Can I still bottle?

[-Bezza-]

After a load of faff with my American oaked rum ale kit, turns out the pressure barrel leaks and so it's not holding any carbonation. It's been conditioning about 4-5 weeks now.

Can I still get it into bottles? If so, what process would you suggest?

I was thinking a gentle transfer using a bottling wand so no oxygen is introduced then make up a batch of sugar syrup, put a small amount of hydrated yeast in the sugar syrup then divide across the beer bottles. Seal, prime at room temp then condition again

 

[Fil]

Yes go for it, the priming charge you added in the PB will have evacuated any remaining air through its seal breach so the beer is fine just unconditioned.

personally i would simply dose each bottle with white sugar before filling,imho there will be no need for yeast even in the clearest of homebrew there are sufficient yeast to recondition. but just to be on the safe side i would give em a good 2 weeks in the warm (18c+) before cracking a sample.

 

[Zephyr259]

Fil is most likely correct but I'd still add a small does of yeast to make sure cause I'm like that. I'd also go for your bulk priming but that's really down to preference.

 

[Cwrw666]

I've had this exact same thing happen to me - had a brew in a PB, no pressure after a few weeks so reprimed - no pressure after a few weeks, reprimed again. And all that again, thinking it was the cap seal leaking. In the end I bottled it, just draining it into a jug and filling via a funnel, half a teaspoonful of sugar per bottle. The beer was fine. No need for yeast. The PB wasn't though - tiny crack in the top of the barrel. At least it was above the beer level so I didn't lose any beer but I suppose if it had been dripping beer I'd have known the PB was bust way sooner.

 

[-Bezza-]

Thanks for the replies. Swapped the cap over on the pb and gave it a shot of co2 and could immediately tell that this cap is doing better. Will still bottle though as I've realised how much easier bottles are for sharing beer around. Guess I won't bother with the extra yeast.

 

[jeg3]

I've done this before, I allowed it to carbonate for a few days and then cracked one open. It had conditioned in the keg for a few weeks so it tasted great after a few days in the bottle. A couple of weeks should do a proper job tho.

If you want to get a bit of yeast in, I would just agitate the yeast in the bottom of the keg back into the beer before you bottle it