bulk carbing in a fermentation barrel?

[Cazamodo]

I have two batches ready to bottle at the same time, but only enough bottles to do one!
I want to carb both batched at the same time, ass ill set my ferm chamber temps upto 70 to carb rather than the low 60s its fermenting at.

Anyway, one batch will be in bottles and fine, but the other I'm wondering can I carb in the barrel? I have two lids for my ferm barrels, a standad one with a hole for the bung, and another with no hole. Can I rack into this barrel, mix with my priming sugar, seal it tight and then let it carb up at 5 gallons.

Will this be different to splitting 5 gallons into bottles to carb. I pla n to still bottle, just need the bottles first.

Also, if I can do this, how long can I stor it carbed in the barrel, before bottling?

 

[Jaybird]

If your talking about carbonating in a fermenting bucket with a lid on tight? No. You will pop off the lid for sure. If your talking about a stainless fermenter that you can seal up tight? Check with the manufacturer to see if it can handle the pressure. Why not just leave the second batch in a secondary till your ready for it?
Cheers
Jay

 

[Revvy]

If your talking about carbonating in a fermenting bucket with a lid on tight? No. You will pop off the lid for sure. If your talking about a stainless fermenter that you can seal up tight? Check with the manufacturer to see if it can handle the pressure. Why not just leave the second batch in a secondary till your ready for it?
Cheers
Jay

No, he's from ENGLAND, therefore he is talking about a pressure barrel, which can be primed and served from.

They often have a hickeydoo on top so a co2 charger can be hooked up to it.

Caz, these things aren't availabe here in the states, so information is a bit scant on here, though there are a few threads here including this one from a week ago Bottling from a pressure barrel?

You can search for more. But the info is limited here...as you can see by Jaybird's response even VENDORS over here aren't quite sure what folks are talking about. (he should know better though ) I'm familiar because the first time someone from your side of the planet posted on here asking a question I went to the google and read up on them.

 

[Jaybird]

. (he should know better though )

I do now Revvy, Thanks

 

[Jedsterr]

Hi cazamodo

Just found your post while searching about forced carbonation for my second pressure barrel.

As revvy said I posted the question about bottling from a pressure barrel and the helpful chaps on here helped me no end.

When I transferred to my pressure barrel I primed it with about 3 oz of sugar (as per my youngs brew kit instructions). This seems to have done the trick as every pint I pull from it is nicely carbonated and has amazing head retention (and all I use throughout the whole process was normal white sugar).

What type of cap do u have on your barrel? I got mine from wilkinsons with the standard cap (no co2 attachment) since then I have sourced a home brew shop and purchased a barrel with a s30 co2 valve. As I understand it your beer will keep nicely in the barrel as long as no oxygen gets in (I tasted a brew in a barrel with a brew date of April 2009!).

Apparently at some point the carbonation in your primed pressure barrel will get used up from where your pulling pints, when this happens the tap will start to draw air in and make a kind of glugging sound, obviously air in your brew is a no no so this is when u should top up your barrel with c02 to keep the positive pressure up. To be honest I am getting to the end of my brew and I appear to have as much pressure now as I ever did so haven't needed to carb up yet. Hopefully this helps with your pressure barrel question.

As for bottling I have bottled from the barrel making sure not to leave any room for oxygen in the bottle. To do this I had to put the tap on really low so s not to create foam and some beer was wasted making sure that the bottle was topped right up but overall it went well. I bottled up so I could take my beer away with me and not for long term storage so can't comment on the longevity of barrel bottling but can say that the beers I tasted from these bottle (two days later) tasted as good as the ones from the barrel with a little less head.

I will say that the bottles I primed with sugar were more carbonated than both the barrel and the beers bottled out of the barrel but that may have been due to me putting too much sugar in my primed bottles. I suppose it all depends on the type of brew your making, mine is a bitter so the smooth carbonation suited me better than if I were brewing a larger

Also I guess that if you are bottling into plastic bottles the carbonation would reduce further than in glass due to the plastic having more 'give'

Hope this helps