Wilko Pressure barrel

dozgladman · Jun 24, 2013

Hi Guys,

After a bit of advice please .I have just made a Geordie Yorkshire bitter and its now(hopefully) sitting in bottles waiting to clear and be sampled.

My Dad on the other hand has a Geordie lager in his fv at the moment, he is hoping to put it into a pressure barrel.

My first question is ; is it ok to put lager into a pressure barrel as some people i have spoken too seem dead set on the idea

and secondly what do you think of the wilko pressure barrel? :wha:

Thanks Doz

andybrew · Jun 24, 2013

the problem with putting lager in a barrel is you cant get enough pressure so the beer wont be as fizzy as you'd like it to be. this is why its better to bottle. a few friends have had wilko barrels for a while with no problems

dozgladman · Jun 24, 2013

Thanks for that advice , I'll let him know then again I might tell him to get the barrel and try it with my next batch of bitter .

Monte Cristo · Jun 24, 2013

Also Lager is usually served cold, you may have some trouble getting a keg in the fridge! :hat:

Andy.H · Jun 24, 2013

I barreled my first Wilko Pilsner and tbh I would not barrel a lager again... as mentioned, you can't get enough pressure for it to be fizzy enough, plus cooling it is an issue!

I'm personally going to stick to using my pressure barrels for ales. Not tried a cider yet, but I could imagine you'd hit the same issues as lager.

LeithR · Jun 24, 2013

I barrel all of my ciders and they generally get good head retention and conditioning. I generally split my brews with maybe 10 into bottles and the rest into the barrel - that way your get the best of both worlds.

Most recently I have been using cultured Weston Old Rosie yeast which I find to be very good indeed. There are a couple of things going for it -
a/ There is a good chance of getting MLF (Malo Lactic Fermentation) this helps both the flavor and the head retention.
b/ Once the brew is primed and bottled/kegged the yeast continues to work fairly vigorously for a long time afterwards, again providing good head retention on conditioning.