No sign of carbonation in pressure barrel after 2 weeks

[TheGrumble]

Hi all,

I have had 23 litres of Woodforde's Wherry priming in a Wilko pressure barrel for nearly two weeks now, after 10 days in the fermenter, so it's about three weeks old in total. This is my third ever brew, first in the barrel, and although I know it's still very green, I've tried my previous two brews from the bottle at this point (you know, for science) and though they were cloudy, they both had reasonable carbonation after two week priming. However, I drew off a sample of the Wherry last night and, although there were a few bubbles on the surface, there was nothing resembling a head, and it felt pretty flat in the mouth.

I have brewed the Wherry for consumption at a Halloween party on the 26th so I'm hoping there may be a way to turn this around before then! I'm thinking I have three options:

1. Leave it and hope it turns around in the next couple of weeks
2. Remove the seal, re-prime with the same amount of sugar (I used 90g originally), close up again and hope for the best
3. Syphon it into bottles with 1/2tsp sugar each and hope for the best

Any advice to help save my brew (if, indeed, it needs saving, and I'm not just being impatient) would be much appreciated!

 

[RobWalker]

I'd guess you either have a leak - check the O ring on your cap - or you need to reprime and leave it in the warm for at least a week...

 

[knthrak1982]

Given it's your first attempt with the barrel and your previous bottled beers have been successful, my money is on it being a seal issue, which it certainly was my first keg. If it's leaking from the tap, you'd know it (it's a bottom tap keg, right?), so I'd suggest checking the seal on the cap, apply vaseline to thread and o ring, reprime if you think necessary.
Your bottle solution would work too I suppose. In either case you should probably get carbonation in a few days.

 

[TheGrumble]

Oh, that's encouraging. I'd read that there would still need to be a certain amount of fermentation going on at this point for re-priming to be effective, so hopefully there's still some yeasties at work in the pressure barrel.

I think I'm going to go with the bottle method to be on the safe side, I am more confident having had some success with bottles and I can't afford any more time for trial and error with the barrel!

 

[hairybiker]

Make sure that you didn't over tighten the top, or under tighten it.
If you over tighten then the "o" ring gets distorted if you under tighten then gas escapes, catch 22 really.
It needs the "o" ring "greased" with a small amount of Vaseline and then tightened to just over hand tight, don't really screw it down.

I barrel all the time as I can't be a***d with bottling and cleaning of them.

 

[TheGrumble]

I think I must have over tightened it - when removed, it was all distorted, and when I tried re-tightening it again after straightening it, it distorted again. I didn't realise it was possible to over-tightened... would have assumed the tighter the better! Might try again sometime and stop twisting before this happens!

Anyway they're bottled up now with a bit more brewers sugar added per bottle, and there seems to be some action in there, so lets hope for the best!

 

[jondread]

Good luck :) I don't think the Wilko pressure barrel screw-on lids are that good really. You ideally need one with a valve on it and not that little rubber ring on the top. I was having the same problem with my first brew and a Wilko barrel, but I bought one of the ones from their store with the valve on and co2'd it back up to compensate for all the co2 I lost. Beer tasted fine in the end, although the natural co2 did taste better than the stuff in the canisters.

 

[hairybiker]

Good luck :) Beer tasted fine in the end, although the natural co2 did taste better than the stuff in the canisters.

How could you tell, the gas injected is only to allow beer to flow not to carbonate the beer.

If the "o" ring is distorted when loose then you will need a new one, it will not ever seal after being distorted that far.

 

[TheGrumble]

Well, I'm happy to report that the beer when down a treat amongst the guests at the party last night. It's still not quite as carbonated as I would have liked but it's a hell of a lot better than it was before I bottled it. Considering just how much went wrong during the brewing of this beer (lots of air added during transfer into the original keg, and then again while syphoning into the bottles, plus the two weeks it sat the keg failing to carbonate in the keg), I'm quite pleased - and relieved - to find it's turned out pretty ok. Looking forward to doing another Wherry sometime and getting it all right from the start to see if that makes it even better.