# Home Made Beer Engine



## Fatgodzilla (22/1/09)

Just found a "how to make your own beer engine" on another site and thought - anyone here made on ?

It will not look like an authentic english hand pump, which will probably take half the fun away. But if it works, does that really matter ?



Items you'll need are:
1 - RV Hand Pump (seen here - http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus p;src=SRQB) - the type of hand pump seen in caravans.
1 - Coil of tubing either SS or copper.
4 - SS hose clamps
1 - length of beer line
1 - Small box or 6-pack ice chest w/flat top
1 - Beer Out QD (if using a standing corny) this I recommend 
or
1 - Gas In QD (if you're laying your corny down)

Drill a hole in the small box or the ice chest top to match the size of the RV pump housing. 
Mount the RV pump (screws should be provided along with the RV Pump.
Drill a hole in the box for the coil of tubing. 
Put tubing in box with one end attached to the RV Pump (you'll need a short section of beer line and 2 clamps to connect them to each other).
Stick the other end of the tubing out of the hole you drilled.
Attach one end of the beer line w/clamp onto the tubing (that is sticking out of the box).
Attach the QD w/clamp to the other end of the beer line.
Put contraption on a table or counter.
Attach QD to beer.
(Warning: If the keg has pressure, beer will come out the RV tap. The RV tap will only pull, it will not stop the positive flow.)
Pull the pressure relief valve on the keg.

Tips:
Push the pump handle back after pulling your pint to keep beer line primed.
Add ice to box (around coil) to chill the beer.
Add a sparkler to the end of the RV tap to produce a foamier head. I've found no need for this on my beers.
I glued some pieces of mouse pad to the bottom of my box to prevent it from slipping in the counter/table.



Anyone done this or made something better ?


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## Supra-Jim (22/1/09)

Pics or it didn't happen...... 

:icon_cheers: SJ


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## tyoung (22/1/09)

I'm sure they could be adapted so they work like the traditional beer engines - with a bit of tinkering.


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## Bribie G (22/1/09)

I have seen something similar in the UK yonks ago, it was called a cask pump and was just a little stainless steel hand pump that was inserted into the spile hole of a cask lying on its side, with a spear down into it and could be used to serve beer that way. I had a long conversation with the landlord (little Cornish pub with 5 ft ceilings bacause they were all hobbit sized when it was built in the 15th century  ) and he said that they were once common in breweries where they could draw a pint out of the cask for testing purposes, and he liked to have a few casks on trestles behind the bar and serve via the cask pumps because it was a hell of a lot easier than cleaning traditional beer engines and miles of tubing.

Edit: would be a good candidate for serving real ale out of a cube.


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## Cortez The Killer (22/1/09)

Unfortunately this pump doesn't have the same appeal as this one


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## Supra-Jim (22/1/09)

Cortez The Killer said:


> Unfortunately this pump doesn't have the same appeal as this one



Certainly not, kinda reminds of that sketch where Eddie Murphy is talking about homemade hamburger "This ain't look like no burger from McDonalds"

:icon_cheers: SJ


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## Fatgodzilla (22/1/09)

Supra-Jim said:


> Certainly not, kinda reminds of that sketch where Eddie Murphy is talking about homemade hamburger "This ain't look like no burger from McDonalds"
> 
> :icon_cheers: SJ




Like I said, it aint the same look, but does have the same effect. Found a similiar hand pump out of Canberra selling for $90. So for less than $100 you have a working hand pump - like me, not pretty, but does the job. 

Just wondering has anyone done it ?


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## Supra-Jim (22/1/09)

Sorry Godzilla, i misread your OP, i thought you had built the unit and was keen to see pics of it.

I am also much more in favour of a homemeade hamburger than something from McDonalds.

:icon_cheers: SJ


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## Thirsty Boy (22/1/09)

ahhh but the vintage green Bakelite one I bought for this purpose does look good too ... not in a traditional english pub kinda way, but its got its own fashion of cool.

