New Brewer Finding His Feet

[toshlad]

I recently decided to take up homebrewing as a hobby as I'd finally got the room to give it a go. As a complete novice I was a bit unsure on how to start so I decided to give the simple Woodforde's Wherry Bitter Microbrewery Kit a go. It contain's two cans for the ingredients, a King Keg top tap barrel and your various sterilisers etc. It's a simple one stage kit where you simply put everything together and wait for two or three weeks and away you go.

While in the shop I decided to also buy another 5gal fermenting barrel and a Coopers Australian Stout Kit as I much prefer the stouts and dark ales as a rule.

My problem is after getting my first batch on the way and reading up on a few things I started to confuse myself a little. I'm now unsure about my second fermenting barrel as it is a snap shut sealed lid with no fitting for a fermenter so in effect you create an air tight sealed barrel. I was wondering if this would be ok for the first stage of a two stage kit like Cooper's Aussie Stout or should I really use the King Keg barrel. Also as a second part to my wondering, it says on the can that the stout should be syphoned into bottles for the second stage of the process but I am hoping, if it is possible, to use the King Keg with tap for the second stage after using the first sealed barrel for the first stage. Also if I do this what would be the measure for sugar as I'm supposed to put a teaspoon per bottle for the second stage. Hmmmm, please help a confused newbie if you can!

[PMH0810]

Airtight fermenter is not a problem. Snap the lid on tight and then unpop an are so fermentation gas can escape.

Coopers might suggest bottling but I don't think there'd be any issue with using a keg instead. Just add the same quantity of sugar as you would if you's used bottles instead.

[MightyMouth]

As PMH0810 says just crack the lid on the fermenter after snapping it tight. Using the King keg for the second stage is fine, depending on how carbonated you want it you could use from 0g to 80g of sugar. For a stout I would personally use less rather than more, maybe 40g at most. When you are ready to keg it, siphon off about 500ml of the beer and add the sugar to it then boil either on the hob or in the microwave to dissolve and help kill any beasties in the sugar. Allow this to cool to between 25c and 30c then add it either back to the fermenter or into the king keg but you must not splash it, I usually add it to a second fermenting vessel then rack the beer to that, which mixes it in well, then keg or bottle from there.

[toshlad]

Cheers lads, much appreciated