Anatomy of a Cask - Timothy Taylor's Cask Care

Before we start the process of getting our beer open and ready to serve, let’s have a quick reminder of the elements of a cask and the equipment and tools we will be using to make this beer perfect. On the top we have a couple of important things. Firstly, our brewer’s label. This tells you what beer it is, detail about the batch it came from, its best before date (remember just like any other food product, you always need to serve this beer within its best before date for the best possible quality), and additional instructions. We also have the keystone which, once cleaned using a scrubbing brush, is where you will use a rubber mallet to drive in a clean tap to extract the beer. In the middle of the cask, we have what is known as a shive. This is a plastic bung, usually with a separate centre called a tut. This again is cleaned with a scrubbing brush before you then knock it into the cask allowing the release of excess gas, in a process we call venting. At Taylor’s we have our own shive that is one piece rather than having a separate tut. We do this to remove a potential quality risk as there could be contamination between the shive and the tut. It also means there is no chance of the cask leaking via the tut during transportation or storage. Find out more and download your free cask care brochure from our website here: https://www.timothytaylor.co.uk/cask-... Or view all our cask care videos here:    • Timothy Taylor's Cask Care - Looking After...