[socalboomer]

Oh, I know.

I just don't worry about it. What IS a perfect pint? I think that article is quite tongue in cheek (119.5 seconds? LOL) and to us typical homebrewers, a perfect pint is probably anything coming from our taps!

 

[socalboomer]

Okay - empirical experiment. If I took a beer and transferred it to the stout faucet, it should get head characteristics and creamy mouthfeel that we expect from Nitro.

I used a medium bodied red. It has been on 10psi CO2.

I took a pour through my Perlick faucet under 10psi CO2. Then I took the bev line from the stout faucet and hooked that up. I first ran it through the stout faucet at 10psi, just because it was already set there. I then ran through the stout faucet at 30psi. I re-hooked the stout faucet up to the stout.

So, I have four pours. I sipped and handed to my wife who also sipped. We looked at the body of the head, the mouthfeel of the head, and the mouthfeel of the beer.

Red under regular faucet. It's a bit over-carb'd. It's the first pour of the day, but I figured this would give a comparable amount of foam so we could compare. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Red under 10psi stout faucet. Note the bubbles are very similar in size (easiest to see if you look at the right of the glass). Head mouthfeel is little different from the Perlick pour. Mouthfeel of the beer is no different from the Perlick pour. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Red under 30psi stout faucet. Note the bubbles look no different from the Perlick pour. Head mouthfeel is slightly creamier. Mouthfeel of the beer is slightly creamier, but flatter than the Perlick pour. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Foreign Extra Stout under 30psi stout faucet (been on Nitro). very large amount of cascading action. Very very tiny bubbles which were extremely persistent. Head persisted for over 2 minutes (before my wife stole the glass and started drinking it). Mouthfeel of the foam was very creamy. Mouthfeel of the beer was also very creamy. NOTE - this is not a valid apples to apples comparison because my FES is not my Red. . . it is merely to show the reaction that we want from Nitro, and the claim was that the disk in the stout faucet was what created the effect.

I did no tampering with the evidence. This is what it is. I could, later, try the experiment again later with a RIS that is presently in secondary. However, at this point, it does not look, to me, like pushing a beer through a stout faucet and the sparkler plate does not have a significant effect on the beer.

Further experiment would be to take the RIS, pressurize it to 10psi with the Perlick. Then take it to 30psi on the sparkler. Then take it to 30psi on Nitro on the sparkler.

However, at this point, the evidence I have does not show any significant difference coming directly from the sparkler plate alone.

((edited to fix a typo))

 

[theck]

Okay - empirical experiment. If I took a beer and transferred it to the stout faucet, it should get head characteristics and creamy mouthfeel that we expect from Nitro.

I used a medium bodied red. It has been on 10psi CO2.

I took a pour through my Perlick faucet under 10psi CO2. Then I took the bev line from the stout faucet and hooked that up. I first ran it through the stout faucet at 10psi, just because it was already set there. I then ran through the stout faucet at 30psi. I re-hooked the stout faucet up to the stout.

So, I have four pours. I sipped and handed to my wife who also sipped. We looked at the body of the head, the mouthfeel of the head, and the mouthfeel of the beer.

Red under regular faucet. It's a bit over-carb'd. It's the first pour of the day, but I figured this would give a comparable amount of foam so we could compare. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Red under 10psi stout faucet. Note the bubbles are very similar in size (easiest to see if you look at the right of the glass). Head mouthfeel is little different from the Perlick pour. Mouthfeel of the beer is no different from the Perlick pour. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Red under 30psi stout faucet. Note the bubbles look no different from the Perlick pour. Head mouthfeel is slightly creamier. Mouthfeel of the beer is slightly creamier, but flatter than the Perlick pour. Head dissipated in about 20 seconds.

Foreign Extra Stout under 30psi stout faucet (been on Nitro). very large amount of cascading action. Very very tiny bubbles which were extremely persistent. Head persisted for over 2 minutes (before my wife stole the glass and started drinking it). Mouthfeel of the foam was very creamy. Mouthfeel of the beer was also very creamy. NOTE - this is not a valid apples to apples comparison because my FES is not my Red. . . it is merely to show the reaction that we want from Nitro, and the claim was that the disk in the stout faucet was what created the effect.

I did no tampering with the evidence. This is what it is. I could, later, try the experiment again later with a RIS that is presently in secondary. However, at this point, it does not look, to me, like pushing a beer through a stout faucet and the sparkler plate does not have a significant effect on the beer.

Further experiment would be to take the RIS, pressurize it to 10psi with the Perlick. Then take it to 30psi on the sparkler. Then take it to 30psi on Nitro on the sparkler.

However, at this point, the evidence I have does not show any significant difference coming directly from the sparkler plate alone.

((edited to fix a typo))

A lot of time on your hand ha

 

[Ariando]

Math put aside is it agreed (or not) the nitrogen co2 mix makes a difference over 1 atmosphere co2 alone?

 

[socalboomer]

A lot of time on your hand ha

Nah - this only took about a half hour, while my wife and daughter were making dinner. Pretty easy too.

Math put aside is it agreed (or not) the nitrogen co2 mix makes a difference over 1 atmosphere co2 alone?

I don't know - I haven't heard from ajd yet. I still do plan to try it with the RIS as I mentioned, but for me (and my wife, who was pretty adamant on it) it seems pretty clear that the sparkler plate, alone, while it does make the head a tad creamier, it doesn't approach the N2 on sparkler plate.