BARRELLING EARLY

[trucker5774]

Having experimented with bottling early (PET not glass) I was thinking of barrelling the next one in the same way. The method is to transfer just as the fermentation completes and without priming sugar. The "secondary" fermentation is therefore just the completion of the primary and provides the carbonation. I am reckoning that the barrel having a pressure release valve makes it a safe option. Isn't this just what the breweries do with cask ale? If I have it right we are drinking beer which is only a week to ten days old. The bottles I have done this way have been the closest to real cask ale I have ever made..............OK, I don't bother with finings so perhaps it's not as clear as commercial ale, but it's not "fiddled" with either. I have sampled some of my brews early, as I guess most of us do, and often found them to be as good as the matured ones.

What are your thoughts, good, bad or indifferent. I intend to do it regardless (I don't mean that to sound dismissive or cocky) I am just wondering what I could be letting myself in for.............I am prepared to risk the £10 or so on the "experiment"

Maybe someone has some guidance if they have done similar..............or a horror story

[a-slayer]

I always bottle mine after a week to ten days in the FV and never bother to prime, don't like my beer too fizzy and this way it is always just right. Done this for years and never had a problem yet (fingers crossed as I write it!)

[trucker5774]

I always bottle mine after a week to ten days in the FV and never bother to prime, don't like my beer too fizzy and this way it is always just right. Done this for years and never had a problem yet (fingers crossed as I write it!)

That's pretty much what I have always done, but with a little priming sugar and very often guzzled before it gets a chance to clear, if that's what it was going to do. I usually kick myself for over priming

[HighHops]

I've only reduced my priming sugar recently to 40g of dextrose for 5 gallon. I got fed up of fizzy beer dragging all the yeast off the bottom and less CO2 bite definitely means you can appreciate the flavours more.

[HighHops]

The method is to transfer just as the fermentation completes and without priming sugar. The "secondary" fermentation is therefore just the completion of the primary and provides the carbonation.

You're right! The breweries don't prime casks, but they do throw finings at their beer and most pubs pull their beer through a sprinkler to give it a head. I don't think I'd risk bottling early. My brewing is just not repeatable enough to predict the FG and I like trying out new yeasts. Also I leave it in secondary for a week after racking off so that I don't have 1/2 an inch of trub in each bottle.

Give it a go and let us know how it turns out.

Keep on trucking

[trucker5774]

Brewing tomorrow, so based on the same grain bill from the last brew, this could be in the barrel Sunday/Monday

[techtone]

I am reckoning that the barrel having a pressure release valve makes it a safe option.

I have 5 budget kegs all with the co2 pin valve and I have determined that 2 vent and 3 don't.

[trucker5774]

I am reckoning that the barrel having a pressure release valve makes it a safe option.

I have 5 budget kegs all with the co2 pin valve and I have determined that 2 vent and 3 don't.

I am hoping the S30 should vent if over pressure...............if not the lid also has a pressure.....(if it works ) I also reckon on drinking it early too. That should help