Pressure Barrel Cap

[Rawshark]

Hi all, first time brewer.

I’ve transferred my American Pale Ale brew into the pressure barrel (from a Youngs Micro Brewery kit) for the secondary fermentation, and so far so good.

As a complete noob I put the wrong cap on the barrel at first. (The one with just the pressure valve, not the CO2 fitting). I realised my mistake about 8-10 hours later and swapped them over. As you’d expect I lost all the gas that had been building in that time.

I know I’ve got another few weeks of fermenting to go, but will losing that initial gas be an issue? Wondering if my rookie error is going g to result in a batch of flat beer.

Thanks

 

[MashBag]

If you have gas, you could gas it.
If no a couple of spoons of sugar, would get you some more, with very little impact on the beer.

What's the volume?

 

[Rawshark]

Thanks. There’s probably a shade under 40 pints in there. I can put a shot of Co2 in there but that’s more for when the barrel is half empty and needs more pressure. Wouldn’t adding more sugar just let more gas out?

I’m hoping I’m worried about nothing - more gas will be created over the next two weeks of secondary fermentation, right?

 

[jof]

If you lost 8 hours of gas & it's got days of fermenting left, then don't worry.
At worse you might need to deploy your CO2 cartridge a couple of pints sooner

 

[AndrewJB]

I personally would have left the vent cap on the pressure barrel, as I discovered that there usually is enough gas produced through the secondary fermentation with the sugar to dispense the entire 40 pints.

When I first used my Youngs Microbrewery set 8 years ago, I used the CO2 cap and discovered I had to inject gas every so often as the clear seals didn’t hold the pressure as effectively as the white seal on the vent cap.