Nitro brews

[GoBlue59]

So I'm currently "nitrogenating" a stout in my kegerator. But overall, from my understanding, the nitrogen is barely being absorbed... If at all. My tank gas is 70/30, and I turned up the regulator to compensate for the lack of CO2. But... That tells me I'm just normal carbonating? And then I merely push the beer out of the special tap handle using beer gas.

Couldn't I just normally carbonate with a CO2 tank, and then use the nitro tank to push out? Would save me on refills for the nitro tank, and the science seems to work out... But it feels like cheating.

[hd4mark]

Nitrogen is not very soluble in beer so normally carbonating with CO2 then using your nitrogen mix gas to serve is really the best way to do it. It's not cheating, it's the smart way to do it.

It will also help using a restrictor plate in the tap to knock out the nitro bubbles. Most stout faucets have them. It's just a little disk with a bunch of pin holes is it,

[GoBlue59]

Thanks, I have the tap handle with the restrictor already. My LHBS guy told me to just turn on the nitro gas but 4x the normal pressure so that I got the same amount of CO2. It didn't dawn on me until halfway through the process that I could just have hooked up to normal CO2, then used the nitro to push. I will see how it turns out, I can always go back and do it that way if need be

[brew_cat]

Mark is right that is how breweries do it. Beer gas has just enough CO2 to keep it in solution. Straight nitrogen is for wine

[dannyboy58]

Mark and Cat are both correct. Your LHBS guy is misinformed or does he sell you the nitro? Put it on CO2 to carb then switch to nitro to serve.

[loopie_beer]

Yes the others have it correct. Low carbonation, around 2.0-2.2 volumes. Then beer gas to keep it carbonated and nitro to push it out.

[GoBlue59]

Haha well no the LHBS guy doesn't sell any gas, just empty cannisters if needed. He must have just been mistaken. I knew nitrogen didn't dissolve well, hence why it made sense to crank the regulator up to ~4x the psi, to make sure the same amount of CO2 was in there.

Then I realized I had a bad connection and was leaking a little from my nitro tank, and when I fixed that, it dawned on me that if I'm putting the same amount of CO2 in there and negligible amounts of N2 were making it into the liquid... then what the hell was happening here? Haha

I tried a little last night and it was still under carbed, so I took it off the nitro tank and connected to my normal CO2 tank. Will let you guys know how it goes

That begs the question... If I'm only using the nitro tank to push the beer out... That tank is gonna last a while, huh?

[brew_cat]

It should