Squeezing an extra Firkin on a Caskerator

Maverick Marketplace Cafe is hosting a special cask event. They typically serve a single firkin vertically in a caskerator. For this event, they wanted to serve a second firkin. As is typical, the space behind the bar is very tight on space. Where to put it?

There is no place to do the second vertical in a bucket as seen in the eXtreme Beer Festival setup. We were able to clear the little bit of surface area on the top of the caskerator. There looks like just about enough to place the firkin horizontally and direct the tap between the caskerator and the bar cooler adjacent.

Placing wooden chocks on a polished metal surface is a recipe for slippage, so while not seen in this picture, the final placement will use plastic anti-slip mat between the chocks and the top of the caskerator. The copper saddle placed on top of the firkin is a clue as to how it’s going to be cooled over the several days it is staged for venting and service.

Next to the mounted beer engine is a bar cooler for doing the typical bar activity stuff. It contains a bucket of ice, various mixers, and assorted sundry. The bottom of this area is pretty empty. This is where we’re going to stage a bucket of water to circulate as coolant. Being in a cooler, there’s no need to keep replenishing ice. Bonus!

Doing the recirculating is our handy Pondmaster Series 3 pond pump. It’s typically moving cooling water through a series of manifolds, hence the larger CPC quick connects. The copper saddle uses the smaller PLC quick connects. Easily solved with a couple of adapters! These are usually used when stretching the manifold to serve six vessels instead of five.

The tubing and electrical cord will run tight to the front of the bar cooler so that the sliding door can be kept mostly closed. They’ll then snake their way under the beer engine and connect to the saddle just off the left side.

Rounding out the service demands are the usual bits and a gravity tap. The strategy is to position the firkin at close of business on Thursday, vent first thing on Friday after an overnight acclimating to the chilling capacity of the cooling system and recovering from the violence of being muscled into position.

When it comes time to actually serve the beer, the drip tray on the handpump will be removed. This will allow the beer to be tapped. Service from the beer engine is per usual, albiet with a slight right cant to avoid where the tap will be. The gravity tap will dispense into the gap between the caskerator and the bar cooler. A narrow drip tray balanced on top of the CO2 tank will catch any spillage from both the beer engine and the gravity tap.

And there you have it, cask ale appears in tight quarters, temperate controlled, given time to settle and develop, and done right!

Cheers!