Cask Conditioning and Carbonation

[Steve SPF]

Thanks so much for all the info really appreciate it. I'm a actually a brit living in NY hence the quest to brew traditional Ale.
I had read about the CO2 cask breather which seems like a great idea to extend the life of the beer especially in my situation. Is the main thing timing on when to transfer to cask so you carry over enough viable yeast? Read a couple of things like the last post but not a lot of information out there.

Cask breathers work, the idea being to 'blanket' the beer in CO2 which should extend the shelf life. CAMRA won't accept any product that has been in contact with secondary CO2 as 'real ale though' and that's important to some.

To be honest, I have no idea when the big boys transfer to the cask. For me it's a serving style so essentially flat/still beer served via a hand pump (beer engine as someone mentioned) which puts some life into it where you want there to be life. In the North beer needs to have a decent head or you get it thrown back at you. In the South it needs to be flat, or you get it thrown back at you!

I've vented and tapped a zillion casks over the years and the activity varies from, literally, the beer hitting the ceiling as it escapes to little or none. I think it's more likely a per-product than per-style thing.

Again, I'm prepared to be wrong but have been around cask ale most of my life.

 

[Nosybear]

Well I'm from Aus so Can't speak for the Yanks but let's just say I would never heard of "Cask Ales" as a thing if not for hombrewing.
A style I'm gathering one Must taste straight from the Source much like Lambics and trappist beers from Belgium to great pilsner and Lagers from Germany or NEIPAs from America...

We're trying damned near everything, casks included, whether it works or not, whether we know how to do it or not, whether we know what it should be or not. That's pretty much the story of America, by the way.... And what gave you milkshake IPAs which are neither milkshakes nor IPAs.

And forgive my American ignorance but I thought cask ales were at least slightly carbonated. Thinking back to my trip to the UK several years ago, I don't remember beer being flat. Less lively than we typically serve, but still with a bit of CO2.

 

[Steve SPF]

We're trying damned near everything, casks included, whether it works or not, whether we know how to do it or not, whether we know what it should be or not. That's pretty much the story of America, by the way.... And what gave you milkshake IPAs which are neither milkshakes nor IPAs.

America had prohibition which effectively removed all the reference points for what beer should be. American beer and brewing seems like a joyous experiment with no hang ups about what 'real ale' is; it's about the beer. If it tastes good then it is good.

What's that quote about 'we didn't fail, we just found 10,000 ways that didn't work yet'? The great American beer experiment seems to be yielding decent results; there must have been some dumpers along the way but those are just research

...And forgive my American ignorance but I thought cask ales were at least slightly carbonated. Thinking back to my trip to the UK several years ago, I don't remember beer being flat. Less lively than we typically serve, but still with a bit of CO2.

I would argue that. A cask is essentially an open vessel with only a porous spile to keep out the big bits between beer and atmosphere, any carbonation would be gone as soon as the cask is breached. We in the North demand a creamy beer which retains its head all the way down the glass, that's achieved at dispense though through the pump and a sparkler; no CO2 involved.

Again, the times they are a'changing so I'm honestly eyes wide open and interested in new ideas. I just can't see how carbonation would be achieved.

 

[Steve SPF]

Should also say that I saw a reference to a plastic vessel that contained a bladder and the CO2 acted on the outside of the bladder, so never comes in contact with the beer, and the beer is effectively sat in a vacuum.

These are common for us now and called 'keykegs'. They are pretty unfortunate too, they cost around £15 a pop (so make the beer expensive) but are also one-way packaging and we can't currently re-cycle them. Hipsters would hate them if they knew what they are

 

[okoncentrerad]

I've done a couple of cask ales recently, for testing purposes, using some polypins/plastic bags. I've might have done wrong with these first ones but I let the beer ferment out fully first, and after that put them in the bags with a small amount of a sugar solution. The result was not bad at all and I intend to do it again.

 

[Steve SPF]

I guess the point is, who gets to say what's right or wrong? If the beer's good how can it be wrong? We get too hung up on labels sometimes I think. Purists would argue that you can't have cask ale in a plastic bag though, pretty sure of that

 

[Creag an Tuirc]

Just to add my tuppence worth as an Englishman and real ale brewer on cask conditioning

There are many schools of thought on cask conditioning and it varies from brewery to brewery and style to style and skill of the brewer. A lot of variables to take into account. I have seen a lot of primed casks, mainly with dextrose like bottle conditioning to avoid any additional flavours from cane or beet (table) sugars. In a 40L cask, I use about 1/8-1/4 of what I would use for bottling 40L depending on the CO2 volumes, temperature the beer is kegged at and FG.

Some brewers (like me) will rack their beer a few points above FG into casks. The last few points in fermentation are important, yeast will scavenge O2 out the cask and replace with CO2 to prevent oxidation and clean up fermentation byproducts. For cask ale, this can be a critical element to flavour and mouthfeel, creating a small amount of sparkling carbonation to the beer. It can make you very unpopular with pub landlords if your casks go off like a foam fire extinguisher in their cellar when venting. There are specialist yeasts available for secondary cask and bottle conditioning that are extremely precise on attenuation and sediment floculation levels for consistent ales.

As already said above, the beer engine is what adds head to the beer using a sparklet or shaped nozzle. This all down to personal taste of the drinker it is common in British real ale pubs to be asked to add or remove sparklets at the tap. The quality of cask ale is highly dependent on the skills of the landlord who stores it to keep it in good condition. This is one reason why it is a dying art, brewers put extraordinary amounts of effort into making awesome beer which is wasted if a cask isn't kept properly.

Highly encourage everyone to try casking! It is a different beer experience to forced carb and bottle conditioning. Try an ale casked, bottled and carbed side-by-side from the same batch the differences can be really surprising and really pleasant.

 

[Steve SPF]

Interesting; thanks for pitching in. So would the FG be consistently predictable working like that? I think HMRC take a stance on it so you would have to be able to predict the FG accurately I guess?

I would agree that good cellar skills are getting a bit thin on the ground, we get served some terrible beer these days. Cask as a sector is going ok though, in decline but plenty of new brewers as well.

 

[Creag an Tuirc]

Yes FG is pretty consistent (most of the time!).There's no dodging HMRC duty unfortunately. All beers have to be laboratory tested for ABV every 12 months. If your ABV measurements are inaccurate, they will back charge you on unpaid duty, (payable immediately of course) so it is in your own interest to be accurate 100% of the time.

With bottle conditioning, you also have to report on ABV increase from priming. Your ale may be 7.2% primed into the bottle which, for example, goes go up to 7.3% when conditioned crossing the higher duty threshold at 7.2%, meaning more cash to HMRC! You have to prove this by testing, of course. They honestly do not miss a single trick.