Cask Ale!

[jdround]

Ok, been looking through these threads and found a lot of great info on doing cask. I am not looking at investing $400-500 on a professional hand pull engine. So I have a rocket hand pump on order that I am going to use as my engine...

OPTION 1.
Here is where I am thinking. I see people reuse mini kegs. Could I take a straight piece of copper tubing, have it go through the top of the bunk and into the mini keg, about 1.5" off the bottom of the mini keg and hook it to the hand pull engine? I figured if the copper tube was sanitised, why not.

OPTION 2.
I also see people using the polypins. I was able to get my hands on a 2.5 gal as the smallest. If I was to load the polypin with 1 gallon, would this be ok only being half full? Lets face it, going for a flatter beer anyhow, and its vacuumed somewhat, so min. air inside and I thought this would give it more expansion room and now blow...

I love cask ale and don't have the funds to go to a full keg setup. I can get a small cask system going pretty cheap and I love the stuff. What are your thoughts and opinions on my two suggestions for containing the cask ale.

Thanks and Cheers!
John

 

[highgravitybacon]

Ok, been looking through these threads and found a lot of great info on doing cask. I am not looking at investing $400-500 on a professional hand pull engine. So I have a rocket hand pump on order that I am going to use as my engine...

OPTION 1.
Here is where I am thinking. I see people reuse mini kegs. Could I take a straight piece of copper tubing, have it go through the top of the bunk and into the mini keg, about 1.5" off the bottom of the mini keg and hook it to the hand pull engine? I figured if the copper tube was sanitised, why not.

OPTION 2.
I also see people using the polypins. I was able to get my hands on a 2.5 gal as the smallest. If I was to load the polypin with 1 gallon, would this be ok only being half full? Lets face it, going for a flatter beer anyhow, and its vacuumed somewhat, so min. air inside and I thought this would give it more expansion room and now blow...

I love cask ale and don't have the funds to go to a full keg setup. I can get a small cask system going pretty cheap and I love the stuff. What are your thoughts and opinions on my two suggestions for containing the cask ale.

Thanks and Cheers!
John

I have used a party pig for pseudo cask ale and it worked okay. I just filled the party pig right from the bottling bucket without using one of the pouch things. It carbed up on its own. I drank from it over about a 3 day period. Took a while to pour towards the end and was basically flat at the end. Maybe if you drink it in 24 hours or less and refilled it with air from the hand pump after every pour it wouldn't lose so much carbonation. But yeah, I'd do it again.

The poly pin seems like a better route though since you can squeeze it. Not really seeing how a poly pin will deliver beer that is materially different than a cask system anyway. If you did a side by side with a cask, would anyone notice the difference?

 

[jdround]

I actually just found this in another thread... If anyone who was reading wanted the info also on doing cask in a poly this is good.

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11340