English Bitter carbonation

[rossbaker]

Looking for advice from people who regularly make these beers and keg them. I'm not sure what the best way is to ensure I get and keep the ideal carbonation levels. I'm thinking I will need to naturally carbonate the keg and then use the valve on the manifold to turn the gas on and off as needed to serve it. I suppose I could also just hook it up to serving pressure and sample it over a couple of days until I like the carb levels. If anyone else has any suggestions that would be great.

I must admit I'm not an expert on this style and it has been a while since I've had one at proper cask carbonation and temp levels. Which also reminds me, do people just accept that its going to be a bit too cold if its sharing keezer space with other styles of beer? Just pour and wait for it to warm up a bit?

 

[scomet]

Too hot for ‘cask/real’ beer where I live, keeping the beer in good condition is my priority.
Carbonation is 1bar for 1week (2 is better) at 4c then served through a tap with a flow control, start real slow and you’ll ‘pull’ the perfect pint, North England style rich and creamy…..
ps. carbonate and serve at same pressure + Bia Hoi and faux Lagers.

 

[MHB]

Take a look at the Carbonation tables in Braukaiser.
You will see that British Ales are given a range of 3-4g/l of CO2. to get the "Ideal" flavour casked ales in the UK are usually served at around 12-13oC (I find 10oC better in our Australian climate), by looking at the table (or by playing with the equation) you can work out the Temperature/Pressure required to give you the best carbonation.
If you were doing these styles regularly I would look seriously at a separate fridge and controllable pressure supply (either a duel regulator or a sub reg). The amount of fizz plays a huge role in the flavour.

Lots of other options, like a small fridge and a demand valve.
A pin with a soft peg and drink the beer fast
Filling into growlers and bottle conditioning, bottling...
Its a bit of tooling around but if you like cask ale and want to enjoy it at its best worth the effort.
Mark

PS - If you are bottle/cask conditioning watch your priming calculations carefully.
M
PPS - The CAMRA book on Cellarmanship cask ales is a ripper!

 

[rossbaker]

Thanks to both of you, great advice!

 

[S.E]

Looking for advice from people who regularly make these beers and keg them. I'm not sure what the best way is to ensure I get and keep the ideal carbonation levels. I'm thinking I will need to naturally carbonate the keg and then use the valve on the manifold to turn the gas on and off as needed to serve it. I suppose I could also just hook it up to serving pressure and sample it over a couple of days until I like the carb levels. If anyone else has any suggestions that would be great.

I must admit I'm not an expert on this style and it has been a while since I've had one at proper cask carbonation and temp levels. Which also reminds me, do people just accept that its going to be a bit too cold if its sharing keezer space with other styles of beer? Just pour and wait for it to warm up a bit?

Rather than keg it would be easier to cask using a cube and gravity serve through the tap, just open the cap slightly to let air in as you pour. If you want to keep air out so it lasts longer connect a collapsible water bag full of co2 to replace the beer as it’s poured instead.

Some pictures in this thread https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/carbing-conditioning-in-a-cube-before-keg.70056/