Don't Shut The Beer Gas Off
Set it and forget it
There are many misconceptions about draught beer.
One common misconception I hear frequently is that you need to shut the beer gas off at the end of each night.
I read this recently in a beer magazine targeting licensees. Ironically, the article was about draught quality and profitability.
The only time you should shut the gas off at the end of the night is if you know that you have a leak in your gas line somewhere.
Typically, if this is the case, you would have/should have called your draught service tech to come in and fix it and they should have done so.
However, for the other 99.99% of the time, it stays on.
Here are the reasons why:
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If the morning manager/bartender forgets to turn it on, your beer will pour too slow and foamy as the pressure will reduce. This increases spillage.
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If you are using a beer gas blender or a blender generator, shutting off the cylinders messes with the balance of the blend. Your blender needs a constant supply of a minimum of 70 pounds of gas.
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Alternatively to # 2 above, if you shut the regulators off instead, the switches on the regs are not designed to be turned on and off daily, so they eventually break.
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You need to keep constant pressure on the beer in the keg. Shutting off the gas supply causes the beer to de-gas. You can tell when you go into the beer fridge in the morning and the FOBs are no longer filled with beer. The beer that dries on the inside of the FOB quickly turns into a nice home for beer stone. Note: dropped FOBs could also be a sign of tapping a warm keg, staff not filling them up completely, or your regulators are faulty.
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And the biggest argument for shutting off the gas is that the beer in the lines will become over-carbonated. Um...that's just wrong. If this was the case then the kegs would get over carbonated during the 15 hours that they are tapped each day.
If they do become over-carbonated, then that's just a poorly designed system and you have bigger problems.
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Shutting the beer gas off each night is a waste of time and money.
We have a little saying about beer gas that goes like this..."Set it and forget it".
Problems happen when people who think they are experts start messing around with the gas system.
So my friends, there is no reason why you should be shutting off your beer gas every night. If you disagree, please feel free to email or call to discuss.
Cheers!
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