My First Kit / Extract Home Brew

[bum]

you're killing the experienced brewers around here....you shouldn't "bottle in the next few days", you should bottle when your gravity readings are at the expected FG over at least 2 consecutive readings 24 hours apart!!

You're killing the experienced brewers around here...you shouldn't "bottle as soon as FG is reached". A few days after that will still see the brew improve. Follow Boogs' "get a life" program and the beer will be better.

Robbie, Carnie isn't being entirely serious - just picking you up on what I'm sure is just loose terminology and possibly having dig at people who are right for some reason(?).

 

[carniebrew]

Lets say I have reached the same FG readings twice in 2 days but I have a life and can't keg it for another few days...is there any issue with that?

Boogs, no problem with that at all, leaving your brew in the FV after reaching FG is fine, and in fact is preferred practice for many brewers wanting to further condition/clear their beer.

I just wanted to be clear on the wording, it's not good practice to simply "bottle after a few days" when your think your gravity is about right. For safety's sake, we need to be sure the gravity is also stable before bottling. Once those two criteria have been met, you can bottle, either straight away or after a few more days/weeks.

EDIT: And no digs intended bum, I could just picture a bunch of guys who've posted the same response a thousand times before wanting to choke kittens...

 

[Deebo]

My beginner advice (some of which has been stated already):

Use 1kg Light Dry Malt in place of any brew blends (most dry malt probably aren't labelled but if you can find the muntons spray malt I prefer this to bintani etc it looks more powdery and less crystalised)
Decent yeast, e.g. Us05 or Nottingham, wb-06 for wheat beer (saf lager yeast only if you have temp control sorted)
Put 25g of Cascade or Nelson Sauvin in a coffee plunger, leave for 10 minutes, plunge and chuck into your fermenter with goop etc. (alternatively boil while dissolving the malt in a saucepan then strain)
Get a keg system (saves a lot of effort and from my experience tastes better, worth the investment) Some people dont mind it but I found bottling a pain in the ass after a few brews.
Sort out temperature control if you can (ideally fridge/freezer and stc-1000 temp controller or similar)

Regarding kits I found the Muntons range all pretty good (but check the useby on the bottom and only get stuff that has a fairly long shelf life)
Morgans blue mountain lager is pretty nice also, try to stay away from tooheys and cascade (I didn't mind the cascade porter I found the rest of them pretty avg).

If you have a bit of free time and want to take it a step further look into brew in a bag.

Edit: Forgot one more peice of advice, dont stress about getting the beer out of the fermenter as soon as it is finished, leaving it there for 2 weeks is fine and will help it clear up a bit more. Relax Dont Worry Have A Homebrew etc

 

[Boogaone]

Boogs, no problem with that at all, leaving your brew in the FV after reaching FG is fine, and in fact is preferred practice for many brewers wanting to further condition/clear their beer.

I just wanted to be clear on the wording, it's not good practice to simply "bottle after a few days" when your think your gravity is about right. For safety's sake, we need to be sure the gravity is also stable before bottling. Once those two criteria have been met, you can bottle, either straight away or after a few more days/weeks.

EDIT: And no digs intended bum, I could just picture a bunch of guys who've posted the same response a thousand times before wanting to choke kittens...

Cheers for that carnie :beer:

 

[robbiep]

Day 15 in fermenter and the gravity reading is at 1011, same as two days ago.

I will take one last reading on the weekend, 3 days time.

 

[wbosher]

Day 15 in fermenter and the gravity reading is at 1011, same as two days ago.

I will take one last reading on the weekend, 3 days time.

Yep, sounds like a plan.

 

[robbiep]

Gravity reading has been sitting at 1011 for the past few days, will bottle tomorrow