Much the same plans as FG here, except that the pump will be being mounted into my chest freezer keggerator. I will have two twin beer towers and the handpump. The handpump's main purpose, will be for pulling chilled water - for cooling down glasses and for drinking if people insist - BUT, on special occasions, I will construct a party keg full of naturally conditioned ale for hand pumping. Debating about if or how to attach a sparkler

Thats the plan anyway - should all be built in the next couple of weeks and then will come the photo evidence.

I want pics of yours too FG... I require the reassurance that its a good idea

TB

edit - oh, I see you haven't built it yet. Well, I'll let you know how mine goes. E-bay got me the pump for about $45 delivered from Canada.


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## gap (22/1/09)

You may find you will have difficulty sucking the beer out of the keg through the 
dip tube and beer out disconnect.

I use a beer engine and could not do so. I had to modify the keg lid to take a CPC 
bulkhead fitting and use 1/2" tubing to operate the beer engine.

Regards

Graeme


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## Fatgodzilla (22/1/09)

gap said:


> You may find you will have difficulty sucking the beer out of the keg through the
> dip tube and beer out disconnect.
> 
> I use a beer engine and could not do so. I had to modify the keg lid to take a CPC
> ...




Now someone's talking sense. I like it when someone has found a problem and found a solution. I kind of wondered about whether you would get enough pull through the disconnect. My solution though was to use the pump to dispense from a cube, so there soundn't be a problem.

To answer some of you, I haven't built it yet but thinking it may make a good idea. Actually I am soon going to convert a wheelie bin to a mobile dispensing unit. Got all the gear needed. Plans from BYO magazine of a few months ago.

TB, be keen to see how your unit goes. If there is an ANHC 2009 we may all gatecrash your joint and see how the little beastie works  Or at least hear of all your problems and how you solved them !


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## Supra-Jim (22/1/09)

[quote name='Fatgodzilla' date='Jan 22 2009, 01:54 PM' post='404137'

To answer some of you, I haven't built it yet but thinking it may make a good idea. Actually I am soon going to convert a wheelie bin to a mobile dispensing unit. Got all the gear needed. Plans from BYO magazine of a few months ago.

[/quote]

I have plans to do a similar thing with a nicely restored/cleaned up wine barrel.

:icon_cheers: SJ


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## gap (22/1/09)

Fatgodzilla said:


> Now someone's talking sense. I like it when someone has found a problem and found a solution. I kind of wondered about whether you would get enough pull through the disconnect. My solution though was to use the pump to dispense from a cube, so there soundn't be a problem.



Not my idea. I was given this info by Vlad the Pale Aler. It also sjhould be in the thread "Show me your Beer engine".

Regards

Graeme


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## Doc (22/1/09)

That project looks like the one that was in BYO Magazine (2004/2005) a few years back.
I looked at doing it, but then managed to score a Beer Engine from the UK.
I too think you'd have some probs getting the little hand pump to pull the beer through. 
If you can dig up the article for the project from the BYO mag you might get some more tips on using an implementation like this.

Beers,
Doc


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## white.grant (22/1/09)

Cortez The Killer said:


> Unfortunately this pump doesn't have the same appeal as this one



Perhaps if you mounted the RV pump sideways in the wooden box, bent a new bit of pipe and whacked a big arse handle on it, like this


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## Batz (22/1/09)

There's a couple of hand pumps (original) in a antique store in Esk,one was marked at $130 and looks complete.
He had three of them I think,not sure of the prices of the others.

Batz


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## kook (22/1/09)

BribieG said:


> I had a long conversation with the landlord (little Cornish pub with 5 ft ceilings bacause they were all hobbit sized when it was built in the 15th century  ) and he said that they were once common in breweries where they could draw a pint out of the cask for testing purposes, and he liked to have a few casks on trestles behind the bar and serve via the cask pumps because it was a hell of a lot easier than cleaning traditional beer engines and miles of tubing.



How strange - why wouldn't he just serve them via gravity? Or were the trestles too low down?


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## Fatgodzilla (22/1/09)

kook said:


> How strange - why wouldn't he just serve them via gravity? Or were the trestles too low down?



Cornish men were great miners. The pub's patrons were probably under ground at the time.


