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I mentioned in my email last week that I purchased one of those Tap-A-Draft kegging systems for carbonating beer and wine coolers and here are some initial thoughts:

1) I like how it fits nicely in my fridge - not quite like a beer tap at the pub but close enough!

2) I’m a little disappointed in the level of carbonation that you get with the system to be perfectly honest. I like a little more “bubbly” in my beer and to me it tastes a little flat.

3) Each bottle contains the equivalent of 15 bottles of beer so I only have a pint once in a while. You need to add a new CO2 cartridge to dispense the beer and one thing I’ve noticed is that if you let the beer sit in the fridge for a few days between pours you lose the pressure and need to add another CO2 cartridge (this makes sense as the CO2 will dissolve into the beer). At $13 per package of 8 or so cartridges it gets pretty expensive as you are constantly putting in new cartridges.

To increase the level of carbonation in your beer you can “prime” the container by adding some sugar (i.e. as you would if carbonating your beer in the bottle), which is what I plan on trying next. Note that you need a special cap for the plastic bottle, which has a one-way valve so that the bottle doesn’t “blow up” if the pressure gets to be too large.

4) I actually did a taste test this evening where I tried the bottled version of the beer against the Tap-A-Draft version and I noticed that the bottled version had much nicer, creamy taste then the Tap-A-Draft, tasted a little more complex and definitely had more “fizz” to it.

(Note that I did enjoy both so perhaps I’m just being overly picky …

Anyhoo, just some quick thoughts for you on how things are going with my new “toy”as I know some of you were asking me what I thought about it. I’ll be blogging more about it in the coming weeks and would be interested in hearing what your comments are especially if you have one.

According to the place I bought it from they can’t seem to keep them in stock as they’re so popular so I’m definitely not the only one who owns one !

So stay tuned for more …

- Scott

Here are some other discussions on the Web about the Tap-A-Draft that I have found:

I spend much of my time degassing my wine, however, one of my readers asked me today how she can add carbonation to her wine so that she can make a sparkling wine.

Here are some quick suggestions that I gave her:

1) Champagne and beer are actually carbonated in the bottle (for champagne it is called “methode champenoise”) so if you wanted to go the natural route so you could add corn sugar to your wine must just before you bottle your wine. This will restart the fermentation thereby naturally carbonating your wine/beer. I make beer in addition to wine and this definitely works.

For example, for a 23 litre batch of beer I would prepare a “primer syrup” by dissolving 3/4 cup of dextrose (corn sugar) in 2 cups of boiling water. Pour the syrup into a primary then rack the beer/wine must into the primary then gently stir the mixture together. You can then rack the must into your bottles and allow 2 weeks carbonation from there. If you want more carbonation add more sugar, add less sugar for less “bubbly”.

2) You can also use a carbonation system such as the Tap-A-Draft that carbonates your wine/beer in the container by adding pressurized CO2 similar to a beer kegging system. I’ve actually seen this one in one of our local wine supply stores and it’s pretty slick. Basically it adds a tap with two carbonation “taps” where you insert a small CO2 cannister (or one CO2 and one Nitrogen cannister if you’d like to have finer bubbles for say a stout style beer). Instead of a metal keg you get an oversized slender plastic bottle (similar to a two litre pop/soda bottle) They are sized to fit nicely in your fridge so that you can easily “tap your keg” and get a drink, while keeping the whole system cold. Typically takes about 5 days from the time you fill your bottle and add the carbonation tap to fully carbonate your beer/wine or wine cooler.

It’s a cool system but isn’t cheap. Expect to spend $50+ on the tap and then another $20+ per bottle.

You can go to http://www.sturmanbg.com/products/beverage_dispenser.asp to learn more.

If you have a different sneaky trick to carbonate your wine, beer or wine cooler please do let me know!

Scott “The WineMaking Guy”

P.S. Here’s an interesting article from WineMaker Magazine that goes into greater detail on how to make sparkling wine that is worth reading if you’re interested in learning more:

www.winemakermag.com/departments/288.html