Cask Homebrew Fest

Was that dry hopped prior to transferring to the cask or are the dry hops in the cask?

Cheers!

 

Our club does a comp every year, cask only, no force carbing. Some use real casks. Most use modified cornies. Always fun to judge that one. They are all set up a couple days prior, iced on the table, and then we do a full BJCP judging. Afterwards the rest of the club shows up to imbibe and do a people's choice.

 

British brewers would classically use hop plugs for dry hopping casks:

“The term dry hopping originated centuries ago with British brewers and was used to refer to adding hops to the cask shortly before it was shipped off to the customer. In fact, 1/2-ounce hop plugs were specifically developed by British hop producers to be a convenient way to add whole hops to a keg or cask. Nowadays, dry hopping refers to any hop addition after the wort has been cooled. These additions can be done in the primary fermenter, in the secondary or by adding hops directly to a keg. I have even heard of one homebrewer attempting to add one or two hop petals to each bottle of a bottle-conditioned batch! (It didn’t work though.)”

https://byo.com/mead/item/569-dry-hopping-techniques

I am personally unaware of where to purchase hop plugs. I think they are only made in Britain?

Maybe some homebrewers make their own hop plugs from whole hops?

Cheers!

 

So, no one drives home party.
Very cool!

 

Are they adding priming sugar and just carbing on the low side then?

 

Yup. If they use CO2 in any way other than to seal the keg they are disqualified. After everything is ready to go the keg is laid on it's side with the bottom slightly elevated, a picnic tap is attached to the gas post for pouring, and another is on the liquid dip tube for allowing in ambient air to clear any vacuum that may occur.

 

Is there a one way valve on the liquid line then?

 

Usually just a picnic tap. When there is a vacuum in the keg you open the picnic tap on the top post to let air in through the liquid dip tube.

 

Nice. Thanks for the help, I would like to do a cask type ale at home, and this sounds pretty doable for a keg newb. Probably looking at doing the APESB with this set up and maybe some dry hops.

 

I would recommend putting an in line air filter in the line to the liquid tube. If you aren't able to drink it all in a day or two, it should help keep it from going sour. It will still oxidize, but the filter should keep out bacteria and wild yeast.

I have wanted to do something like this before, but won't kill a keg in 2 days. I've thought of just hitting with 8psi when I get a vacuum just to keep a blanket of CO2 on it.

 

Jack, long before you started brewing , hop plugs were available here at LHBSs and some must have been produced domestically because I used to use some NW hop variety ones. Cheers

 

Barry, when I started homebrewing in the 90's I was cognizant of hop plugs but frankly I didn't pay much attention to them.

Do you know where homebrewers can purchase hop plugs today and what varieties are available today?

Cheers!

 

Justin,

Have you considered implementing a cask breather?

http://www.micromatic.com/cask-breathers/cask-breather-cask-b

Cheers!

 

No, but I be look'in

 

Wow, very impressed. I must have missed my invitation in the mail
I am a major cask fan (go to NERAX every year) but haven't tried it in my homebrewing, mostly because of the limitations - you have to kill the cask in a couple days max, and short of a party or something, I just can't do that with most of my beers. I do have a couple recipes that I think would translate pretty well to cask, though.

 

The ones I used years back were Morris Hambury, they went bankrupt. A US start up filled the void for homebrewers, they went under. I haven't done a search to see if any are available in the U.K.

A guy in our club tried to make some by packing hops into a PVC pipe. He couldn't get it out due to friction and sticky resins. He split the pipe using a table saw to get the hops out and then cut to size.

I think one could use a short piece of pipe and pack hops in a half ounce at a time, and then punch the plugs out.