Mini k*gs for cask beer?

Question

In the last-but-one edition of Viz comic there was a strip called "The Real Ale Tw*ts" (my censorship). In it the cartoon strip the Real Ale Tw*ts utter the single most horrible word for any self-respecting Real Ale snob:

"K*g" (see, I can't even type it)

"Fizzy k*g" is even worse: but that's two words.

Now, I've seen the "mini k*g" (5 litres) advertised and I looked at them and thought....I wonder if I could use them as mini casks.

A bit more background, with apologies to those who already know: "cask" beers are live, unpasturised and unfiltered which undergo a conditioning fermentation in the cask on the pubs premises. When ready they are vented to get rid of the bubbles and then served either by gravity or by a hand pump.

I've read a few posts on how much carbondioxide needs to be pumped into one of these mini-k*gs to get the beer out. Is this "to get it out fizzy" or at all? Is there a good way of letting air into the k*g to allow gravity to get the beer out?

Has anyone else tried to use them as casks?

Cheers

Jan Chrillesen · Accepted Answer

If you carbonate keg to normal ale CO2 volume using sugar, you can draw

1 or 2 two pints without applying any CO2. To get further beer out you need some kind of external pressure - normally you use disposable 12 or 16g CO2 cylinders or a CO2 tank with a regulator.

What you're looking for is probably something like this

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It's a handpump that's connected to the minikeg tapper. Kind of a poor-mans hand pump :) Our LHBS stopped selling them because the beer went stale when exposed to air, but for cask lovers I think it's a good solution.

- Jan

Mini k*gs for cask beer?

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