Flat beer after barrelling

[Sir Real Ale]

I barrelled my first brew 2 weeks ago, put in priming sugar, have kept it around 22deg.

Went to check it yesterday and there was no pressure in the barrel at all, so nothing came out of the top tap. Emptied a co2 sparklets canister, but still no pressure (although there is a slight possibility I stupidly left the top tap open)

Anyway, what can I do with the beer? It tastes ok, but is flat. Can I bottle it and may it then ferment some more? Would I need to add more priming sugar if I did this? Or can I leave it in the barrel, tighten the lid some more (it's pretty tight) and add more sugar.

I do have two bottles that I filled at the same time (from the barrel, so priming sugars already added) but wanted to keep them. I could open one to check if it is ok.


Thanks
SRA

[Jim]

It certainly sounds like you have a leak somewhere from the keg. You could try to find it, presuming it's around the cap somewhere, then reprime the barrel and leave another couple of week, but bottling would be be OK, and at least you can be sure it will be carbonated.

[sparky Paul]

As Jim says, its likely that the co2 has leaked out of the keg.

This happened to me when I tried an old keg. To be certain of carbonation, I bottled the stuff into 2 litre PET bottles and added more priming sugar - it gassed up again without any problem.

One of the advantages of PET bottles is that you can feel the gas pressure with a squeeze...

[Sir Real Ale]

It certainly sounds like you have a leak somewhere from the keg. You could try to find it, presuming it's around the cap somewhere, then reprime the barrel and leave another couple of week, but bottling would be be OK, and at least you can be sure it will be carbonated.

I did check barrel for pressure with water before I barrelled and it lasted a week with one sparklets co2 and the water was fairly cold so I reckoned it was going to be ok. The sparklets injector was spinning round at the top (I have a bad habit of tightening the lid holding onto it and then finding that it keeps spinning round). I possibly didn't tighten the top enough.

Anyway I'll reprime and probably bottle it. Do I use the same quantities of water/sugar? Actually, I probably want less sugar cos there's less beer now and I don't want the bottles exploding!

Was it Woodfordes Wherry (or another Woodefordes/Muntons kit) ?

It was Munton's Imperial Stout. It was out of date although I only bought it 1 mth ago - HBS must have a lower turnover of that and it had been left on the shelf. That is why I was slightly worried about stuck fermentation because the yeast would definitely have been old (I used the kit yeast).[/quote]

[prolix]

I had a top tap king keg that did similar, tightened the bolt on the underside of the lid with a spanner and it was tight as a drum

[mysterio]

King keg top taps have a nasty habit of not sealing properly, try some kind of lubricant between the seal and the lid and screw it tight.

[Sir Real Ale]

King keg top taps have a nasty habit of not sealing properly, try some kind of lubricant between the seal and the lid and screw it tight

My one is actually an old Boots barrel.

Anyway, re-primed last night (just poured on sugar/water soln from above, bit of splashing - any other way?) and will now leave for a week.

If nothing happens (and if the beer in my bottles is also flat implying stuck fermentation) is it too late to add more yeast?

[splitter]

Hello Sir!
To avoid any slashing, and possible oxidisation of the beer, you could have used a tube with funnel and have the end of the tube beneath the surface. Probably not going to be an issue tho as pretty minimal.
You probably already know this if you've been reading the forum but as its your first kit and you hadn't planned on bottling....
you definatly need to have a tube or bottling stick from your tap going to the bottom of your bottles if you decide to tranfer it.
Again this will stop the splashing and oxidisation of the beer.
Hope it all goes well for you!

[Sir Real Ale]

yeah - thanks for this splitter.

I wanted to take a sample round a mate's house at the weekend so dispensed from bottom tap into bottle. It came out fairly swiftly, huge foaming bubbles that filled the bottle.

Anyway, I then realised the top tap was open and thought I should shut it - of course the flow below stopped. So I yanked the top tap open again and it started filling again, unfortunately precisely at the time is started to over flow from the bottle all over the floor

Anyway, I didn't manage to fill anywhere near the top because of all the foam - so Definitely need to use tubing in future.