Flat lager from barrell

Hi all

I am on my 4th batch of homebrew (from the kits) and i barrelled a batch 2 weeks ago, i know for a fact i put the sugar in to carbonate it etc, but the way i put the sugar in was to mix it with a pint of the brew then add it to the barrell.

Anyway i pulled a pint tonight to test what it was like and there is no head at all, i had to add gas straight away to get it to come out of the barrell properly.

Did i add the sugar in the wrong way? and if so could i just stir some more sugar into the barrell now or wont that do any good??

Thanks for your help

Chris

Hi Chris.

What type of barrel have you got?

ita a youngs 5 gallon pressure barrel

This may help.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=3465

Before kegging/force carbonating...had this problem espescially on high gravity beers (>8%) and lagers. The cause was either the lack of yeast or yeast health. You need healty yeast inorder to metabolize the corn sugar to produce CO2.

I always use starters for my beers. Make a starter (around 250-500 ml/5 galons for low gravity beers 500ml-1L/5galfor high gravity/lagers) and pitch most (save about 50 ml) of the yeast for your primary. Do this aseptically as possible and store your 50 ml of starter in the fridge. About a day before bottling toss on about 200 ml (or so) of sterile wort to get the yeast going toss in the entire 250 or so ml in to the beer with the corn sugar, gently mix and bottle.

Hope this helps.

-Eric

I'm just wondering if there's away to check what the problem is.

If carbonations failed then the sugar added will still be present. If it's taken place but just not enough then the sugar will get used up.

So if it's failed the specific gravity will be higher than the FG and it should be sweeter, I wonder if either of these is enough to be noticed or measured?

Corn sugar adds very little sweetness. I don't think a hydrometer is sensitive enough to pick up a change of around 1.001 to 1.0005 caused by the corn sugar. Just a thought.

-Eric

Thanks,

Maybe I shouldn't come up with theories after more than two Homebrews!

no way! that's when I do my best thinking. A little sedative is needed to calm my brain down so that I can concentrate on one thing rather then thinking about 100 things at once.

I might have a slight case of A.D.D. or something.

-walker