serving pressure?
I am fortunate to have a good friend that keeps Guinness on tap regularly. The best part is that he lets me have a key to his place so I can stop by anytime I'm downtown to pull a pint. This is especially useful after Georgia Tech football games because I can make "on the way home" include a trip by his house and it really is on the way.
But this week he went a little wild. Instead of Guinness, he ordered a keg of Boddington's. Equally delicious in my opinion and it doesn't require an equipment change. Well, except for the keg coupler which almost every source prior to the pick-up ensured was the same as the Guinness keg but really turned out to be the same as a Bass keg. After cleaning some scary looking stuff out of the one the store loaned to him, everything hooked up and beer ready to pour. Sort of.
First beer, too foamy. Pressure needs adjusting from Guinness pressure. The only problem is, what pressure should we set it to? No, seriously. I've been searching on the net for almost an hour while we're watching the hock-eh game and I can't seem to find a site that will provide information about recommended serving pressures, suggested volumes of CO2, or anything remotely helpful regarding commercially available beers. Is this some sort of trade secret that distributors are wanting to keep
to themselves? If so, I want to know so I can get a site started where we start making the info available. Or maybe it's out there and I am just getting too old to use the Internet. Know where we can find this info?
Thanks in advance.
But this week he went a little wild. Instead of Guinness, he ordered a keg of Boddington's. Equally delicious in my opinion and it doesn't require an equipment change. Well, except for the keg coupler which almost every source prior to the pick-up ensured was the same as the Guinness keg but really turned out to be the same as a Bass keg. After cleaning some scary looking stuff out of the one the store loaned to him, everything hooked up and beer ready to pour. Sort of.
First beer, too foamy. Pressure needs adjusting from Guinness pressure. The only problem is, what pressure should we set it to? No, seriously. I've been searching on the net for almost an hour while we're watching the hock-eh game and I can't seem to find a site that will provide information about recommended serving pressures, suggested volumes of CO2, or anything remotely helpful regarding commercially available beers. Is this some sort of trade secret that distributors are wanting to keep
to themselves? If so, I want to know so I can get a site started where we start making the info available. Or maybe it's out there and I am just getting too old to use the Internet. Know where we can find this info?
Thanks in advance.
posted by chris @ 3:26 PM
3 Comments:
At 8:58 PM,
Jonathan said…
I have no idea. But I love Boddington's, and I wanted the world to know. We're going to start kegging our homebrews soon, so we might stumble across some kind of actually HELPFUL info. I'll let you know. That's definitely a good idea for a site.
At 8:08 AM,
Travis said…
I have never had Guinness on tap so I am not sure what you would have that at. But I have a tap system at home I sure for my homebrew and we always had kegs at my frat house so I am a little familiar with the range.
Now a lot of places will tell you 6-8PSI is the appropriate serving range. For me that has never worked. With my homebrew it's too slow and never develops a head and with the keg beer we used to buy it just made for a very slow pour.
I recommend 11-12 PSI. This is what we used at the house and this is what I use for my home brew as well. One key thing is allowing the beer to settle at that PSI. I usually let the beer sit for as little as an hour and as much as 24hrs before I decide if I need to fine tune my PSI.
I hope this helps.
Cheers!
At 1:09 PM,
Ed said…
I am not sure of the exact pressure but it should be close to that of Guiness. Unlike regular beers Guiness is dispensed at a higher pressure, this is necessary to push the beer through the nitrogen tap that you use with Guiness/Boddingtons/Murphy's type beers. I would say keep it at 28-30 lbs at give it another whirl (although I am sure the keg is gone by now). The beer should pour like a Guiness but then settle down with a thick rich head. For regular beers you want to keep them at about 38 degrees and use about 12-14 lbs of pressure. If the beer comes out too fast you want to use a longer hose not turn down the pressure. This offers more restriction and slows down the flow of beer allow it to be poured without it going flat. Hope this helps.
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