Does anyone know where to get a stainless pin cask?
Wow I was going to refer you to the place I get my beer engine stuff but they don’t have any in stock nor an email address to reach out to
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Really wanting to get into cask ales but can’t find any. Everything I come across is a dead end or a whole sale type of situation. No luck on Craigslist either in my area. I appositive I can find a UK supplier but the shipping cost is a killer.
I might just reach out to The Malt Miller or Wheatlow on YouTube. I noticed the “brewtube” community is pretty reliable. The malt Miller just started a series on getting into cask ale.
I’ve been trying to find a stainless Pin Cask for over year now. Something’s got to give eventually.
I too once wanted to go the “real” cask approach to brewing and serving real ale. After much deliberation, I realized that while I drink way more than I should, I don’t go through 5 gallons fast enough to prevent the eventual undesirable change that occurs using a cask.
Without quoting the CAMRA requirements, my interpretation of cask ale requires carbonation in the storage container and delivery without the use of introduced CO2.
I spent some time researching “bag-in-a-box” cask ale - there are a bunch of YouTube videos from the UK posted mostly during covid that looked promising. I got some 18 liter wine bags and boxes on Amazon and started experimenting. After several iterations, I determined that while 18 liter wine bags were ideal, cardboard boxes were not. Settled eventually on 6.5 gallon fermentation buckets lined with a 18 liter bag (ASTROPOUCH 18L Easy Fill Bag-in-Box). I have found that these bags hold more than 20 liters. I do not put more than 5 gallons in them.
Process is:
- Ferment in conical until SG is unchanged for 3 days.
- Rack 5 gallons to bag in bucket, adding some (maybe 50 ml) yeast slurry drained from fermentation along with appropriate amount of corn sugar to obtain desired carbonation level. Warning - aim for the minimum amount of added sugar, don’t ask how I know. Bleed as much excess air out of the bag.
- Return bagged beer to fermentation chamber for about 7 to 10 days at fermentation temperature. The lid needs to be sealed as tightly and securely as possible. Again, don’t ask how I know.
- I move the buckets to a cold refrigerator (~38 - 40) for another week to month of conditioning.
- Before serving, I bleed the excess CO2 still in the bag after conditioning. My serving refrigerator is set to something much warmer than the conditioning refrigerator.
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Excellent idea!!!
I use corny kegs with a cask breather, basically a cask widge system. For the type of beers I make I would not have it any other way
this is what its all about. such a good system,
I was going to mention you and your well documented approach, but figured you chip in eventually 
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Wally, I am having the same issue with finding a PIN cask as described earlier. This is an excellent idea and the pictures very helpful. I found the ASTROPOUCH 18L Easy Fill Bag-in-Box on Amazon and they are reasonably priced. Can you provide a bit more detail on the connection pictured to the bag through the bucket? An I assume no back fill of CO2 required with the bag as it just collapses as you pump the beer?—I am not clear on what the red tubing does.
In reverse order:
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red tubing (CO2) is not used in this configuration. I alternate between cask ale and Bohemian lagers in the kegerator. Black hose in original picture is attached to a fan to get some circulation of cold air here and chills the serving tower when setup for lagers. I’ve had trouble with the kegerator icing over, so I added the dehumidifier sitting on top of the bucket.
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You are correct - there is no need for CO2 back fill. My Angram pump sucks the bag pretty much down to the yeast dregs. IMHO that’s the advantage of this setup.
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You’ll need some more parts from Amazon: Bag-In-Box Wine Connector - BIB Connector - The Easiest Way To Refill/Transfer/Empty Wine Bags & Pouches
and PW Industries Inc. | John Guest Inline Tube Check Valve for Water Filter and Water Purifier – 1/2" Single Quick Connect Water Tube Fittings (1/2SCV)
Blue “paper towels” help with dripping condensation.
I treat the bags kinda like a corny keg, but do not ever remove the actual valve. After use they get rinsed with water to get the yeast dregs out and then a full soak with hot PBW. Rinsed again and swished with a StarSan solution. I do not do an acid rinse for milk stone. I leave them loosely capped in a warm garage until the next use. If they pass the smell test, I simply re-StarSan and use them again. I’ve discarded 1 bag for not smelling acceptable.
Hope this helps.
