Draught Is My Craft: Troubleshooting Life from the Draught Technicians Perspective

     I have been asking the same question of beverage gas providers, for more than 10 years. I am still struggling to get a concrete answer.  The question is"How do you ensure that the Nitrogen and CO2 in a Mixed Gas Cylinder, dispense in the proper mix, when these Gasses behave so differently?"  The answers I have received, over the years, have varied widely, and inevitably, when I challenge them, or request demonstrated proof, I am ghosted....every time.        Before I delve too deeply into this Fucking Quagmire of an issue: If you are not a Draught/Draft Beer Pro, or are relatively new to Beer, you should read  INTRO TO BEER CARBONATION   before proceeding with this article. You might be able to follow most of it, without reading the article, but knowing why people wish to use beer gas, is pretty crucial. The short answer is, sometimes you need to augment pressure, but if you use pure CO2, it causes both quality and pourin...

   I get a lot of confused calls from my customers, and from end users, asking me what the reading on the tank pressure gauge is actually telling them. Well, hopefully it's telling them a  truth. Unfortunately, like a lot of truths, it may not be the truth that they are hoping to hear.    What your gauge is telling you depends on the type of gauge, and what it is reporting on. The first question is, what sort of gas is in the tank? The second question is, what gauge are you looking at?  3rd, what does the gauge measure, and in what units?    The gases we most commonly interact with, as it pertains to beverage dispense, are carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2). Sometimes, we might be dealing with beer gas, AKA Aligal , AKA G-gas, these are simply Trade and Trademark names for specific Blends of CO2 and N2, which may or may not be the best choice for your beer system, but are often a "better" choice. I will tackle that one in a different blog, aft...