My first pressure barrel.

Well after botteling my beer for quite a while now I decided to buy a basic pressure barrel. I've got it now and it looks alright. I was just wondering about the fact that the tap seems to be set to draw beer more than an inch off the bottom. Won't this leave more beer behind than the desired silt level. Especially since I plan to force carbonate my beer.

What do you think?

my pressure barrel also does this - i personally just put up with it.
some barrels have a float that ensures beer is always drawn off the top - you could order a spare one for a barrel with the same sized tap, or try making one yourself with a bung, some tubing, a ping pong ball and a bit of work.
This also means you have clear beer sooner as you're drawing it from the top, which is useful if your making a mild ale (you guys heard of mild in america?)

jb444 said:

(you guys heard of mild in america?)

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Yep, we call them session beers here. Low gravity, yet tasty and less filling.

jb444 said:

(you guys heard of mild in america?)

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yep we also call it michelob dark

Well I'm in London UK and we aint never heard of a mild beer :cross:
I like the idea of a DIY float, I think I'll try that. Thanks guys!

They all do this. I've found floats more of a hassle than anything. As for the level of the tap, it could be with being about half an inch to an inch lower, but all I do is very carefully tilt the barrel when it gets to about two thirds empty and put a chopping board (1 inch thick) under the back. This seems to give you about another 3 pints out of the barrel. Only the last pint and a half seem cloudy. A barrel normally lasts me about a week depending on how many friends I have around. If you do this at the end of an evening, the slight jostling that you gave it will have settled by the next evening's drinking anyway.

Any one want to buy my pressure barrells?
Some with floats.
4" deluxe caps.
S30 Valves.
Clean and well used, good condition.

£10 plus postage.

um, sorry to be the dumb american but whats a pressure barrel?

Is it like a mini keg or something?

It's a plastic barrel usually with an inlet for a soda stream gas type fitting with no regulator.

It's a plastic barrel that's rated to take a certain amount of pressure, but has a safety valve on the top. There's also an inlet valve to take a canister or bulb of carbon dioxide. We brits like our ale warm(ish) and flat(ish), so don't need to chill or artificially carbonate the beer. You use the pressure barrel as the secondary and serve straight from that via the excess build up of CO2 during secondary fermentation (and a CO2 canister if that's not enough). They're normally about 5 gallons.

Cool, do they work pretty well?

maybe not if Orfy is trying to get rid of his....

I've never seen anything like that.....thanks

They work really well. I have three and serve all my beer from them (except if going on a camping trip or making a particularly high grav beer, in which case they get bottled). Very little hassle whatsoever and easy to serve from. If you know you'll get through the whole lot in a couple of days or less, you don't need to worry about CO2 injection if the pressure runs low - just open the top a bit and let gravity do the work.

They are cheap and much MUCH less work than bottles.

I'd continue to use them if I didn't have cornies and regs.

I think more people use them in the UK than bottle.

I have 6 at 6 and 3 gallon.
I'm trying to find them new homes at $20 a piece. I think new they are $40 - $60

Cornies here sell for around $80 up to $200(with tap)