Question about beer

[Angus Hines]

WOW and I was hoping you worked for the largest AMERICAN Brewery in St. Louis Schafly(sp). So I could beg for good tickets to the oyster party this March.

I'm with Ken--a big fan of the Budweiser! (Especially since I work for A-B!)

[Joe Chritz]

Draft beer has the same CO2 as bottled beer. CO2 is CO2 but it can have more of it depending on a lot of factors. Generally with mass produced beers there isn't any difference.

I keg almost all my homebrews now and I haven't noticed any difference between those bottled and those served from the tap.

At least with homebrew the beer is bottled flat and then a little sugar is added before capping, usually to the entire batch. That sugar then acts with the yeast left in the beer to generate a tad more alcohol and CO2 as a by product. Eventually the pressure deactivates the yeast limiting how much is produced.

Joe

[Tim Lynch]

Joe, do you prime your kegs with sugar too, or force carbonate? I like force carbonating... beer is ready to drink later that day! Hey, why wait? Plus, shaking a 5 gallon keg around is good exercise and helps work up a thirst.

My understanding is that the commercial brewers capture the copious amounts of carbon dioxide produced during fermentation and then reintroduce it to the beer after filtering. A similar process really.

And no one has touched on "beer gas," which is the blend of nitrogen and carbon dioxide that is used to power Guinness drafts and the like. Much smaller bubbles that are harder to knock out of solution. Less carbon dioxide "bite" so you get a softer taste along w/ the different head. Fun stuff. I switched over to beer gas for my kegs of homebrew and it's been an interesting change.

Filtering is also a very variable part of the process... from what I've read you can filter large particulates (yeast) all the way down to a level that will strip out proteins and even color from the beer. Seems like that would have an impact.

As far as spoilage... I've never met spoilage in a homebrewing environment that wasn't dramatic... like completely undrinkable, disgusting, slimy, ropey beer. It ain't pretty, and it ain't subtle. It's hard to imagine beer rocketing through a dirty dispenser line to your glass to your palate being changed much. But then, I'm not sure I'd want the first glass of the day out of there! Light-struck (skunky) and oxidized (sort of a wet cardboard taste) can happen reasonably quickly, but you'd probably know it and pour it out.

[Joe Chritz]

Tim, I do force carbonate when I have an open tap or will need the third keg soon. (I only have two taps) I actually prefer to force carbonate since it is ready pretty much overnight once it is kegged.

I know all about the different gas for Guiness but only from drinking many of them during hockey games, birthday celebrations, days ending in Y, etc.

I would be curious to get some for here. Did you get it mixed for you at fill or is it a special thing to find. We are short on homebrew supplies in the area so any gas fill is done at an industrial gas supply and cooking supplies are purchased about 25 miles away.

Joe

[Tim Lynch]

Hi Joe,

I went for a refill at my usual CO2 place -- AirGas? ProGas? ... an industrial gas place with a name like that -- I asked about it and he basically said here you go and traded tanks. There may have been an adapter or something, but it was easy.