Woodfordes Wherry Pressure Barrel To Bottling

[Pinchy]

Hello All,

Firstly i am new to both the forum and brewing : . I have started my woodfordes wherry kit and it should be finishing fermentation within the next couple of days and i have a question about storing the beer.

Basically i intend to put it all in the pressure barrel when fermentation has finished, add the 100g of sugar thats required, then leave for 2 weeks as the instructions say to. But then i want to bottle it, as i thought it would be easier bottling from the tap of my pressure barrel. (Also it would be easier for me to buy the bottles at that time too rather than now).

My question is: Is it as simple as that? Or do i need to add extra sugar etc.?

Bear with my i am very naive to the world of brewing :thumb: :).

Cheers!
Carl

 

[rpt]

Welcome to the forum. You can bottle from the barrel but you don't want to add the sugar until bottling time. I would leave the beer in the FV (fermentation vessel i.e. your big bucket) for another week. Then put the 100g sugar in the barrel and syphon the beer into the barrel. Then bottle straight away. If you can't bottle for 2 weeks then this should be fine too as up to about 3 weeks in the FV is OK.

 

[morethanworts]

I'd dissolve the sugar in about half a pint of boiling water first myself, allowed then to cool a bit, and add that to the barrel before siphoning the beer onto it. If you're just using the barrel as a bottling-bucket, bottling straight away, then the sugar wont have much chance to dissolve otherwise.

Remember to keep the end of the siphoning tube under the surface to avoid splashing when you're doing this (and at bottling). You don't want to aerate it at this stage. I use a tube with a racking cane in the FV, and then TWO taps in it. One about 3 inches from the barrel end, which I remove (along with the 3 inch piece of tube) after I've sucked on it, so my mouth germs never touch the beer, and a second tap a couple of feet back from the barrel end so that I can still switch the flow on and off if I need to. There are other methods, but that one works nicely for me

 

[Pinchy]

Thanks for your replies. And thanks for the advice on siphoning i had no idea about the airating of the beer :thumb: i will be careful not to splash.

I bit the bullet and have ordered my bottles now so they should be arriving tomorrow. Now would i be better off siphoning straight into the bottles as mentioned?

I know i could keep it all in the pressure barrel but i have made this beer as a treat you see. Only to have every now and again. I say this but i bet i will end up guzzling it all in no time :drink: haha.

Cheers,
Carl

 

[andyakameatloaf]

Thanks for your replies. And thanks for the advice on siphoning i had no idea about the airating of the beer :thumb: i will be careful not to splash.

I bit the bullet and have ordered my bottles now so they should be arriving tomorrow. Now would i be better off siphoning straight into the bottles as mentioned?

I know i could keep it all in the pressure barrel but i have made this beer as a treat you see. Only to have every now and again. I say this but i bet i will end up guzzling it all in no time :drink: haha.

Cheers,
Carl

IMO it is less faff and much more consistent if you do what morethanworts and rpt said. When you are ready to bottle, Get your priming sugar, dissolve it in about a 1/2 pint of boiling water then allow it to cool. Pour this into your barrel. Then siphon the beer from the fermenter into the barrel on top of the sugar solution (again, without splashing). once all the beer is in the barrel, siphon straight off into bottles.

This is called batch priming, and the sugar gets incorporated into the wort, which means you dont have to mess around putting a teaspoon of sugar into each indivudal bottle.

 

[rpt]

Forgot to say that I dissolve the sugar in about 200mL of water and boil it for 10 minutes before putting it in my bottling bucket. To make bottling easier you could fit a little bottler to the tap of your barrel (if it fits). (You don't have to change the tap on your barrel). Or you could put one on the end of a syphon tube.

 

[morethanworts]

+1 for the Little Bottler. I got one recently and it makes bottling (almost) a pleasure! Shame I wrote off an FV on the first attempt cutting a hole for it. Second attempt was fine though (three smaller holes and a rounded file). If it fits your existing tap or hole, even better.

 

[rpt]

I bought my FV with little bottler already fitted from BrewUK if you don't fancy making holes.

 

[Pinchy]

Awsome guys cheers for all the info. I have a pressure barrel with a tap so i will see if i can fit a syphon tube over the end of it then that should work pretty well hopefuly! If not this one will be a little trickier and i will invest in a Little Bottler for my next batch :).