Bottling home brew is, if you’re making any kind of volume, a lengthy and tedious process. Based purely on the volume of posts on home brew groups on Facebook, I would guess that the most popular alternative way of storing and dispensing home brew has probably got to be the corny keg. There’s way less cleaning and sanitising involved and they are much quicker to fill. Indeed, commercial craft beer generally tends to be served from the keg. I personally prefer cask beer and so I was super excited to see a post a while back where a chap had hooked up a beer engine to something I had never really heard of – bag in a box – to produce what looked very similar to a pint of delicious cask ale.
Naturally, I had to get involved and, after hours of online research I bit the bullet and started spending! This is intended as an overview of my set up which is based purely on my experience so far and what has (and hasn’t!) worked for me as a home brewer.
The Kit
I picked up a reconditioned hand pull from RLBS via their eBay store (I won an auction at just over £100 but I believe you can do Buy it Now). The reconditioned beer engines come with the same 12 month guarantee that the brand new ones do, so you have that peace of mind. The service from RLBS was great, with super fast shipping and the pump was very well packaged.
As standard, the beer engine comes fitted with the Vitop connector, which is what connects your pump to the bag containing your delicious beer. I understand that there are other types of these connectors available, but I haven’t tried them so can’t comment on how successful they are. The Vitop connector simply clips over the tap on the bag (think wine box).
The beauty of the bag in box system, and the thing that really attracted me to it, is the simplicity. No additional valves or pipework are required, you can just connect the bag straight to the pump. As you draw beer from the bag the vacuum that is created collapses the bag and thus prevents any contact with the air. It’s also way faster than bottling!
Seeing as our contact with others is currently restricted, I decided to go with the 5 litre bags. They’re available from a variety of suppliers, but I went with Jigsaw mainly because of the amount of information on their website. With a box (each) they work out at around £3 each delivered (for a pack of 10). Without the box they work out at around £2 each delivered (again, for a pack of 10). My main issue with Jigsaw is their delivery charges – £8.95 seems a bit strong to me – especially if you’re just buying a pack of 10 bags.
Carbonation and Secondary Fermentation
I think this is probably where personal preference comes into play. I am looking to create a pint that has a nice creamy head (I am northern, after all!) and so my approach is to essentially create the cask conditioned feel, but using a bag instead of a cask. To that end, I am not adding any additional priming sugar. I did experiment by filling a bag with bottle conditioned beer, but that was simply too fizzy and the pump just produced pints of foam!
Talking of foam, it’s a good idea to use a hose to fill your bag from the fermenter (a fermenter with a tap is ideal). Push it down to the bottom of the bag and it will reduce the amount of foam created. In turn, this will make it easier to fill the bag with a sensible amount of beer and also to reduce the amount of headspace in the bag.
From a process perspective therefore, I have allowed 3 days following the end of fermentation before packaging. The plan is then to monitor the beer as and when I drink it.
Storage and Shelf Life
Ideally we should be storing at cellar temperature, around 12 degrees Celsius (approx. 54 degrees Fahrenheit). As it’s currently winter I am storing mine in the garage, but that will most likely change once I get around to getting myself a fermentation fridge. In terms of shelf life, Jigsaw Bag in Box Ltd from whom I bought my bags quote a figure of 6 – 8 weeks on an unopened bag, based on some testing they did a few years back. I haven’t managed to get that far just yet, but will update this as and when I do!
Of course, at some stage I will need to bring the bag in from the cold and prepare it for drinking. Again, I think you can make this as simple or as complicated as you like. I have seen some set ups where the bag is stored in a fridge under the bar that the pump is attached to and that would be great but it just doesn’t work in my house! My plan at the moment is to carry it in carefully earlier in the day that I’m planning on using it, trying not to disturb any sediment too much, and then slide a cool pack down the side of the bag.
The last batch of Break Stuff oatmeal stout is the first drinkable beer to be going through the beer engine, so some of this is still slightly up in the air – fingers crossed!
2 replies on “Beer Engines and Bag in a Box”
I am just getting into home brewing so I have a lot to learn. I want to start with a coopers beer kit. After the brewing process has completed about 3 to 4 weeks l want to transfer the beer into a jigsaw beer in a box bag and attach it to a beer engine pump and demand valve. The beer in the box would be in a fridge with a temperature control therometer. I also thought about kegging the beer and connecting it to the beer engine pump and use low psi on the regulator around 2 to 5 psi. Would either of these 2 work?
Hi Robert,
Apologies for the delay, I’ve only just seen this comment whilst doing some updates! Hopefully you have found some success with your setup in the meantime, but those solutions sound just fine. With the bag in box you don’t need a valve, just the vitop connector, as the bag will collapse with the vacuum created as you pull beer out of it. You would need the valve with the keg option, however, as the keg won’t collapse with the change in air pressure.
Cheers!