Home brew served from handbpumps

[Redshed]

I want the authentic pub pulled beer from a hand pump. Any suggestions on how this is achieved. All roads lead to cornies at the mo?

 

[mikescooling]

They have 1/6th BBL sanke kegs or the newer plastic ones that also have the sanke fitting. But you know if you use a hand pump you're oxygenating the beer?

 

[dyqik]

You're only oxygenating the beer if you use a hand keg pump that pressurizes the keg with air. A handpump in UK parlance is a beer engine, used to pull beer from the cask to the glass. I think several people on here have used RV water pumps as a cheap alternative to beer engines. Beer engines are fairly cheap on eBay in the UK, but shipping to the US is a killer.

The difficult bit is the cask itself. Coincidentally I've just this second posted a thread on my plan for making a pressure barrel for cask conditioning beer, including a CO2 infection option from a Speidel fermenter. Alternatively, you can use a corny keg and a cask breather or regulator set very low to keep a blanket of CO2 over the beer to avoid oxidation - there are a few threads on this. You do want a small (controlled) amount of oxidation to get that cask beer taste though. Or you can spend $160 on a stainless steel pin or $99 on a plastic firkin from various online sources as the cask, remembering to also budget for spiles, taps and bungs. Ukbrewing.com is one source for these.

 

[mikescooling]

I'm sorry. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Live and learn, here some stuff I found
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/.../1-4-pint-clamp-on-pullman-handpump-unit.html

 

[dyqik]

It's a real shame that beer engines are so expensive in the US - you can get them on UK eBay for about $100. I wonder how many I can fit in my suitcase next time I go back to visit the family...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BGM2XG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 is a cheap alternative I've seen used on this forum.

 

[beaksnbeer]

It's a real shame that beer engines are so expensive in the US - you can get them on UK eBay for about $100. I wonder how many I can fit in my suitcase next time I go back to visit the family...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BGM2XG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 is a cheap alternative I've seen used on this forum.

I'm in for 1. 13 taps would round off nicely

 

[one-L]

If you are an AHA member, check out not the most recent edition of Zymurgy but the one before that, and there is a good writeup of a guy making his own beer engine. He also homemmade a CO2 breather to replace gas volume in the "cask" (keg) without overcarbonating or introducing oxygen.