In deciding what to do with my new setup, I've been reading alot of articles on what bars do with their gases and lines. The other day I came across one article that said beer is becoming more popular in the states again.
One of the things mentioned was that bars and pubs were using Beer Gas (N2/CO2 mix) instead of regular CO2. This made me pause, and wonder if I could get away with doing this at my house. How does American Beers taste when poured from a N2/CO2 mix?
It works OK for stouts. I hate it for other beers. I suppose if one served it without the sparkler it wouldn't be as dramatic effect, but most nitrogen-dispensed beers end up with a lot of their aromas, and hence their flavor, stripped away.
Have you had it for american beers (Miller, Bud, etc)? From what I've read they say it keeps your beer from going flat near the end of the keg, and the whole idea if the flavor being take away is all in your head.
I never did like the over-carbonation type of taste that Bud has, anyway.
Beer as been on the up list for the past 20 years. I have at least 7 brew pubs with in 25 miles of my house and pubs that have more than 30 taps.
On gas mix it is the beer not the gas that makes beer tast good, all C02/NO2 is ment to keep O out because if you put O in your Keg your beer begains to go bad the secoud it touches Oxygen.
Keg will last on Oxygen 1 week and that is pushing it. Keg on CO2 or nitrogen about 90 days
Joe I only turn my C02 thank on when beer runs slow. Never let your tank stay on all the time or it will leak. N2 I'm not sure of because I have never had on long enough to notice.
What keeps beer from losing CO2 is keeping the pressure in the headspace the same as the pressure in the beer.
Again, this depends on physics. If you use higher pressure "beer gas" to push your beer, especially if you use a sparkler or so-called stout tap, you will be stripping away CO2 as it dispenses, which will change the perceived taste. For hoppy beers, you will also be flushing away volatiles in the aroma, which also makes for a different (some say lesser) flavor perception.
Your dispensing gas will have no effect on that. Losing carbonation would be do either to a leak in keg pressure, or not maintaining enough pressure on the remaining beer as it's sitting. With the reduction in air pressure as the liquid is removed, the CO2 is more likely to come out of solution as there's less pressure on the solution (and probably to try to equalize the pressure that's lacking in the gaseous part of the keg, but physics is not one of my strong suits).
Only inasmuch as my tongue is in my head, yes.
Most of your taste perception is actually smell. Notice how bland food tastes when you're very congested. The sparkler/N2 combination results in a lot of the volatile aromatic compounds being stripped from the beer as it's dispensed, as the turbulence caused by the tap is roiling the beer. And since the aromatic compounds are volatile, that causes them to be released rapidly. For hoppy beers like pale ales, where the aroma's a big part of the character of the beer, that certainly changes the flavor. In my opinion, it diminishes it.
Well, in addition to the high flamability, oxygen has this slight problem of being a very effective staling agent. If you pumped oxygen into your keg, you'd have cardboard-tasting beer in a couple of days, tops.
I wouldn't see why that would be the case. It all comes down the quality of the tank and its seals.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.