W
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Wally, Thank you for that detailed response with very helpful pictures, I was able to find all parts on Amazon. When you “bag condition” the cask ale you mention using a minimum amount of sugar. We have been using fiirkiins and corrnie kegs and figuring 1.5 vol of CO2 to get the cask ale carbonation we are after. That will build up about 7 - 10 psi. Will these bags withstand that much pressure?
After visiting Great Britain this past April and falling in love with cask ale, I have found myself in a quest making a diy beer engine using collapsible water bags knowing that I could not drink all the ale in one sitting.
As I was waiting to gather all the parts needed, I experimented with putting about 5 liters in a bag and allowed it to finish, sitting on the basement cement floor. The bag did pressurize and there was some leakage. I suspect it came from the spigot at the bottom of the bag. But after opening the opening at the top of the bag, there was no more leakage. This has led me to by a spunding valve to attach at the top of the bag.
Now that I have all the parts needed, I am in the midst of fermenting a new bitter to later transfer to the new beer engine. The beer engine will be using an ice cooler with a rocket hand pump attached to the top and the bag of beer inside the cooler.
Don’t know how high the pressure actually gets, my notes indicate that I’ve been using about 1.4 to 1.6 ounces of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch-YMMV. I started out weighing the amount of beer in the bag/bucket in order to determine how much sugar to add but have stopped trying to be so accurate. My customer base is pretty limited and not particularly fussy 
I do use a piece of compressible foam between the bag and lid to soften the underside of the lid.
Recall from my original post that you really want to have a very secure lid on the bucket. My experience has been that the current-era lids don’t provide a tight enough seal to prevent separation of lid and bucket and you can wind up with something like this (note that the bag expansion has caused the lid to separate from the bucket):
I’m currently using the most heavy-duty lids I have; they’re mostly over 10 years old but seem to hold better. However in my last batch I literally blew the seam of the bag and exploded the lid off. I taped the seam shut, chilled the bucket and currently have it on the pump.
Refermentation looks like this:
except that I use a couple of very large and heavy cinder blocks instead of bags of cat pellets. Note that the picture shows the kinds of lids that don’t work. When the plastic (lid and bottom) expands enough that the buckets begin to wobble, refermentation is complete. Next time, before unstacking and moving the buckets, I’ll probably “sample” each one to ease the pressure a bit, based on the previous exploding lid incident.
Obviously still on ongoing and not necessarily scientific process.
W
So you’re not using any kind of rigid container for the bag, but relying solely on strength of the bag? That’s an interesting approach.
I did one batch early on where I racked the still fermenting beer to the bag in order to let it finish in the bag but found the transfer to be really messy and abandoned the approach. I was never really sure that I carbonated the beer adequately, but I like your idea of using a spunding valve to solve the over pressurization/carbonation problem.
Any chance you could post a picture of the bag & spunding valve?
Typically I bottle. And so, I ferment in bucket for about 10-14 days to finish and give it a diacetyl rest. When I bottle I use beersmith’s carbonation tool to figure out the carbonation I want. Then add the sugar to the beer as I transfer to the bottling bucket. I bottle over the dishwasher with the door slightly open to catch any drippings.
That is what I did with my experiment. I held the bag under the spigot of the bottling bucket and filled it to the amount I wanted in the beer. The sugar was already added to the bottling bucket. The remainder of the beer I bottled.
I’ll send pictures once I figure how to.
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Here are three pictures;
The first is the cooler that the bag will be placed in and connected by a hose to the bottom of the hand pump.
The third picture is the empty (at the moment) with the Duotight BlowTie 2 | Diaphragm Spunding Valve | Built-In Pressure Gauge connected to the top opening. With it is a black cap (from another bag) that I drilled a hole and inserted the gas connector which is the second picture.
I will have another picture once I have everything up and running.
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Thanks - I really like the spunding valve implementation. Adding one of these would alleviate a lot of problems in my current approach wrt popping lids off of buckets and blowing out bags.
Thanks to both you and Wally for chiming in on this discussion. I have the parts ordered for the bag approach and would like to see your spunding valve attachment.
Thanks. In my previous message is a brief explanation & 3 pictures, the last one shows the spunding valve. Now note I have not fully tested the set-up. I still have the bitter in the fermentor. In the middle of next week I will be transferring to the bag for conditioning.