Brewing Master

Question:

Hi All, I’ve been brewing beer at a BOP for about 3 years now and have always used bottles.  I have decided to convert my refrigerator whose only purpose is to hold the 6-7 cases of bottles I come home with (we do 6 – 15 gallon batches at one time) after bottling. I’ve been reading volumes of advice and experiences on RCB and have learned a lot.  I’m curious as to what type of faucet to get.  I’m not going to get a nitro setup, but would like to get a nitro-like pour (Lovely day for a Guinness).  I’ve seen faucets called a creamer faucet that produces a foamy head.  This seems to be not quite the "fake nitro" that I would be looking for. Can a stout faucet be used on a CO2 system with a restrictor disk and emulate the nitro-like pour?  Can the restrictor disk be removed in the stout faucet to produce a normal pour? Any suggestions or experiences with these type of faucets is very appreciated! Thanks! Dan

Response:

Hi Dan, I don’t know what your BOP uses, but in Kirkland WA, the the BOP there has a faucet with a small valve at the flange.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s different than the Guinness valve.  I’m thinking it could be throttled down during the pour to work similarly to the restrictor disk faucet.  I don’t know why a faucet wouldn’t work with the restrictor plate removed, but in any case, getting more than one faucet isn’t too awfully expensive.  A standard faucet is pretty cheap (about $16)–it’s the Guinness style that are pricey (about $85). Check with http://kegman.net and ask their advice about using the stout faucet for both.  But the ones they sell both go on the same shank, so you mount up whatever faucet you want to use. Regards, Mike Sharp – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi All, I’ve been brewing beer at a BOP for about 3 years now and have always used bottles.  I have decided to convert my refrigerator whose only purpose is to hold the 6-7 cases of bottles I come home with (we do 6 – 15 gallon batches at one time) after bottling. I’ve been reading volumes of advice and experiences on RCB and have learned a lot.  I’m curious as to what type of faucet to get.  I’m not going to get a nitro setup, but would like to get a nitro-like pour (Lovely day for a Guinness).  I’ve seen faucets called a creamer faucet that produces a foamy head.  This seems to be not quite the "fake nitro" that I would be looking for. Can a stout faucet be used on a CO2 system with a restrictor disk and emulate the nitro-like pour?  Can the restrictor disk be removed in the stout faucet to produce a normal pour? Any suggestions or experiences with these type of faucets is very appreciated! Thanks! Dan

Response:

The creamer faucets basically whip air into the beer when you push the handle backwards, to give it a thick head. Similar results can be had by just opening the faucet part way, thereby "spraying" the beer out of the faucet. As you guess, though, they don’t really give the same type of result as a stout faucet with the restrictor disk. The stout faucets can be used with CO2 with the restrictor disk, but I think it would be a bit tricky to get it right. When you use a stout faucet, you need to start with a very lightly carbonated beer. If you want to use CO2 to push it, you’d need to turn the CO2 pressure up to push the beer through the restrictor, and when you’re done, you’d have to either turn the pressure back down or disconnect it, and bleed off the excess pressure to prevent the beer from becoming overcarbonated. Kind of a hassle, and you’ll go through your tank of CO2 quicker that way, but it can be done. The nitrogen is just used to increase the pressure. Since it doesn’t dissolve well in beer, you can leave the keg pressurized with nitrogen (actually, usually a mix of CO2 and N2 is used) without overcarbonating it. And yes, you can use the stout faucet without the restrictor disk, and it will work just like a "normal" faucet. Mark

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi All, I’ve been brewing beer at a BOP for about 3 years now and have always used bottles.  I have decided to convert my refrigerator whose only purpose is to hold the 6-7 cases of bottles I come home with (we do 6 – 15 gallon batches at one time) after bottling. I’ve been reading volumes of advice and experiences on RCB and have learned a lot.  I’m curious as to what type of faucet to get.  I’m not going to get a nitro setup, but would like to get a nitro-like pour (Lovely day for a Guinness).  I’ve seen faucets called a creamer faucet that produces a foamy head.  This seems to be not quite the "fake nitro" that I would be looking for. Can a stout faucet be used on a CO2 system with a restrictor disk and emulate the nitro-like pour?  Can the restrictor disk be removed in the stout faucet to produce a normal pour? Any suggestions or experiences with these type of faucets is very appreciated! Thanks! Dan

Response: