Guinness is Good for You!

I was asked which is a better beer, Guinness or Heineken? Having drank a lot of both and having gone to both breweries and having bought a keg of each I can't say which is better. What I can say is what some of the factors are which separate Guinness from Heineken and most ever other beer for better or worse.
Consider Guinness Draught to be more complex and distinctive beer while at the same time not necessarily being the better beer. Take into consideration the unique dispensing style of Guinness Draught using a stout faucet vs the standard beer faucet. The way the creamy foam head forms as the nitrogen bubbles dissolve out of the beer and creating a cascading effect in which the bubbles appear to be falling within the glass. This is often referred to as the "surge" which you have to wait to complete before one can finish with the second part of the famous two part pour. This is the result of the beer being nitrogenized. Meaning the gas used to carbonate the beer is a combination of nitrogen and CO2. In fact the ratio is 75% nitrogen and 25% CO2. This combination is often referred to as Guinness Gas or Bev Gas in the industry. Guinness is also kept under a much high pressure then Hieneken (30-40 psi vs 10-14 psi). This is because the nitrogen gas has a lower affinity for the beer and must be a high pressure in order to dissolve into the Guinness. This is the same principal behind the bends which effect deep water divers. Were at high pressure and deeper depths the nitrogen dissolves into the blood. When the pressure is released as the diver approaches the surface nitrogen forms tiny bubbles in the blood which cause health problems. This is essentially the same thing that is happening in a can of Guinness Draught but you want this to happen in a can of Guinness Draught.
If you have can or bottle of Guinness Draught you may have noticed there is something in the can. You weren't going crazy there is something in the can and it is called a widget. This widget is a small plastic container with a tiny hole in it. During the bottling process just after the beer is added to the bottle or can a small amount of liquid nitrogen and CO2 is added. This mix of gases is sealed inside of the bottle or can. Where over a period of time (most likely a few days) the gases dissolve into the beer. Being that the bottle or can is under pressure, beer and dissolved nitrogen and CO2 is forced into the widget until the pressure inside the widget is in equilibrium with the pressure of the inside of the can. When you crack the can or open the bottle the pressure is release inside of the can or bottle. When this happens the beer still inside the widget is forced out of the tiny hole into the can or bottle. This accelerates the formation of nitrogen bubbles and helps to generate the head and produce the surge Guinness Draught is known the world around for. Without the widget the nitrogen would still bubble out of the beer, but at a much slower rate and a quality layer of head on the top of the pint would not be formed.
Interestingly enough the same principle is used when dispensing Guinness Draught from a keg. Inside of a stout faucet is a small metal plate with eight or so tiny holes through which the beer is forced as it is dispensed into the glass. These tiny holes force the nitrogen out of the beer just as with the widget to produce the cascading "surge" effect and proper amount of head. This is of course assuming you poured the pint correctly.
Pouring a pint of Guinness Draught is a two part operation and it can't be rushed. It should take about two minutes to pour a pint of Guinness. I recommend watching the following short video which effectively demonstrates how to pour a pint of Guinness, http://videos.howstuffworks.com/howstuffworks/41-how-to-pour-a-guinness-video.htm
Many consider Guinness to be a heavy beer. Guinness is generally considered to contain 210 calories per pint. Compare to a pint of orange juice (220 calories) or a pint of skim milk (260 calories.) The nitrogen may help contribute to the different mouth feel Guinness Draught along with other components of the beer whose contribution I don't fully understand as I am not a food sensory scientist.
These are just some of the reasons why I feel Guinness is such a great beer. Honestly I feel you can't compare Heineken to Guinness, consider their differences, Heineken is a lager style beer were Guinness Draught is considered an type of ale. This means both of these beer are fermented by two different kinds of yeast at different temperatures and for different periods of time. The fact both beers are brewed and dispensed completely differently makes them almost polar opposites of each other. These are beers which can't be compared side by side. One can say they prefer one over the other but there is no way one can say one is better then the other. How could one say an apple is better then an orange?

Refilling a Keg

I am often asked how to one goes about refilling a beer keg. This is an interesting question because the average person really is not interest in refilling a keg. They are interested rather in taking a empty keg or keg shell they have in their possession and converting it into a full keg of beer. There are a number of methods for turning an empty keg into a full one. The first being you can prey to the supreme being of your choice to turn the air inside the keg to beer. For this option I recommend praying to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer. Alternitivly you could pray to Ronald Reagan or the Judeo-Christian god among others. Statistically this method is ineffective although I don't have the numbers to back up that statement.
The second option is by far the easiest and most effective, this involves taking one's empty keg shell to their local liquor store and exchanging it for a full keg of beer. Might I recommend any of the fine beers produced by Sierra Nevada as a excellent choice to exchange your empty shell for. A couple things to keep in mind about this option; if you are in California you generally need to have the keg identification sticker on the keg to exchange it. This hasn't tended to be an issue here in Davis, but in Chico you definitely needed the sticker. Also different brewers charge different amounts for keg shell deposits. For example Sierra Nevada charges just twenty five dollars where Widmer Brothers Brewing charges forty to forty five dollars and Pabst charges thirty five. The keg your exchanging your empty shell for might have a higher shell deposit then the shell you are exchanging and you will need to make up the difference.
The last option is by far the hardest and most time consuming option, this involves opening up the keg cleaning out the old stale beer, sterilizing and refilling with home brewed beer. I could spend a whole post talking about how to do this. Basically you will need to brew up about fifteen gallons of beer and then put it in your keg. I am leave a number of steps out. This is an enormous amount of work unless you know exactly what you are doing in which case it is still a lot of manual labor.
If you still want to open your keg shell up for some other reason take a look at the following web site on how to open a sankey type keg. Let me be the first to say this can be a very dangerous and is most often a messy job in which the residual beer sprays all over the place unless you cover the tap with a towel. Even then old warm crummy beer still gets all over.
Why would one want to open a keg up? My best guess is to us it for home brewing or to make the most bad ass batch of jungle juice ever, which I have done and will explain how to do it in a later post.
To summerize again how to refill an empty keg shell you can:
A. Pray to the supreme being of your choice (Ninkasi or Ronald Reagan.)
B. Exchange the empty keg shell for a new keg of beer at your local liquor store.
C. Open, clean, sterilize and fill the empty keg shell with your own home brew.
D. Make a awesome keg stool/seat out of your empty keg shell.
Let me emphasize choice B as it is the only choice for the majority of the population, choice C is just to much work. Even if you have made a batch of home brew before that was likely only five gallons or so this would be fifteen plus gallons. I am not trying to discourage any one, I only want to make you aware of the work involved and how much easier it is to just exchange the empty keg shell for a new full keg of beer. Best of luck to all on your kegging adventures.

Party Beer Dispensing

Have you ever found yourself at a party where the the fine flavor of the beer has been fouled by the keg party pump which used regular air to push the beer out of the keg instead of an inert gas such as CO2. Quite honestly if you are at the average college party the overpowering shit quality of the beer on hand never seems to merit anything more crude then a regular keg party pump. For example, kegs of Keystone Light, Natural Ice, and so on, basically on up to the king of the shitty beers, Pabst Blue Ribbon. For Pabst and all beers above said level of quality deserve to be dispensed in a less primitive manor. Yes for the record I am placing Paps Blue Ribbon above the likes of Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Coors and Coors Lite. I am not saying it is better then Yuengling which happens to be awesome beer and impossible to find on the west coast.
While the likely hood of one being able to notice a change in the flavor of a keg of beer tapped with a traditional keg party pump for a couple of hours after tapping would seem to be rather low, if I had to guess you would be able to notice a difference in the quality of the beer after four or five hours. At a crazy party a keg might not last that long, but at a smaller party this could become an issue. I don't know for a fact at what point the flavor of a keg of beer becomes tainted by a party pump, but I would guess someone who knows their beer and who is familiar with the said beer on hand could tell the difference.
There are a couple of solutions for this problem, the first being just uses cans or bottles. This option is cheaper when having a small gathering, for a large party it is more expensive. Also you have to pay for the CRV of the cans or bottles and people tend to make a mess with the bottles and cans by leaving them all of your house and yard. For a keg you only pay a reasonably small deposit on the keg shell which is easily recovered by returning the shell to the original distributor the keg was purchased from.
Personally I am fond of Star Liquors in Chico. The guys there will take care of you so long as you don't try to sneak a fake ID past them, in such case they will take it from you. Really they are great guys and can get you any keg you want for a fair price. They are a hell of a lot cheaper then Aggie Liquor here in Davis, or Tony's Liquor in Chico and a lot nicer. The number at Star Liquors is 530-891-4842. One might wonder why I buy my kegs in Chico when I live in Davis. Well frankly I go through about one keg a month and I like to go home to Chico once a month so I pick up a fresh keg from Star on my way home from Chico when I travel there.
The other option for dispensing draft beer at a party is a CO2 powered dispensing system. Which consists of a CO2 tank, in my case a five pound tank because of its portability, a regulator (mine has two CO2 outputs so ideally I could be set up to dispense two kegs at once if I had a second set of taping equipment,) a tap (in this case a D Sankey,) a beer riser and a faucet (the tap, riser and faucet are all completely food grade stainless steel.) As you can see from the picture the system sits right on top of a keg and the riser brings the faucet up to a perfect pouring hight. I used this set up to dispense a Keg of Spaten Premium in November. The setup worked great.
I should mention I get the majority of my beer dispensing equipment from a company called Micromatic. If you have any interest in dispensing draft beer take a look at their web site. They have lots of information, tips a forum and all the parts and pieces you might ever need to get your beer to flow.
Currently I am drinking a pint of Hefeweizen and listening to The Pogues which is a great way to spend an afternoon. If it wasn't about to get dark outside I would go for a bike ride, but I really don't want to go riding in the dark. Maybe I will post some pictures of my Trek road bike in the future. It is really fast and a pleasure to ride, it is amazing how much of a difference clip in peddles makes. I find myself going a lot faster when I use them then when I just use plain old pedals with foot straps. I plan to put the clip in pedals on my fixed gear when I ride the sorter version of the wildflower this spring.

The Kegerator

Not a long post today, just some pictures of the current state of the kegerator. I just repainted the door of the kegerator a couple of days ago. Keep in mind that the amount of beer kept on hand is not the same as the amount of consumed over a given period of time (ie were not a bunch of boozers.) Especially when it comes to Coors and Coors Light. Those are both reserved for beer pong games exclusively. For those of you out there who aren't fans of drinking games, such as beer pong, keep in mind we always keep plenty of good beer in the kegerator for the most important drinking game of all - drinking!

Inside View!

The keg tap and eggs! You can see that this is a Keg of Widmer Hefeweizen

Keg Seats

Over the last few years I have collected, or rather acquired a number of keg shells. Mainly off of craigslist, which is a good place to look for all sorts of brewing equipment. A keg shell is simply the metal part of a beer keg. When I refer to a keg shell I mean a empty keg of beer which has often had the tap coupler removed. This allow different solutions to be placed inside the keg. For instance after cleaning out the keg. Which is done by adding water and bleach and a foot long food grade stainless steal chain.
A batch of beer could now be fermented inside of the keg. A full size keg holds three times the volume of the average home brew fermenter and the metal conducts heat better then plastic. If one had access to a swimming pool during the right times of the year. For instance winter, a keg filled with lager to be fermented could be placed on the steps on the pool so as only the top fifteen or so cm was exposed and then cap the top off with a rubber bung and a air lock. The pool water would keep the yeast the proper temperature for a strong healthy fermentation. An open keg shell could also be used as a boiling vessel for a fractional distillation apparatus to used to produce essential oils, vinegar or possible ethanol for uses as fuel (this would of course only be done once the proper permits were obtained from the ATF and the ethanol was only used for fuel.) I will post later on methods for producing fuel ethanol.
Needless to say there are a lot of uses for a keg shell besides just holding draft beer. As I mentioned before I have a few keg shells not including the full keg of Widmer Hefeweizen I currently have in my kegerator, it is such a great beer. When you can get it on tap at your local bar, restaurant or pub, it's awesome.
Currently in my garage I have three empty keg shells. All on them happen to be Sierra Nevada keg shells also. I have had then in my garage for about two or three months. What I figured out was that if you flip the shell over you can sit in a mildly comfortable fashion on the bottom of the keg. Although one's butt and legs get rather sore quickly, so maybe not so comfortable. In our garage we currently have a shortage of seating. We have two lawn chairs and the four chairs from inside at the dinner table. When we have a party there is not enough room for people to sit. Our garage is not big enough for us to seat everyone, but a few more seats would help. I flipped over all the keg shells and people didn't really sit on them, they just got in the way.
Early last month I had this idea, do you see where I am going with this. I tend to take a long time to get to the point. The kegs needed a soft seat to go on top of them. My idea was to take a piece of plywood and cut it in a circle the diameter of the keg. Then take a two by four and cut a hole which would fit over the opening on a keg shell. See the pictures for an example of what the opening on a keg shell looks like. The two by four would be fixed to one side of the round plywood and then a few centimeters of foam would be placed on the other side of the plywood to be held in place by a piece of fabric.
While up at my grandparents home outside of Reno, Nevada I had access to my grandfather's shop, which contains the tools needed to produce the seat. I took a keg shell to their house for this very purpose. Once he understood what I was trying to build we managed to knock the wooden portion of a seat out in under an hour. Then next two only took forty minutes to make both.
The next aspect of the seat construction required I travel to Carson City, Nevada which is not to far from their home, to pick up the necessary foam and fabric. We got the supplies at this hole in the wall fabric store. We settled on firm two inch foam and black marine upholstery leather (or rather fake leather that is.) Stretching the leather over the foam and stapling it to the back side of the wood seats went really fast. We managed to finish all three of the seats in under an hour.
The only changes from my original design in my head is we used three two by fours to hold the seat in place on top of the keg. as opposed to the single two by four with a hole in it. I don't feel that it makes any difference either way. All the wood used for the seats was scrap wood to cutting down on cost. My final cost for each seat was ten dollars, basically for foam and fabric. Take a look at the pictures, I think the seats turned out really nice and are very comfortable. I'm really looking forward to our next party/gathering to get some feed back on these seats which essentially turn a keg shell into a comfy stool!

Tonic

As last Friday represented an important day to those of us in the UC system, we decided to throw a party. A party celebrating the end of finals and the fall quarter. Technically we were referring to this party per say as a gathering. Something a bit more low key. After an unfortunate visit from the police during our last party we wanted to make sure they wouldn't come again.
I shall digress and explain why the police came last time. It seems that someone down the street from us had a band playing. This band had been playing on and off since about two in the afternoon. Needless to say I guess the neighbors were a little sick of it. The call went out to the cops at about 11:50 to pay them a visit. Only thing was the cops, who by the way thought they had a police scanner, didn't pay them a visit. They came to our place instead. They were very, very rude, sadly they made the cops I have dealt with in Chico at parties seem friendly. I spoke to both of my neighbors the next day, neither of them were even aware we had a party the night before. They told us they heard nothing.
A couple of days later my roommate showed me a copy of the police report, and it showed our street, the note about the band playing and the exact time the cops showed up at our place. Being the upstanding citizen I am and feeling that we had been mistreated by the rude police who were angry because they thought we had a band and police scanner (I am getting to the scanner part) I called in and complained. This ended up being a multi-day process, in which I spoke to no less then five different people, one who told me they thought the house with the band had a police scanner. The call to the police ended up being a good thing so far as I can tell. No cops have showed up at my door angry that we called in and final officer I spoke to was pleasantly happy that I called in. She mentioned it was good to get feedback. Just goes to show that when you are polite even when the cops aren't things can still work out. I'm just glad we didn't get a fine, although I don't think I crappy computer speakers we use for music out in the garage get loud enough to cause a noise infraction.
Onward to the real subject matter of this blog post. Tonic water, and its awesome UV florescent properties. For this party we set up two beer pong tables. If you don't know what beer pong is let me refer you to the source of answers to all the questions in the world, wikipedia, take a look at this article on beer pong.
While driving to Vacaville to visit Costco and Winco where we would be procuring much need supplies for the party I came up with the most ingenious idea I have had in a long time, if I say so myself. Instead of water in the beer pong rinse cups why not use tonic water and a clear pint glass. I thought this would look most awesome and from the pictures below you can see that the idea turned out rather well.

The only downside to the tonic water was that people with small cuts on their hands complained tonic water burned in their cuts. Among other reasons this is just one of the many reasons why beer pong is such a dirty game. I did some research and found that quinine in tonic water is quinine sulfate and in order for the quinine sulfate to be florescent it must be in a mildly acidic solution. Something like sulfuric acid if you are in a chem lab doing a UV-VIS spectrum analysis or in the case of tonic water the acidity would seem to be provided by citric acid which is one of the ingredients of the drink. It would be citric acid that burned the cuts on the hands of those people who complained. Also the tonic water leaves a slightly slimy feeling on your hands, i suspect it is the sugar which causes that, next time I will use diet tonic water. All and all I would still use the tonic water again in the rinse cups. It looks great.

FST3 Lecture

Here is a lecture from one of my classes, FST3 Brewing and Beer taught Charlie Bamforth. The lecture is rather funny and well worth your time to listen to. The sole picture on the video is of Dr. Bamforth. Thats right a guy with his Phd. in beer.

A Prost to Yeast

So I haven't posted in a while, shame on me. This will be short as I am headed to bed I have early morning lab tomorrow. So today I made a nice loaf of bread. I think it is one of the best looking loaves of bread I have made so far, so I took a picture of it to share with the world... of people who read this blog. My roommates approve of the bread which is good, because I probably wouldn't eat the who thing before it got hard.
I am working on a new batch of bread, some sour dough bread. I got some sour dough starter from The Cheese Board in Berkeley CA. The Cheese Board has just about every conceivable cheese which can be imagined. A really unique place. I had the opportunity to visit the store when it was closed and had a private sampling of various cheeses. Absolutely fantastic, I wish the friend of a friend who made it happen many thanks.
Having no idea how much starter to used in a batch of bread I used about half of my container of starter, or about three fourths of a cup or about a 175ml, how ever you want to kick around the volume. I took the remaining starter and split it up into two containers, one rather big. I mixed up three cups of flour water for the big container and about a cup of flour water for the small container. I added them to the culture mixed them up and put them on top of the bookcase in my roommates room (the warmest place in the house) They have been there since two this afternoon. I just moved the smaller container to the fridge as it was showing signs of a strong fermentation.
Yeast and a few strains of bacteria are the work horses of sour dough starter. You probably already knew that, worth mentioning though. Now I don't know what yeast does to produce the sour part in the mixture. Possibly the bacteria act on the by products of the yeast's respiration, or possibly a combined effort. I really don't know, but I intend to ask my brewing/food science professor this very question and I will get back to you. Yeast is just one, and the major thing that make bread kick ass in my book. Fermentation done by yeast is so cool, with the production of alcohol and CO2 from simple sugars, yeast is the unsung hero of modern society. With out it there would be no alcohol (well for the most part) and bread would be flat, which is not a bad thing but would get a bit boring after a while. Next time you eat a sandwich or imbibe a beverage of a refreshing nature, think of yeast!

A red fixed gear parked by the math building. I took this picture yesterday. Good news, I get the Puegeot back on monday, to bad I will be out of town. I cant wait to ride it again.

All Moved In

Currently I have a keg of Widmer Hefeweizen on tap in my kegerator. Did I mention I moved
last weekend. It has been a while since I lasted posted. Thursday the 30th I made the trek from my appartment in South Davis to my new duplex in West Davis. A friend of mine who I am now living with in West Davis rented a UHAUL which was most effective for moving all of ones crap from one side of town to the other. The new place is really nice, it is a duplex, we have a garage and a nice back yard, where I have placed a medium sized bug zapper. There is nothing like the sound of bugs getting zapped. I have made a few trips to Ikea, Costco , Winco and Trader Joe's to pick up a couch and some more food. I picked up a few fine bottles of liquor at Costco. My purchase incuded a bottle of Bombay Gin, Baileys Irish Cream, Jameson and some vermouth. It is not like I am going to drink them all at once, they will last a long while. When I was a Winco I found cans of Guinness for a buck a can, I bought twenty. You can't deny a good buy on Guinness. Now I can introduce my housemate a to Guinness Car Bomb. I bought a new couch at Ikea, it is blue and fits three people. I was amazed we were able to fit it in my parents car. Well they did have to tie the back door down as it would not close. In the garage I have started to hang up posters and signs. I'll try to keep the actual house details to a minimum, other then to say the house is great.
What I will focus on is the little bundle of joy my parents brought down from Chico for my housemates and I. My kegerator, as you can see from the photos my kegerator is a black fridge which contains a keg of fine beer. Currently the beer on tap is Widmer Hefeweizen. In my opinion Widmer Hefeweizen is one of the best American Hefeweizens. I find it to be tasty and refreshing. A keg (a half barrel, 15.5 gallons, 58.67 liters) of Widmer Hefeweizen is a semi expensive keg, not as much as Spaten or Guinness but more then a keg of Sierra Nevada. I have noticed that Sierra Nevada is quite a bit cheaper in Chico then it is in Davis. Also most places in Davis only seem to carry Pale Ale and not much else in the terms of a selection of Sierra Nevada kegs.
I am sure some might be interested in my kegerator its self. Here are the specs; the fridge I bought of of craigs list for twenty bucks, the black oil based paint from Lowe's cost more then the fridge. My current set up includes a ten pound CO2 tank with a duel gage duel keg regulator
a CO2 filter and a D system keg coupler (tap) the beer runs via a food grade beer line through a stainless steel shank into a stainless steel faucet. I also have a complete Guinness set up including a forty cubic foot bevgas (Guinness Gas, 75% Nitrogen 25% CO2) tank a U system keg coupler and a stout faucet. This set up allows me to dispense Guinness and other nitrogen beers. I have a second D system Keg coupler and a S system keg coupler (for beers such as Heineken.) To keep tabs on the temp inside my fridge I keep a centigrade thermometer inside of a glass of water. I am sure it is to cold but my fridge stays around one degree Celsius. Ideally the fridge should be at around three degrees Celsius. Here is a picture of the inside of my kegerator. Not the Keg of Widmer Hefeweizen, the keg coupler. The red hose is the CO2 hose, and the clear hose is the beer line. I keep all my cans of Guinness in the bottom of the kegerator.
On the outside of my kegerator I have an assortment of magnets and stickers. Most notably is a French license plate from Provance, note the thirteen.
The CO2 filter is my newest investment in the kegerator. I bought it with the hope that it will protect my beer investment from contamination by stuff in the CO2 gas. The filter is supposed to be good for a year. If anything it looks sharp so I cannot complain.
I really enjoy my kegerator and I feel that the beer inside really brings people together. Most everyone like a good pint of beer and even if you don't I find everyone can apperciate the kegerator, even if they don't drink. I find beer and draft beer dispensing to my incredably interesting and will be undoughtbly interested in them for the forseable future. Making this only the begaining in posts about the kegerator and draft beer dispensing.
In bike news the Peugeot lives. I found someone to remove the bottom bracket and it is being replaced along with new cranks and chain ring. Currently it looks like I will be getting the Peugeot back mid week. I am really looking forward to riding it again, it has been a really long time. I will post pictures of the new cranks and chain ring once I get the bike back.