Tecnological cap barrel 225 litres hole barrique

Advanced cap for barrels/kegs with a 48/50mm barrique hole for the thermal management of the maturation, pressure/depression control and regulation, ventilation, blow-off and tapping.

> Control and thermal regulation

> Control and adjustment of pressure or depression

> Racking from barrel to barrel without oxidation

> Solera horizontal or vertical

> Vent overpressure

> Blow-off for fermentations

> Use the barrel for dispensing without the entry of oxygen

You want to delight your friends during a party or during an homebrewer event without ruining the beer?. No problem. Put the barrel under positive pressure through a co2 cylinder connected to the jolly and stapled easily. Since the barrel is under positive pressure, the oxygen does not enter

The article cap technology in this full version is then formed from the various items

Cap with cooler

Breather hose

Pressure vacuum gauge with jolly male for gas CO2

Probe NTC10k beta 3435 lenght 60 cm

Pipe blow-off + cap + stainless steel wrap around

A tube of copper paste

Managing beers inside kegs (fermentation and elevation) is common practice nowadays and no longer concerns typical-brewing regions (such as center Europe) but has now spread all over the world.

Working with wood, a living material, requires experience.

Checking the key aspects of the making process makes the difference on the final product.

The “advanced” cap is equipped with a series of systems that allows you to manage the most critical aspects of the beer transfer in a wooden barrel/keg.

Problem: Thermal management of the barrel

One of the most critical aspect when you work with beers in kegs is certainly the temperature.

High temperatures, especially during summertime, cause the formation of acetic acid in the beer.

Air-conditioning in the cellar is the most used practice, but have some drawbacks too. The humidity drops and the air dries up, so the evaporation in the barrel is higher (and adds to the normal evaporation due to the ideal air conditions – the ideal percentage is 75%)

The evaporation lowers the beer level and this obviously leads to product loss and the risk of ending up with an acid beer is more likely (especially with sour ale).

If there is more than one keg in the cellar you can’t define a specific temperature per barrel.

While you would need to raise the temperature of a specific barrel, to promote the production of lactic acid or converting malic acid into lactic acid after adding fruit for example, you would also need to keep the temperature low to block the bacteria and yeasts activities or promoting the yeasts’ one versus the bacteria’s one (microbiological competition)

Nevertheless, there are no doubts the electric bill, especially during summer, will go through the roof if you use cooling systems.

Solution

Thanks to the cooler (heart of the advanced cap) you can manage the temperature in the keg/barrel without needing air-conditioning, avoiding the risk of drying up the air and promoting liquid loss. The level in the barrel will never lower since the humidity won’t be affected by the air-conditioning.

A transversely-mounted probe can be fitted to the cap and placed far from the refrigerator, connected to a thermostat and a cold-water system or water and glycol (not provided) to control the temperature after setting it.

Problem: collecting a sample to taste

To collect a beer sample to test/taste it, you open the faucet.

Beers that remain in kegs for a  long time and undergo cold winters can experience a phenomenon of depression. By opening the faucet the depression does not permit the beer to come out until the internal pressure won’t be equal to the external one. So the beer won’t come out but the oxygen will go in.

You will hear the beer boil/mumble, indicating the entrance of oxygen (sometimes a great quantity).

Nothing changes if you open the upper cap before the faucet. The oxygen will go in anyway and since the bunghole is large, it will also go in fast.

There’s a risk of ruining months of work just to taste it.

Solution

Thanks to the pressure indicator you can see the pressure level inside the keg.

Thanks to a CO2 can (not provided) connected to the jolly joint, you can raise the pressure inside and then open the faucet. The beer will come out immediately thanks to the internal pressure (higher than the external) and you won’t have problems with oxygen too.

With a positive pressure you can also make it vent every now and then, to eliminate oxygen (especially if the fermentation occurs in the barrel, see below).

Problem: Primary fermentation inside the barrel (rough phase)

Solution

Thanks to this advanced cap you can check the fermentation temperature, adjust it with the cooler and do the blow-off through the front tube to empty the CO2 and krausen. When the blow-off is no longer needed, you just need to put the silicone cap (FDA certificated) back on and tighten it with the specific stainless clamp. The system will become completely airtight again without the need to disassemble anything.

Problem: Refilling a keg when the level is low

The refilling process requires to add beer through the faucet, if possible. You obviously need to know if the barrel is pressurized or not and act accordingly. As in the sample collection case, you introduce oxygen (in addition to the one already in).

Where a fermentation biofilm is present (with bacteria and wild yeasts), a bad refill can compromise the biofilm.

Solution

To avoid the problem, pressurize the barrel with the CO2 can (not included) connected to the jolly joint, insert the tube that comes from the fermenter with new beer inside to the faucet of the keg (the tube needs to be filled with beer in advance) – open the vent and bring the pressure down to zero by reading the mano-vacuometer and open the faucet. At this point the beer will start flowing from the fermenter to the keg thanks to the open vent, eliminating the CO2 previously added. When the beer starts flowing from the vent, close the faucet and then the vent hole, to be sure the barrel is full. Even here, the beer won’t come into contact with oxygen and the use of CO2 actually insufflate the latter and forces the oxygen to exit in the first phases of filling.

Note: If the beer that refills the keg is loaded with sugars and dextrins the fermentation will restart, unless you chemically blocked it. So be sure to leave the blow-off opened if the pressure starts to raise.

Professional implementations

For breweries that use keg-related programs, the system helps to manage the problems written above and allows the lagering process without using ripeners or tanks, everything inside the barrel.

By working in a pressurized environment, you can transfer the beer from the barrel straight to the keg after the lagering process without ending up with oxidations; The same result can be obtained by counter-pressurizing the tank.

Other features

Thanks to the use of this new cap you can set the pressure and safely do solera and horizontal solera between nearby barrels.

You can also saturate and pour from the keg. Thanks to the CO2 can you can raise the pressure to positive and easily pour the beer to taste it, knowing oxygen won’t enter.

Thanks to the mano-vacuometer, the venting of the barrel is possible in case of dangerous pressure levels.

The FDA-certificated silicone cap is soft enough to expand, perfectly stick to the hole (even if it’s irregular) and keep everything perfectly airtight sealed after tightening the closing screw.

All the parts made of stainless steel are pickled, electropolished and passivated, so they are perfectly suitable for acid environments.

The only non-stainless steel part is the closing screw that doesn’t come into contact with beer anyway. That’s because the cap needs to be tightened hard and if both the nut and the screw were made of stainless steel, there would have been a high risk of seizure between the two. When the stainless steel seizes there’s no way to free it, that’s why we chose to use a galvanized-steel screw that we recommend to cover anyway with some copper paste (included). Just a bit so you won’t get everything dirty, but to make sure the screw won’t get stuck.