Suitable for plastic barrel?

[samthor.]

OK, ive just finished my first 2 brews as a beginner, my first was a coopers dark ale wich turned out beautifully but it had not much of a head once poured from the barrel. I then brewed a German weiss that had also poured flat so my question today is can anyone recommend a good cheap brew kit thats not too bitter that I can use a basic pressure barrel with and get abit head at all? I've also got a turbo cider just about to finish, should I bottle or barrel it? As a lady, I do like some fiss in my cider so ive saved up some 2.5 litre pet bottles and im not sure how much sugar I need to prime these big bottles?

 

[Rodcx500z]

Firstly only use pet bottles that have had fizzy drinks in them. there are calculators online for carbonation levels, to answer your pressure barrel ? use the search function on here there is a massive thread on them and there pitfalls

 

[samthor.]

Firstly only use pet bottles that have had fizzy drinks in them. there are calculators online for carbonation levels, to answer your pressure barrel ? use the search function on here there is a massive thread on them and there pitfalls

The bottles are ex cider plastic ones but they are 2.5 litres, the barrel is the usual 40 pints.

 

[jof]

I usually bottle into glass bottles, but have had some success using 1l plastic tonic water bottles from the supermarket.

I use 5g/l for my preferred light carbonation, so if you like your cider fizzy, I would double that.

If this is your first cider, taste when you go to bottle it, you may want to add some sweetener, as homebrew cider can come out quite sharp.

As for head on your beer, I think it's quite difficult to get right.
It seems to be a combination of many things including carbonation level, temperature, how clean the glass is. You can even get glasses that are etched inside on the base to help bubble formation. (An example is some branded pub glasses that have the brand logo on the bottom of the glass - usually fancy lager glasses)

 

[Buffers brewery]

You didn’t say if you primed your pressure barrel? As a plastic barrel user I prime a 5 gallon batch with 115 gm of sugar dissolved in 300 ml of water. Leave for 2 weeks to carbonate and provided you don’t have a leak you should achieve a pressure between 10-15 psi, should be enough to give a bit of fizz. As @Rodcx500z says, there’s a great thread in the “How to” section.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/pressure-barrels-more-than-you-wanted-to-know.89344/

 

[samthor.]

You didn’t say if you primed your pressure barrel? As a plastic barrel user I prime a 5 gallon batch with 115 gm of sugar dissolved in 300 ml of water. Leave for 2 weeks to carbonate and provided you don’t have a leak you should achieve a pressure between 10-15 psi, should be enough to give a bit of fizz. As @Rodcx500z says, there’s a great thread in the “How to” section.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/pressure-barrels-more-than-you-wanted-to-know.89344/

I think I might have gone abit wrong, the kit came with a pk of dextrose pre measured wich I added to the barrel after I added the beer but I didnt dissolve it in any water, when I went to pour it 2 weeks later nothing would come out until opened the top just a touch

 

[jof]

Even if you just tipped it in the barrel it should have dissolved in time & been fermented.

So if there was no pressure in the barrel, we have to trouble shoot, so here is some suggestions.

Pressure barrel has a slow leak?
Did yeast get killed off (eg by no rinse steriliser or forgetting to rinse barrel before transferring)?
Was everything too cold, so yeast didn't get a chance to dissolve that dextrose?

Get one of your empty cider bottles & sterilise it.
Rinse, add 1 teaspoon of normal sugar per litre to the bottle.
Fill bottle from the pressure barrel, put lid on & leave at room temperature for at least a week.
Then if you squeeze the bottle it should be hard from the co2 pressure.
In which case you probably have a leak in the pressure barrel.

 

[damienair]

Have a look at getting some glass 500ml bottles. It is a great way to store beer and cider. Every bottle has the same level of carbonation and you can also build up many batches and have different beers stored. I’ve only been brewing for 3 years but I’ve built up a collection of bottles over those years. A little bit more work on bottling day but it is easier I think in the long term.
Hope you get your issues sorted out. I batch prime 23 litres of beer and cider generally with 120g of brewing sugar mixed with 400ml of hot water to dissolve the sugar. And then I bottle.