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## cubbie (22/1/09)

kook said:


> How strange - why wouldn't he just serve them via gravity? Or were the trestles too low down?



Thats how they served all the beer at the Real Ale festival I frequented in the UK. Me and a bunch of old men with guts, grey hair and beards.


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## Bribie G (22/1/09)

kook said:


> How strange - why wouldn't he just serve them via gravity? Or were the trestles too low down?



As I remember (jeez I still had black hair  ) the casks - wooden ones at that - were on a fairly solid 'rack' which would have put the tap hole at just below knee level whilst the spile hole would have been at belly button height so the bar person just needed to extend arms to fill pint glass from cask pump, rather than grovelling on hands and knees to attempt normal tap filling. Beer casks aren't actually all that big - we tend to imagine them as massive great things like wine barrels but most of the pommy ones (19 gallons is common) are surprisingly compact when you see them in the flesh.




Alternative pouring method when cask pump not available:


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## kook (22/1/09)

BribieG said:


> As I remember (jeez I still had black hair  ) the casks - wooden ones at that - were on a fairly solid 'rack' which would have put the tap hole at just below knee level whilst the spile hole would have been at belly button height so the bar person just needed to extend arms to fill pint glass from cask pump, rather than grovelling on hands and knees to attempt normal tap filling. Beer casks aren't actually all that big - we tend to imagine them as massive great things like wine barrels but most of the pommy ones (19 gallons is common) are surprisingly compact when you see them in the flesh.



Yeah but cellar racks aren't normally used for serving under the bar. They're for the cellar 

Gravity is a common serving method at beer festivals in the UK. Almost all the festivals I visited while living there served by gravity, with the exception of the GBBF. They use cooling jackets around the casks though.

I visited a few bars in Scotland that still serve by gravity - but they had one advantage, a freezing cold bar. Most pubs in England are now heated, the last thing you want is a 22 degree pint :icon_vomit:



cubbie said:


> Thats how they served all the beer at the Real Ale festival I frequented in the UK. Me and a bunch of old men with guts, grey hair and beards.



Which one? 

Some of the festivals can be like that, some have a more diverse crowd though.


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## sinkas (22/1/09)

cubbie said:


> Thats how they served all the beer at the Real Ale festival I frequented in the UK. Me and a bunch of Flatulant old men with guts, grey hair and beards.


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## Bribie G (22/1/09)

Lived in Cardiff round the corner from a SA Brain pub and when the real ale craze first hit in the mid 70s they used to do a cask of SA on the bar on a Wednesday served by gravity. You wouldn't have known it was SA. Normally skull attack is served through a tight sparkler and comes out almost like a rich Yorkshire bitter. The gravity-served SA was headless but almost fizzy, and the hop profile was completely different - very refreshing but very different to what we were used to. 

I wouldn't mind trying the cube plus pump idea if I could find some method of getting some CO2 to fill the airspace as I don't intend going for a full cylinder and connections setup but I don't think that even I could go 15 or 20 litres in a few days <_<

edit: for example collecting the CO2 from secondary in a big plastic bag attached to the cube and as I pump the beer the bag goes down... doesn't need to be 100% airtight, just good enough to discourage spoilage for a week or so.


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## mika (22/1/09)

If you're not carbonating the beer with gas, natural carb for instance, and just want some gas on the top of the beer to prevent spoiling, a sodastream bottle is a cheaper alternative. No rental, $12 refills, and as it's not pushing the beer out, should last for quite a few kegs.


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## RobB (22/1/09)

I like the idea of drinking barely carbonated ale from a cube. Homemade picnic kegs aren't for me. There's something about a DIY pressure vessel that gives me the heebie jeebies.

Would it be as simple as putting a tap on your secondary fermenter, or are there extra steps which I'm missing?


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## komodo (23/1/09)

Bribie if you had a dual reg setup could you not just set the second reg to like 0.5PSI - wouldnt be enough to force beer out not to carb the beer but enough to stop oxygen coming in as you drained beer out yet 0.5 PSI wouldnt really adversely affect the cube.

Feel free to shoot me down in flames as its just a quick thought with out much real thinking going on (hey its friday morning...)


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