Dispensing From Cubes

[Wortgames]

I was having a chat with Johnno today, who still bottles until he can get a keg system up and running.

I told him about the plastic 'pressure barrels' they use in the UK, which would be a much more convenient way to serve low-pressure ales etc than bottling. Unfortunately they don't seem to come up very often here in Aus though.

But it got me to thinking, if we could get hold of the right valves, what would stop us using a plain old cube instead of a pressure barrel? If we are talking about ales with a fairly low carbonation and pressure level, then I doubt we'd be in danger of bursting the cube. In fact, you could get 1.5 volumes into 5C wort with around 1.7psi. I bet you couldn't burst a cube with pressure that low.

The pressure injectors for the UK plastic barrels generally have a 'spunding' valve built in. Basically it's a very simple pressure release valve, so you can naturally carbonate the beer and any excess pressure is simply vented. Once your beer starts to lose carbonation and pour too slowly, you pop a sparklet cylinder into the dispenser and it replaces the pressure, and vents any excess. I think you need 2 or 3 sparklet cylinders to dispense a full barrel, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

If we could get hold of the spunding valves by themselves, and fit one along with a car tyre valve to the cube lid, then we could do this quite simply with the CO2 injectors that some of us are already using. Naturally carbonate to start with, and then give it an occasional squirt from the injector to keep it under a low but positive pressure.

It strikes me as potentially a very cheap interim measure between bottling and a full draught setup for those that drink British style ales.

Any thoughts?

 

[goatherder]

Sounds promising.

There was a howto on making a spunding valve in BYO a few months back. I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

[Gerard_M]

The 15 litre casks like the one we use for the Brewers Selection Wort Kits are very easy to use for this purpose. Simply drill a hole and put a normal fermentor tap on it. A few years back we put 15 litres of Porter in one with sugar to carbonate, & put it in a cupboard for 3 weeks. Actually I think we put it in an Esky with the lid on just in case of a messy accident. Anyway after 3 weeks it went in the fridge for about 8 hours. The 15 litres of Porter was served through the tap, and tasted great, & looked like a cask conditioned ale. Cask was finished quicker than we thought.
During secondary the cask puffed up pretty big. After about 10 days we were a bit too scared too look. The plastic handled it without a drama.

Cheers
Gerard

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

This is a very cool idea and something I'd be toying with (in my mind only to date) for a while

I was stuck on the idea of converting a keg to do it...the cube idea is great & will most certainly be tried out by me in the near future :super:

Thanks for answering and helping out WG (and coincidentally myself) guys :beer:

PZ.

 

[warrenlw63]

The idea sort of got addressed here.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too difficult to do. :unsure: With something like a tyre valve fitted to the lid to relieve excessive pressure to to charge with some gas.

Warren -

 

[delboy]

yes you can get all the bits you want from the happy brewer in the uk there are plenty of brew shops online in the uk and they will mail order to australia and as most parts are small and plastict they dont cost a lot and post is fairly cheap as well.

or if you are cunning you could as ross to get a suitcase full of bits when he gose next time.

DELBOY

TAKE A LOOK AT THE LINK ??? is this what you are looking for ?http://www.zen37219.zen.co.uk/

 

[Wortgames]

Somthing like this is really all you'd need. It's a simple 2-way valve arrangement that can be mounted through a plastic lid, it vents excess pressure from the container and allows you to inject gas at the same time. You could also mount a tyre valve and use a handheld CO2 inflator, but you need a release valve.

I'd be very wary of relying on manual intervention as you'd need to check it every day to avoid a big mess, but with a spunding valve you can set and forget. It also makes it easy to repressurise - you squirt gas in until you hear it venting through the valve, then you know you are at max pressure.

The valve shown vents at around 10psi. I haven't done any tests yet but this might be a bit high for a cube? What do you reckon?

 

[Shunty]

I played around with presurising cubes a while back, was blowing up like a baloon at 10psi. I'm sure you could butcher the valve to open at a lower pressure tho

 

[delboy]

YES YOU COULD DO THAT
i pressurized a fermenter up i my quest for this the results wer funny none the less.

