Hello,
I’m a huge fan of nitrogen-dispensed beers on draft. I haven’t yet stepped up to kegging my home brews. I was wondering if there is any way to enhance the nitrogen creation during bottling to give a stout the head that I’m looking for. I know some cans and bottles of commercial beers have widgets that give a beer that kind of texture, but how about at a home brewery?
Thanks!
The idea behind a nitro pour is that nitro is less readily absorbed into the beer than CO2 is. This allows you to pour under a higher pressure, which essentially decarbonates the beer to some extent. That gives the beer the smooth, creamy mouthfeel and big head. Before Guinness used nitro and a widget, the bottles came with a syringe. You’d suck up some beer and shoot it back into your glass, doing the same decarbonation with the same effect.
Lefthand Brewing figured out how to bottle nitro beer, don’t know how they did it.
No widget.
