How to make it fizzy?

[Doyley3731]

Good evening all. I just took up this great hobby of beer brewing and my first attempt as been quite successful, so far!

I just had a taste out of the plastic pressure barrel I got from Tesco and it is quite nice, the only problem is that it's flat.

Is there a way to give it a bit of life to make it more enjoyable?

It is still a little cloudy, but I guess that will disappear soon.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dunfie]

You are going to struggle to get a "fizzy" beer out of a budget beer barrel. If you have added the priming sugar, ensured its completely sealed and allowed to prime them you should achieve good condition but you won't get the fizz that you can achieve by bottling. So depending on what you are after you might find that your barrel is not ideal.

If the beer is completely flat then I suspect that you don't have a complete seal and the CO2 is escaping.

Yeast should drop out of suspension on its own when its finished doing its stuff but it will require some time to do so. Some yeasts drop out more readily than others so it can be useful to use some finings to assist the process.

 

[Doyley3731]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Yeah I never had any petroleum jelly at the time of siphoning into the pressure barrel, so I used a little cooking oil. I think that moment of laziness may of been my mistake.

I have just been back to Tesco and bought a Co2 injector for the barrel and some fillings. Hopefully they will do the job. I bought some petroleum jelly too :

 

[Doyley3731]

OK I shot in the CO2, then I changed my underpants. That was a little scary. I think all is good though. I'm going to leave it a little before I move it back.

 

[Dunfie]

Good move - best leave it somewhere cool to let it absorb the CO2.

The next question is what are you really after? Do you want your beer to look like a pint of hand pulled cask beer (which you can get close to with a plastic barrel) or are you after something that is actually fizzy? I ask as I was talking to a new brewer a few months ago who had a similar setup to you and wasn't happy with the results but it turned out he was actually wanting something like John Smiths smooth flow. He certainly wasn't going to achieve that with a king keg.

 

[LewisA]

I never even realised tesco sold pressure barrels :O they are not on tesco direct, is your store a special store? or am I just being thick :lol:

 

[Doyley3731]

I don't know if it is just my local Tesco, but they have gradually been getting more and more brewing equipment. It started as just a few bits of starter kits, now they have about half an aisle of equipment. Everything that I've needed so far, they've had!

If the beer is cloudy, I assume it's safe to drink? Is it more of an aesthetic thing?

 

[john_d]

If the beer is cloudy, I assume it's safe to drink? Is it more of an aesthetic thing?

think/hope so as i've downed about 20 bottles of mine already and that was cloudy :hmm:

 

[mtvessel]

I got so fed up with losing pressure from plastic barrel leaking taps,screw tops and also running out of co2 that the best thing i did was ask my local to save me grolsch bottles they are superb (although just under a pint :whistle: ). Yes i rinse them straight away when drained and they take a bit of time to clean but worth it to hear the "pop" on opening a sparkling brew.
I have tried old 2 litre "pet" coke bottles which was not a sucess, currently trying 1.5 and .5 litre while i continue to accumulate more grolsch bottles which give good carbonation.

 

[Doyley3731]

Nice. I had a similar idea of saving Koppaberg bottles I was drinking the other night. I'll use them for my next adventure.

The weekend is coming and my beer be a calling, cloudy or not :-D