First Time Home Brew - Milestone IPA FG

[MarkL]

Hi,

I'm new to home brewing and this forum, I have a query.........

I have in my FV Milestone IPA kit, I have a brew belt and an ATC 300 temp controller (Reefdreams) to help brew in my garage.
Its been a steady 20-22 degrees C, other than a few days after starting fermentation which dropped to 18 degrees C so I added a blanket, it swiftly returned to 21. I started the fermentation on the 22nd Nov with a OG of 1.040, now 11 days on and the FG is 1.015, Monday 30th Nov was 1.017 and Saturday 28th was 1.018.

I see the target FG is approx. 1.010, should I wait until it gets there? could be sometime! How long can you keep it in the FV? I'm going to keg the brew.

Its taken a great deal more time than the 4 - 6 days stated in the instructions, was hoping for xmas, but not now due to conditioning time

I have wondered if I had originally aerated the wort enough............

Thanks in advance, I have been planning this home brew for a while now, and have found some valuable tips and advice on this forum, so thanks all.

Planning my next brew to use my tap water (I used bottled in the Milestone kit) I was intending to boil or stand to remove chlorine, no chloramines in our water (Salisbury) so Wessex Water have informed me. What is the best solution, I do have some Campden tablets but dont want to add anything really.

Mark

[phildodd]

I think when I did this it got down to about 1.014. My LHBS man said that the milestone kits don't normally drop much further than that, although I didn't leave it very long at all.

One thing I will say is that if you're expecting an actual IPA, you've got a big surprise coming. it's really more of a mild (unless they've fixed it since earlier this year...)

Still a nice pint though.

[MarkL]

Thanks for that, I plan to keg this weekend, hopefully it will be a tad lower by then.

I had noticed how dark this pale ale looked, even though this is my first ever brew.

Woodfordes Admiral's Reserve up next, was thinking of using a better/larger sachet of yeast with this (Safel S-04).

Mark

[Gaza32]

I got mine down to 1012 with a little rouse of the yeast after 5days, took about a month to clear in the Keg, first few pints tasted a bit watery/sugary but as it has aged it's well nice.

Gaza

[farmhousekeg]

So long as your gravity reading is steady for a couple of days in a row, I'd just stick it in the keg - sounds like your plan to keg it this weekend will be fine and I bet you'll be drinking it at Christmas

[MarkL]

Transferred to keg last night, FG was only 1.014, that seems to be as low as its going to get, looks like its clearing well though.

Hope to speed up the process slightly as I get more used to brewing these kits, took me ages last night to sterilise, rinse, prepare priming solution (used LME) and siphon beer.

Also, I have left the keg in my kitchen and SWMBO has already asked that I put it in the garage, but I know I need to keep it warm for a few days, has anyone ever used a brewbelt on a kingkeg?

I think I'll be pushing my luck hoping it will be ready for Christmas? Maybe New Year?

I like the review and the look of the Brewers Choice IPA Beer kit on this site, so I have ordered an Old Ale and a can of malt extract, got two other kits to do yet though.

Thanks all.