Beer Storage

[RobinB]

How long can I keep grain beer in a plastic barrel ? Is grain beer ok in a plastic barrel?

 

[Clint]

Providing it's air tight and carbed..months.

 

[RobinB]

People tell me that grain beers dont keep very well in plastic barrels ??

 

[Clint]

They don't last long in mine....

 

[rank_frank]

Clint's right, providing it's air tight, pressurised and you were careful about not introducing oxygen beer will keep for months in a plastic barrel. It's just that a lot of people aren't careful about keeping oxygen away from the beer and a lot of plastic barrels will lose pressure over time due to poor seals.

 

[dandy]

Can anyone advise if a pressure barrel will work ok to store an IPA or will there not be enough fizz to it? Read somewhere that barrels are better to be used for a low carbonation beer. Don't want to spend a month brewing an IPA and f**k it up by putting it in a barrel. The barrel I have is the basic Youngs 23L one.

 

[marshbrewer]

British style IPA? Fine. American / contemporary / more carbonated styles? Probably not. I mean, they'll be fine, but won't be carbonated to the level they would be in a keg.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Can anyone advise if a pressure barrel will work ok to store an IPA or will there not be enough fizz to it? Read somewhere that barrels are better to be used for a low carbonation beer. Don't want to spend a month brewing an IPA and f**k it up by putting it in a barrel. The barrel I have is the basic Youngs 23L one.

Hi Dandy, I have a youngs pb with a s30 valve which I have never used, so far I have put mainly bitters and mild init and a couple of kit lagers which have all been fine, I would say for an American ipa you would not get the carbonation levels for that style and would be better off with a corny keg or bottle it, also I have had to replace the seal on mine the top one inside the lid

 

[terrym]

@dandy
If you prime 20 litres of beer with about 95g of sugar (the max I would recommend to ensure you don't overpressurise the barrel) the result is up to 2 vols of CO2 which is about right for British style ales. However as you draw beer off, unless you continually top up with CO2, the CO2 in the beer will gradually fall as it moves into the gas space until you have to top it up before it eventually becomes flat/you can't get any more beer out of the PB without air gurgling back. And further as you draw off beer through the tap CO2 will come out of solution (venturi effect?) and won't get re-absorbed. So from a fresh batch you get a nice head on the beer, but not a lot of fizz in it.
So my advice is to bottle your IPA beer and save your PB for a bitter, mild, or a stout.

 

[Clint]

I've recently had a go at a third full pb of a muntons Belgian kit brewed some time in 2017. It needed a co2 boost but is super clear and tastes fine.

 

[dandy]

Thanks lads. Do any of you know of a decent Guinness or Caffreys style kit that is worth brewing? Presumably this would work OK in the PB?

 

[Keats]

@dandy the Coopers Irish stout gets good reviews

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/coopers-irish-stout-review.17818/