1 psi -good .2 psi -good ,3 psi -what was that, 4 psi -i think its, 5 psi- look at the bootom it rocks, 7 psi- ha look mum, 8 psi -arrrr **** "boom bang hsssssss"
wheres the lid???? "voice from neighbour over here ya prick"
that was my attemt at using a fermenter and a similar thing happened when i used a blue water cube from kmart.
so what did learn that day .ummmm no more than 3 psi tops. keep saft guys.
delboy

 

[Wortgames]

I played around with presurising cubes a while back, was blowing up like a baloon at 10psi. I'm sure you could butcher the valve to open at a lower pressure tho

What do you reckon would be the maximum 'comfortable' pressure for a cube then [edit] Shunty?

 

[delboy]

hey there wortgames not sure what PUMY WOULD SAY AS SHUNTY MADE THE COMMENT.

now those valves are great but you would need them to vent off at no more than four psi. can be done just need the correct rubber ring.

del

 

[Wortgames]

I reckon a cube might hold a bit more pressure than your average fermenter Delboy, their shape has a bit more structure and strength to it.

Regardless, even 4psi is pretty good for serving. Remember the Poms often have their pressure barrels sitting in ambient temps, if we're talking about putting cubes in a fridge you don't need that much pressure to maintain a bit of sparkle.

 

[Shunty]

From memory it was looking dicey at about 5 pound. Probably still got the lid with the tyre valve in it, will have a play if i can track it down

I do have a couple of the mac's fermenters in the shed, might be worth a go as the plastic is a bit stiffer, and the barrel shape might help.... Hmm, i feel an experiment coming on

 

[randyrob]

i've often though about this myself, and i think the go would be:

do low natural carbonation in a cube.
have a pressure relief valve as well as gas snaplock on the lid.
then run a cask breather so the headspace is constantly blanketed with co2 (and the beer doesn't have to be drunk straight away.


Rob.

 

[Wortgames]

i've often though about this myself, and i think the go would be:

do low natural carbonation in a cube.
have a pressure relief valve as well as gas snaplock on the lid.
then run a cask breather so the headspace is constantly blanketed with co2 (and the beer doesn't have to be drunk straight away.

I don't think you'd even need to worry too much about a cask breather randyrob. As long as you've got a co2 'squirter' of some description (ie, a sparklet dispenser like a bike inflater, or even a Sodastream trigger of some sort) then you just need to give it the occasional squirt. Because we're talking relatively low carbonation levels, I don't think a bit of day-to-day fluctuation is going to be much of a problem.

I definitely agree you'd need to prime the cube with the right amount of sugar and leave it for a week or so, but if you've got the right venting valve than that's not a drama at all. I reckon you'd be able to tell when the pressure is getting a bit low after serving a few pints, so you'd just give it a quick squirt (again, impossible to overdo it because the valve will vent).

That side of things is already tried and tested with the UK pressure barrels anyway - people have been using them like that for years. They did have automatic pressure thingies years ago but apparently they were unreliable and unnecessary. Normally they just use an entire sparklet bulb each time to repressurise.

The only departure from the UK system would be in using lower temperatures and lower pressures. It might take a bit of trial and error to find the best temp for priming and serving - it would defeat the purpose somewhat to prime warm and then move it to the fridge, as most of the gas would have escaped. Perhaps we could even experiment with seeding with a lager yeast to produce some gas at fridge temps.

I really think there's some mileage in this for folks that are sick of bottling but not yet ready for a full draught rig.

 

[InCider]

What a great thread! Cubes in the fridge! yes!

I hope my understanding is Ok.. so here goes:

Natural carbonation during fermentation plus a small amount of priming sugar to boost the PSI in the cube and viola! Only a few weeks to wait for plastic kegs!

Just enough pour (low carbed) and just enough to seem like the ales are not flat.

I'm in. Now to find out where cubes are from...

InCider.

 

[randyrob]

I don't think you'd even need to worry too much about a cask breather randyrob. As long as you've got a co2 'squirter' of some description (ie, a sparklet dispenser like a bike inflater, or even a Sodastream trigger of some sort) then you just need to give it the occasional squirt. Because we're talking relatively low carbonation levels, I don't think a bit of day-to-day fluctuation is going to be much of a problem.

Yes, i agree.

i was just thinking that even though the tap on these cubes is down the bottom and gravity will play a part
in pouring the beer, you will definately need something to replace the drawn out liquid.

