Cheap home made beer engine

[Chris_J]

I was just browsing another forum and saw that someone made a system that allowed him to serve his homebrew like real ale in the UK with a regular, unmodified corny.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread. ... 529&page=3

Scroll down to sonvolt's post and have a look. Amazon.com carries the pump he uses, then it's just a matter of attaching the pump to the lid of a cooler, attach the tubing to the pump and run it through some ice, then attach the tubing to a QD and into the corny. If you leave the release valve open all should work. And by leaving the corny at room temperature, the beer going through the tubing gets chilling by the ice to around the right temp for real ales. I'm sure someone here could rig up a more permanent and attractive method but this is cheap! Less than $50 and you're set to serve real ale on a hand pump!

edit: Forgot to add that on page 1 of the thread I linked to he shows the unit at work. Yes I realise loads of the pics aren't working right but the ones that are working give you an idea of how to do this.

[Bugeater]

I've seen this type of "beer engine" in action. Not quite the cool factor as the real British beer engine, but it works the same. Just remember that this type of system allows air into the firkin (i.e., keg) unless you either put some sort of cask breather on it (traditional) or hook up CO2 with only about a pound or two of pressure.

You can find those pumps pretty cheap at any RV dealer.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[Chris_J]

Oh I'm well aware that air would get into the keg and oxidize the beer. Unless I drank loads of real ale I think this would be a better project for a 2.5 gallon keg. I think this is a really cool idea.

[Lars]

Just remember that this type of system allows air into the firkin (i.e., keg) unless you either put some sort of cask breather on it (traditional) or hook up CO2 with only about a pound or two of pressure.

I actually have a beer engine, and ended up using a gas ball lock with a sanitary filter as a breather.

[yabodie]

Why not purge it after use with CO2?