Gravity Dispense

[nicksonic]

Hi, I'm a bit confused on the steps required to gravity dispense from a cask.

I'm serving a firkin of bitter this Sunday afternoon over a 4 hour period, it was racked into the cask 3 weeks ago after fermenting out, the cask was primed with 150g of dextrose and it's been conditioning at ~15C in the brewery since then. Today it'll be moved to it's serving position in a garage.

I've read all sorts of combinations of venting first then tapping, tapping first and not venting, doing this days before the beer's going to be served etc etc so i'm unsure as to which path to follow.

I would've thought that 'excessive' venting would mean the beer would lose it's condition rapidly so doing it more than a few hours prior to dispense wouldn't be a good idea?

Why would a soft spile be used instead of a hard spile inserted with enough pressure to allow the cask to vent?

At what point do you know if the beer has vented 'enough'?


Cheers,

Nick

[Mr. Dripping]

Ideally, put the cask on stillage at least 48 hours before serving.
24 hours before serving, knock in the tap and then broach the cask at the top and put in the hard peg.
When you are ready to serve replace the hard peg with the soft one and you can then serve.
The soft peg is used to allow air in to the cask and lets the beer flow through the tap......if you kept the hard peg in you would create a vacuum and the beer wouldn't flow.

[nicksonic]

Thanks. So I noticed you say tap first then spile, is there any particular benefit from doing it that way rather than spile first?

Also, when the hard spile goes in should I allow any CO2 out or should it be hammered in tight until the soft spile goes in ?

[jaroporter]

Use the soft spile first to allow it to reach the desired condition then hard spile until serving. There's an old tvread on here that just came back around with great info on this. worth checking the dispensing forum i think.

And it'ss vented enough when you're happy with the condition

[jaroporter]

here's the one. post by mattypower on page three specifically is top

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29703&start=30

[nicksonic]

Cheers, will check it out.

[IronBlue]

I have also read so much contradictory information on this and tried to find a consistent picture. As far as I could tell from reading a lot of pages, this is the most common method (with condition only meaning carbonation in the following):

The soft spile is only for breathing the keg if it is too carbonated (over conditioned)
Allow the keg to sit in the serving position to settle. Tap the keg and then knock the soft spile in, take a sample to assess the condition, if over conditioned leave the soft peg in so it vents controllably and check again after a day (or less?). When the desired condition is reached knock the hard spile in until serving. Remove the hard spile during serving then replace at the end of the session.

[nicksonic]

Possibly a ludicrous statement but it seems odd to leave the hole in the shive open and completely at the mercy of the environment.

[Alan_p]

You have to take the spile out when serving as even a soft spile won't allow air in quickly enough to pour the beer at anything more than a trickle. Hopefully you will have the cask in a reasonably good environment. Normally cask beer only lasts 3 to 4 days in a pub cellar and even using a cask breather doesn't extend that by much. 4.5 or 9 gal casks aren't really intended for use in a home bar setup unless it's for a party where the beer gets consumed quickly enough that it doesn't have time to spoil.


Regards, AlanP

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[nicksonic]

Cheers for all the info chaps, invaluable.