Beer Engine Help!

[Covert]

I hooked up my beer engine to a corny keg, to test it out and to give it a little cleaning before using it. I've never used a beer engine before, so maybe I did this wrong. I put about a gallon of faucet temperature water into the keg and pressurized it to about 8 PSI. I connected it to the beer engine and the water began to flow even before I pulled the handle. It kept flowing until the keg ran empty.

Any ideas?

 

[Shooter]

You can't pressurize the keg or that will happen. The beer engine doesn't normally have any type of check valve.

 

[Covert]

OK, this is all new to me, so if I ask something stupid then I hope I get a pass. But, isn't the beer in the keg under pressure from the carbonation? Is there a maximum pressure that you can have in the keg?

 

[Shooter]

OK, this is all new to me, so if I ask something stupid then I hope I get a pass. But, isn't the beer in the keg under pressure from the carbonation? Is there a maximum pressure that you can have in the keg?

A beer engine is designed to pump beer from a cask. Most casked beers have minimal carbonation and are open to the environment, which allows oxygen in to replace the beer. It is a specialized system.

American kegged beer is served using a standard beer faucet which, when closed, shuts off the flow of beer. The CO2 is used to push the beer and it also helps to keep CO2 in suspension in the beer. A beer engine is just a pump and there is no setting that shuts off the flow of beer.

I've been considering a beer engine for a while now. If you want to keep a small amount of CO2 in the keg to blanket the beer you have to use something like a cask breather or even a low pressure propane valve to put about half a pound or less of head pressure. Otherwise the CO2 will just force the beer through the beer engine.

EDIT: I suspect what you need is a standard beer faucet to serve your beer.

 

[Covert]

When I say that I'm new to this I mean the beer engine. I've been brewing for more years than I care to remember. I've got another fridge and a regular two-two tower for my regular beers, but I've always wanted to make real ale and use the beer engine.

I guess I'll ask the question this way. I keep the beer at 50 degrees fahrenheit and want it at 1.5 atmospheres. This requires 5 PSI according to the commonly used carbonation chart. Won't this 5 PSI push the beer out, just like I experienced today? Or, should I wait until it is carbonated and then bleed off the CO2 in the keg before hooking it up to the beer engine?

 

[Shooter]

When I say that I'm new to this I mean the beer engine. I've been brewing for more years than I care to remember. I've got another fridge and a regular two-two tower for my regular beers, but I've always wanted to make real ale and use the beer engine.

I guess I'll ask the question this way. I keep the beer at 50 degrees fahrenheit and want it at 1.5 atmospheres. This requires 5 PSI according to the commonly used carbonation chart. Won't this 5 PSI push the beer out, just like I experienced today? Or, should I wait until it is carbonated and then bleed off the CO2 in the keg before hooking it up to the beer engine?

Carbonate it to a low level 1-1.5 volumes. When ready to serve, vent the keg somehow and leave the vent open, you can just open the pressure relief valve if you have one on the keg and spin it so it doesn't close back up. This allows air in to replace the beer that's going out. Without doing this the pump forms a vacuum and the beer will stop flowing. Hook up the beer engine and begin pulling the handle to pump the beer through the line. If the keg is lower than the spigot the flow will stop once you stop pumping. If the keg is higher than the spigot, the beer will keep flowing as you're essentially siphoning at that point.

If you are worried about oxidation to the beer, which will happen in only a few days, then you will need to hook up CO2 at a low pressure to keep the beer fresh. The normal way to do that is with the cask breather or low pressure valve I mentioned above. In that instance, you are only using the CO2 to fill the dead space in the keg, but not creating enough pressure that it would push beer through the line.

EDIT: To be clear, it is not necessary to have CO2 hooked up while dispensing with a beer engine. You would only be using the CO2 to force carb or to keep the beer from oxidizing.

EDIT 2: There is actually a good video demonstrating the beer engine at Norther Brewer.