No carbonation in my lager

[Cobra427v8]

Hi all, had a lot of success making wine from kits and from scratch for the Mrs, thought I'd treat myself and make a lager kit. Problem I got is there is no carbonation in the lager. Now I've left the lager ferment out until the hydrometer was reading the same for a period of more than 2 days, temperature was around 17 degrees which I know is a bit low but it did ferment out but took atleast 2 weeks. I then set about primary fermentation, for this I calculated approx 180g of sugar to put in my 40 pint pressure barrel. Been in there over a week and when I sampled it there was very little fizz. I read about the seals not being ideal on the barrel so decided to decant from barrel into glass bottles with screw lids. Due to there being hardly any fizz in the lager I added an additional 5g of sugar in each litre bottle. Screwed cap on tight and left for few days. Sampled lager and it was flat as a pancake. At my wits end as I don't know where I have gone wrong and I don't particularly want to waste 40 pints of lager. Thought about putting it back in barrel and change the standard 2" pressure cap with the co2 injector type and use the bullets to car the lager, will this work.

Please help.

Darren

 

[xdaver]

I once put a lager into a pressure barrel I'd been given and found that leaked from the tap seal as the pressure built up (I'd used about 200g of priming suger) I ended up putting it in pop bottles and repriming with a spoon of suger per 500ml. kept it in the warm for two weeks (in a box by the radiator) and it fizzed up great.
I used pop bottles so I could give them a squeeze and check it was working, there was no way I was feeding the drain with 40pts.

 

[Scaff]

Give it time,

None of my beer brews have been fizzy in the early times, I put thus down to using carbonation drops, as it was 2 drops for 750mm bottle and 1 for 330 bottle........... I'm using 500ml bottles and only put 1 carbonation drop in. It was flat as Wayne Rodney's head to start with, but now some 3-4weeks later it's gassing when you open them. Not much in the way of head (insert your own joke here) but hey ho I've used sugar in my kegs and Vaseline on the seals and use sugar (1 teaspoon) in the bottles from now on.


Scaff

 

[Cobra427v8]

Thanks for the replies guys, i have bitten the bullet and decided to empty the bottles back into the barrel and I have purchased the 2" and injected 1 bottle of co2 into the barrel. I am hoping this will do the trick. So where is the best place to store the barrel, in a relatively cool room or a warm room next to a radiator.

Cheers again guys.

 

[baggybill]

hmmm...

That CO2 injected won't force carb the lager. Plastic barrels are only good for about 10psi (afaik) and you need a much better set-up to do this. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but they're for maintaining serving pressure and keeping out the air/oxygen.

Still... all is not lost...

It sounds like there's enough priming sugar in there now. What I'd do is (as you planned) move it somewhere real warm for at least couple of weeks i.e. room with a radiator in it. But... I would fill a 500ml PET bottle (old fizzy spring water bottle suitably sanitised) and sit this side by side with your keg.

Reason being, as mentioned above, you can squeeze this weekly to 'feel' how the carbonation inside your keg is going. Save disturbing the keg again.

Goes without saying really but if the bottle carbs up and the keg still doesn't, then looks like the keg has an air leak.

Fingers crossed and be patient :smile:

 

[Cobra427v8]

Thanks baggybill, I have moved the barrel back upstairs in a bedroom and about 3.hours ago i filled a 2 litre pop bottle and put it by a radiator, the bottle has already pressurised, dont mean to sound dull bit what exactly is happening now, does it mean it's actually going through secondary fermentation now.

Cheers again.