Flat Beer

[Beer Monkey]

Hi everyone,

I have just made up my second Wherry Woodforde and after following the instructions correctly for the first time, transferred the beer to the pressure barrel for the secondary fermenting which looked quite promising, however, it has now been in the pressure barrel for 2 weeks now and from looking at the barrel and gentle pressing the value at the top of the barrel (there is no CO2 injection to the barrel) it appears to be "flat" with little pressure.

Before moving the beer to the pressure barrel, i added the standard granulated sugar although i took the approach of not adding the sugar straight to the pressure barrel but to mix it up with boiling hot water before adding (found this method in a previous thread on the forum)

Can i open the pressure barrel and add further sugar to the beer to increase the pressure or would opening the barrel cause me to ruin the beer?

Beer Monkey

[chopperswookie]

monkey you prob have a leak in you barrel. i've done a woodfordes and second time round my barrel is holding little or no pressure. i poured off about 2 pints and the usual "glug glug" happened. very bad sign. i think i need to pick a weekend, throw a party and drink it in one go before it goes off.

i hate budget barrels they are ****. any suggestions shall i get a king keg next or stick to the £18 ones from wilkos

[OldSpeckledBadger]

i hate budget barrels they are ****. any suggestions shall i get a king keg next or stick to the £18 ones from wilkos

The Wilkos ones are the same barrel but without the S30 valve. People seem to have a lot more trouble with KKs than budget barrels.

[chopperswookie]

cheers badger - i have one budget keg thats brill i think it will even survive nuclear holocaust.

[mickhew]

I use 2 budget barrels, the only problems I've had is with the valves. Changed both for S30 types and all fine since. Looks like the budget caps fail, by either letting too much pressure out, or not letting it out, making the tap seal fail under pressure.

[Beer Monkey]

thanks for the replies chaps, there must be a problem with the tap which must have happened when i last cleaned the pressure barrel, i've noticed the tap filling up with beer and dripping quite frequently which must of allowed air to get to the beer, if i can seal the tap, would i be ok to unscrew the lid and put more sugar in the barrel after only 2 weeks to try and get some fizz in the beer or would this completely ruin the beer?