Keezer for Stout on Nitro and Hand Pumped Bitter

[richardtmorgan]

A new keezer for the basement which will have a nitro tap for serving stout and a hand pump for serving British Bitter. [To augment the 4 regular taps which live upstairs]

Having enjoyed making a keezer and having draft beer flowing in our living room I've decided I want to branch out and be able to serve beer at more English temperatures and carbonation levels (read 'warm and flat').

I picked up a free freezer from Craig's list:

which will hold 3 kegs on the floor and two on the hump if I have an 8" collar.

I bought a beer engine (i.e. hand pump) from ebay.co.uk and had it shipped to the US. It's a shiny Angram 'Energy' pump with a water cooling jacket and also a beer line check valve.

I paid $130 for the pump and $40 for the shipping. It would cost $585 new from ukbrewing.com (Angram's distributors in the USA) and more than twice that from micromatic.com. It's starting price in the UK from Angram is £185 (about $285) - which gives you an idea of how relatively expensive this method of serving beer is in the US. I watched a few pumps on ebay.co.uk and typically the more traditional looking beer engines finished at around $90 (without the water cooling etc...) and $40 was a typical amount to ship to the US. The UK ebay site does seem a smart way to go if you want to get into serving cask conditioned ales on a hand pump.

The plan is for this keezer to be set at 'cellar temperature' 50-55F (my main keezer is at 41/42 F) and to have just the one stout tap and the one beer engine for cask conditioned beer. The rest of the space in the freezer will allow beer waiting to go upstairs to begin carbonating and get a little colder (or for carbonating and chilling a stout that's waiting for the stout tap).

It doesn't have to be pretty (it'll just live in the very unfinished basement where the beer ferments) - so I'm planning on just gluing an 8" collar on, and building a small table next to it to attach the beer engine to. I have four casters in the garage - so I'm thinking of setting the whole lot on a piece of plywood with casters on so that I can move it around. The gas will live outside the freezer.

 

[richardtmorgan]

I cut and screwed the collar together, and fitted the stout tap (drilled a 7/8" hole with the drill press before screwing the four edges of the collar together).

The collar was a bit of a pain. I bought a piece of 2" x 8" x 10ft lumber from Home Depot ($8 something). I went through a few in their stack to try and get a straighter piece with no splits etc... I could have bought worse - but the piece was still somewhat warped. The result is that the joins are less than perfect. This is fine since this is not going to be anywhere but an unfinished basement - but if it were going somewhere nicer, I think I might spring for a nicer piece of wood for the collar...

This shot with the lid fitted shows that there's a pretty good seal - so functionally it will be fine...

The stout tap sits well forward of the collar - so there is plenty of room to push back for the creamer action of the tap. The tap is placed fairly high up on the collar so that a tap handle pushed back will still clear the lid.

The tap is set as far to the left as possible to cleanly clear the far left keg which sits on the hump. In this way it's very much out of the way of the three kegs which sit on the floor. It's quite a long way down to the floor with the extra 8" collar - so I don't want anything to get in the way of kegs going in and out.

Decisions still to be made about the routing of gas lines in and the beer out line for the hand pump.

 

[richardtmorgan]

I've built the table to set the hand pump in, and set the keezer and the table on a plywood base with castors. This will give me a good idea of where gas bottles will fit etc... and where the gas should enter the keezer and the beer leave...

 

[richardtmorgan]

So I had some stain left from a previous project (and plenty of bits of paint) so I decided to stain the keezer (why not?).

With the stain on - and the gas manifold and various clips for routing gas lines hammered in place, it's time to attach the collar to the freezer permanently:

describes using 'sealant' to adhere the collar to the keezer. It should 'adhere wood to plastic'. This Loctite product claims to both seal and bond - so let's hope it does the job:

As in the Northern Brewer instructions I used kegs to weigh down the collar on top of the freezer while the sealant goes off. They're half filled with water:

 

[richardtmorgan]

Very nearly complete. I still need a nitro cyclinder (the local place was out) and a couple of disconnects.

Close up of the panel for the STC-1000 (temperature controller). This is about as primitive as it gets for mounting one of these. The temperature probe goes into the keezer through the same hole as the beer out line for the hand pump.

The probe wire is at the bottom of this picture. The check valve for the beer line is in the middle. The wires from the STC-1000 are at the top. They are joined at a terminal block on the right of the photo. The original freezer cord connects to this terminal block as does a new 9' appliance cord from Home Depot. The wires to the STC-1000 are three hook-up wires (one for the neutral, one for the live to the STC-1000, and one for the live return to the freezer).

Some cable clips inside the keezer are really helpful for tidying the gas lines.