The only departure from the UK system would be in using lower temperatures and lower pressures. It might take a bit of trial and error to find the best temp for priming and serving - it would defeat the purpose somewhat to prime warm and then move it to the fridge, as most of the gas would have escaped. Perhaps we could even experiment with seeding with a lager yeast to produce some gas at fridge temps.

I really think there's some mileage in this for folks that are sick of bottling but not yet ready for a full draught rig.

i've nearly been down this path myself but my pitfall while aquiring parts for a was going to the brewshop and seeing all those shiney kegs

i think if we threw this idea around a bit more we could come up with a mini guide for ppl interested in trying testing the water kegging wise. something like:

1.) where to get parts & costs e.g. tap from this website, cubes are available here etc (so ppl can see straight up how much its going to cost and were to readily get parts)

2.) how to modify lid / make relief valve etc (could be something as simple as a car valve and checking it every day with a tyre pressure guage, releasing pressure if nessesary.

3.) how much sugar to use for priming and amount of time nessesary for conditioning.

4.) how to dispense the beer and how to top up co2 blanket in the cube.

obviously we would need to fine tune this first, i'm happy to give it a go infact my next brew was going to be an english pale ale!

==================

i was thinking i could get a pretty good setup for under $100

something like:

soda stream bottle $11*
soda stream adapter $30*
co2 regulator $50*
15-20 litre cube $hopefully nix (anybody?)
tap $dunno
=========================
TOTAL=


(* = already purchased)


Rob.

 

[randyrob]

The valve shown vents at around 10psi. I haven't done any tests yet but this might be a bit high for a cube? What do you reckon?

i'm not really sure, 10psi doesn't really sound like alot to ask. i know someone on here will already know!

very easy to test tho, get a cube drill a hole in the lid, put a car valve in it, grab your air compressor and see how much pressure it takes!

i know doc and sosman have used the pressure sprayers you get from bunnings but those are obvoiusly designed to take a bit of pressure.

Rob.

 

[delboy]

yes i know what you mean there wortgames the only thing with a cube i found was the lid stayed on but the under seem split after ballooning at 10 psi.
I was not trying to pee on your parade mate i just would hate to see any one of my bretheran get injured. But in saying all that its a good thing to get this rolling as i don't want to use up a keg on my english beer engine.

I belive good quality hobby shops sell burst valves at diferent pressure relief values. might be worth a look .

come to think of it a prv on a garden sprayer are set to a low psi ????

del

 

[Wortgames]

Pressure sprayers would certainly do the trick, but they cost a bit more, need a bit more adaptation, are smaller etc - so I don't think they're a particularly groundbreaking solution for new keggers. The release valves in them would probably be set far too high.

Regarding the CO2 'blanket', again, I don't think you need to worry about it - remember, the cube is going to be under a couple of PSI pressure. Dispensing a glass of beer will reduce the pressure a tiny bit, but you certainly won't have a vacuum to deal with, and the drop in pressure isn't going to be enough to mess up your beer. Once you get down close to atmospheric pressure it's time for another shot of gas to keep the pressure positive.

With the tap, I'd like to see what sort of results we can get with a standard tap. They must be able to take a certain amount of pressure, and even if we have to compare results between a Bunnings tap and a LHBS tap etc I'm sure we'd be able to find a model that can handle the low pressures reliably enough without needing to spend cash on buying a particular type. In fact, the innards of a spring-loaded LHBS tap looks a lot like a 'picnic' tap to me so I don't think our 5 PSI is going to bother it at all.

The object of the exercise (for me anyway) is to see whether we can get someone into 'kegging' for about $50 plus a few scrounged parts.

With the pressure relief valve, I reckon that we could make (or find) something pretty simple that would do the trick. Even a 'pressure cooker' principle with a small weight on top of a vent would do the trick, but it would be good to find something a bit more self-contained. I think 10psi might be stretching it a bit, and if we are talking about refrigerating the cube then something like 5psi would do the trick nicely IMO.

Next week I'll hunt around and see if there's much around in the way of small, cheap pressure release valves that would do the trick. Getting the gas in will be up to the user, but can be something as simple as a car tyre valve - it would depend on the user's CO2 gadgetry.

Then it's just a matter of drilling 2 holes in a cube cap and fitting the valves. It will take a bit of experimentation to figure out the best technique for carbonation, but I'm sure that's not too much of a challenge!