Ask The Brewmasters

Hello forum friends. I'll try to be brief while still giving as much background on our process as I can. We have operated a 10bbl brewhouse for 10 years and a 20bbl brewhouse for 6.5 years.  We have always kegged our beers, off either a brite tank in the cooler or off a carbed unitank, with the same blend (70/30) that we push our long-draw draught systems.  We have the same nitrogen generator (NitroDraught 1200) at each location.  There has seemingly never been an issue with adequate nitrogen production at the 10bbl facility. However, at the 20bbl facility we have seen issues 3 times over the past 6 months or so where there isn't enough nitrogen produced to keep up with both kegging and pushing beer. Upon talking with our gas company rep, I was informed that the generators we have are not designed to do anything other than push beer. Ok, so we must be under the production threshold limit of the generator at the 10bbl facility, but perhaps just over that threshold, on occasion, at the 20bbl house. 

My question is this, am I the only one who pushes with a blend when kegging? My concern with switching to pushing with 100% CO2 when kegging is over carbing the beer because we often keg off only part of the vessel at a time.  If I leave a unitank with an excess of 100% CO2 in the headspace then surely the beer will exceed the desired carb level. 

What am I missing? Or simply overlooking something obvious? Hoping someone can give me a lightbulb moment here!

Cheers,

Randy

Hello forum friends. I'll try to be brief while still giving as much background on our process as I can. We have operated a 10bbl brewhouse for 10 years and a 20bbl brewhouse for 6.5 years.  We have always kegged our beers, off either a brite tank in the cooler or off a carbed unitank, with the same blend (70/30) that we push our long-draw draught systems.  We have the same nitrogen generator (NitroDraught 1200) at each location.  There has seemingly never been an issue with adequate nitrogen production at the 10bbl facility. However, at the 20bbl facility we have seen issues 3 times over the past 6 months or so where there isn't enough nitrogen produced to keep up with both kegging and pushing beer. Upon talking with our gas company rep, I was informed that the generators we have are not designed to do anything other than push beer. Ok, so we must be under the production threshold limit of the generator at the 10bbl facility, but perhaps just over that threshold, on occasion, at the 20bbl house. 

My question is this, am I the only one who pushes with a blend when kegging? My concern with switching to pushing with 100% CO2 when kegging is over carbing the beer because we often keg off only part of the vessel at a time.  If I leave a unitank with an excess of 100% CO2 in the headspace then surely the beer will exceed the desired carb level. 

What am I missing? Or simply overlooking something obvious? Hoping someone can give me a lightbulb moment here!

Cheers,

Randy