Draft cooling system

[LouDawg]

My roommate and I built a bar with a CO2 draft beer system. The last
time we did this we used a gutted out mini fridge to cool a 1/4 keg.
This time I'm wondering if it'd be easier to use copper or stainless
steel coils. I believe the system would be more compact and would save
energy, but now we're wondering if keeping the keg at room temperature
would spoil the beer faster. Any suggestions? For a 1/4 keg, we'd like
to maintain a shelf life of at least a few weeks.

[jesskidden]

> Are most commercial
> beers pasteurized?

"Unpasteurized beer" is pretty much the definition of draught beer in
the US (otherwise, it's nothing other than a really big can of beer), so
most all US brewers keg their beers without pasteurizing and then keep
them refrigerated at all times throughout the distribution chain. Many
imports- due to their long transit time- are "flash-pasteurized" to
prolong their shelf-life (as, reputedly, are some US craft beers). I'm
sure most will say "Keep Refrigerated" on the collar "label" of the keg.
So, if you're buying US "macro" beer (Bud, Miller, Coors) you'll want
it refrigerated at all times.

[jesskidden]

>
> Since kegged beer has a very short shelf life,
> the opportunity for bacteria growth should not
> be an issue, But bacteria growth is a very
> real possibility with bottled and canned beer
> so it gets pasteurized.

Kind of a "chicken-egg" statement, isn't it <g> since the reason draught
beer HAS a short shelf life is *because* it's not pasteurized, and it's
kept refrigerated to keep the whatever yeast that's left after filtering
(and whatever else might have made it in there) dormant.

And, of course, with today's craft beer and many "non-macro" imports,
non-pasteurized, bottle conditioned beers are very easy to come by
these days, so the old US "rule of thumb" of "cans/bottles=pasteurized,
keg=unpasteurized" doesn't work anymore. (And that's not even
considering the "micro-filtered" beers like Coors and the "real draft in
bottle/canned" beers).

[jesskidden]

>
> Micron filtering is the method of choice for both
> beer and wine and filtering is more effective when
> product is cold. But, what does Coors do different,
> if anything, from other brewers? Or is just another
> advertising ploy?

I think it's just a much finer, denser filter (50 feet long by some
accounts) and also necessitated the use of aluminum (instead of steel)
cans and sterile "clean room" environments for the canning lines, which
sounds to me like it probably cost them more than a company would
usually spend on an "advertising ploy". OTOH, there was some cost
savings involved by skipping the heating and re-cooling of the packaged
beer. Now, I've always been curious about what exactly happened that
they dropped the "continuously refrigerated" requirement when they went
national in the 1980's (or was it just distributor/retailer resistance).

> IMRHO, "real draft", like "genuine draft", is just
> another advertising ploy.

Well, yeah, but like many other ploys, it had a basis in fact (filtered
not pasteurized)- now whether the average drinker of industrial light
lagers could tell the difference or if it even made a noticeable
difference is the question.

Pretty sure that "Cold Filtered" is a registered trademark, but don't
know if it's Miller's or the manufacturer of their ceramic
filters/system (which Sapporo had a hand in developing). Other brewers
in Australia and Canada use the term there, so possibly it's not
Miller's. The term gets a lot of flack - "ALL filtering is done cold"-
but it seems they went with the seeming redundancy to juxtapose it
with the equally redundant "heat pasteurization". Why beer drinkers
would take "HOT" over "COLD"?

[Dick Adams]

jesskidden@LYC0S.C0M
> **** Adams wrote:

>> Micron filtering is the method of choice for both
>> beer and wine and filtering is more effective when
>> product is cold. But, what does Coors do different,
>> if anything, from other brewers? Or is just another
>> advertising ploy?

> I think it's just a much finer, denser filter (50 feet
> long by some accounts) and also necessitated the use
> of aluminum (instead of steel) cans and sterile "clean
> room" environments for the canning lines, which sounds
> to me like it probably cost them more than a company
> would usually spend on an "advertising ploy". OTOH,
> there was some cost savings involved by skipping the
> heating and re-cooling of the packaged beer. Now,
> I've always been curious about what exactly happened
> that they dropped the "continuously refrigerated"
> requirement when they went national in the 1980's
> (or was it just distributor/retailer resistance).

It is possible that they ultra-filtered and treated
the beer to the point that bacteria growth is not
possible.

>> IMRHO, "real draft", like "genuine draft", is just
>> another advertising ploy.

> Well, yeah, but like many other ploys, it had a
> basis in fact (filtered not pasteurized) - now
> whether the average drinker of industrial light
> lagers could tell the difference or if it even
> made a noticeable difference is the question.

Excellent point.

****