Real Ale on a hand pump is traditionally served by opening up the beer cask to the atmosphere (so that there isn't a vacuum when you pump). This is great as long as you serve the beer within a few days. If the beer needs to keep longer, a 'cask breather' can be fitted which allows a blanket of CO2 to fill the space above the beer (but not at pressure). UK brewing stock one of these at $75.50. Or a CAMCO low pressure propane regulator ($11 from Amazon) and a couple of connector does the job the same way. Gas in to the regulator from the manifold at regular pressure (i.e. 10psi) and then out of the regulator at very low pressure just to top up the space on top of the beer.

 

[Hello]

That is all very cool. The hand pump is quite the addition, especially if you love that style of beer. I like the cable clip idea for lines. Right now I just managed to reduce my shank length and now I need to address the lines. My gas lines in particular aren't very malleable.

How everything is set up for the hand pump is quite nice. Will the Nitro tank be on the outside?

 

[richardtmorgan]

Yes - Nitro tank and CO2 tank on the outside. I'll post a pic once I've managed to get hold of the Nitro tank. My upstairs keezer uses a larger freezer, but no collar (CO2 tank sits on the hump) and can only fit 4 kegs (4 on the floor - one for each tap) - so I was very happy that this easily fits 5 kegs with the collar; but that means that both tanks need to go outside the freezer.

 

[TMow]

Two questions here. Can I run my co2 line with the beer lines down the same hole to my keezer? Can I run chocolate stout off co2 and if so at what psi? Thanks guys

 

[Hello]

Two questions here. Can I run my co2 line with the beer lines down the same hole to my keezer? Can I run chocolate stout off co2 and if so at what psi? Thanks guys

I would start a new thread asking your questions, but yes, you can dispense a chocolate stout and you can use CO2. PSI, I would say 8. Can you run liquid and gas lines in the same hole? Yes.

Start a thread though, you'll get more answers and you can expand on your question because it's not 100% clear.

 

[richardtmorgan]

Nothing to stop co2 lines and beer lines being right next to one another.

Serving beer on nitro is a relatively new phenomenon - you absolutely can serve stout pushed with co2 rather than a co2/nitrogen mix. You need to use a regular beer faucet though, not a stout tap (which contains a restrictor plate, and therefore is expecting the higher pressure appropriate to nitro).

The psi for your co2 tank will affect how carbonated the beer is (how many 'volumes' of co2 it contains). It's also temperature dependent - colder beer will absorb more co2 at a given pressure.

Decide how carbonated you want your stout, and what temperature you want to serve it, and then look up the pressure you need to achieve that level of carbonation at that temperature. There are lots of charts - this is one.

I'd like my stout not very carbonated and not very cold - so all things being equal I'd set the co2 to 10psi and the temperature to 50F. Some people might like it even warmer and flatter - others might like it cold and fizzy... I might argue that my choice is the 'correct' one - but ultimately it's a matter of preference.

Also - if you have a number of beers in one keezer you can't set the temperature separately for each beer even if you have regulators to set the co2 separately for each of them (which I can't in my set up). In my upstairs keezer the temperature is 40F and the pressure is 10psi - which results in colder and fizzier beer - and I'd happily drink stout like that (or british bitter) even if ideally I'd serve it warmer and flatter. You've got to make a choice which is best for most beers you are serving (or make two keezers, like me ;-)).

The only other thing to bear in mind is the length and diameter of the beer line. This provides resistance to the pressure of the beer in the keg. If the line is too short (or the diameter too wide for the given length) your beer will be uncontrollably frothy. The vertical height from the keg to the tap also contributes to the resistance of the beer line. 5ft of 3/16" ID beer line works fine for me - but if my beer was colder and fizzier it would need to be longer.

 

[TMow]

Thanks a ton guys

 

[richardtmorgan]

I've taken a quick video of pulling one of my first pints through the hand pump:



6lb of Maris Otter extract with 1/2lb of steeped medium English Crystal; 1oz Challenger for bittering; 1oz First Gold for flavor at 15 mins and 1oz Fuggles for aroma at flame out.

This is the real deal - very exciting. I've had a number of 'british style' pale ales in the USA, and none come remotely close (sorry Yards).

 

[richardtmorgan]

Here's a pic of the 20# nitrogen tank (for stout) behind the 5# CO2 tank (for the cask ale breather and carbonating beers for upstairs):

 

[richardtmorgan]

So 'real ale' is carbonated in the container that it's served in - in my case a corny keg rather than a 'cask'. So you add priming sure at the time you keg it (1/4 cup of corn sugar is perfect for this style in a 5 gallon keg). This means that a little trub will settle out at the bottom of the keg.

To avoid serving the dregs, or blocking the dip tube, I've shortened the dip tube by a good inch:

This means that it leaves a little under a pint in the bottom of the keg:

I've marked the kegs which I have shortened the dip tubes on, since I only want to do that for my 'real ale' - but I sometimes wonder whether I shouldn't shorten all my dip tubes a little bit. This works so well with the British Bitter - and I tend to pull a little rubbish up the dip tube in all my beer - so why not shorten all the tubes?