Pressure Barrel Air Tight?

[scottmoss]

Hello,

This may sound like a really stupid question but how can you tell if your barrel is air tight? Primed it 2 days ago and if I give the lid a good sniff i can slightly smell the ale!

I did rub some vaseline around the ridges of the screw top.

Any suggestions will be great!

[alabaster cheeks]

either install a pressure guage to the lid or blast some co2 into it while empty n dunk in a bath of cold water to see if it holds a charge

[scottmoss]

either install a pressure guage to the lid or blast some co2 into it while empty n dunk in a bath of cold water to see if it holds a charge

Thanks for the reply but I've already loaded the badboy full of ale. Where can you get those guages you mentioned? Just done a quick search on e-bay and didn't find any.

Thanks again

[alabaster cheeks]

http://www.cewal.co.uk/catalogue/p4.asp

[Lillywhite]

...... how can you tell if your barrel is air tight?

Give the rubber on the pressure release valve a squeeze and it should parp or take a very small sample via the tap and it should be fizzy.

[scottmoss]

Thanks, I'll give that a try later on. I might get one of those pressure guages also for my next brews.

[RussDeBuss]

i'm using a peassure barrel for the first time, (wilko/youngs budget).. what i did was mark a line at the top of the fluid level, and aftera few days this level started dropping, after asking on here it turns out that they expand a bit under pressure.

and as others have said, give the rubber on the valve a little squeeze where the hole is on the side of it and u should hear air/co2 being pushed out under pressure.