My first kit (5 gallons of Hambleton Bard Old English) has just finished fermenting and I'm now ready to bottle. (It was hard work getting enough bottles together in a short space of time but I enjoyed it while it lasted and I think my liver is still ok...) I would be really grateful for a bit of advice on priming as I want to avoid covering the garage/people with broken glass and over-carbonated beer.
I siphoned the almost fermented beer from the FV into a barrel a few days ago to get it off the yeast bed before bottling. It has now finished according to my hydrometer. (I was going to use the barrel for secondary fermentation and dispensing but after hearing positive reviews I'm thinking of picking up a wherry from wilkinson's and I would rather have that as my 'session beer' in the barrel and have a go at bottling at least once with the Old English. It's not so great now but I have a feeling it will be tasty in a few weeks time - has anybody had any experience of this kit by the way?)
The kit instructions suggest dissolving five ounces of white sugar into half a pint of hot water and subsequently adding a teaspoon of this solution to each bottle. This seems a little vague (and arduous) to me so...
Does this measurement sound somewhere in the correct region?
Do you think I would be better using something other than white sugar for this type of kit?
Would I be able to get away with adding x ounces of sugar to x pints of water, pouring that into the barrel and then siphoning into bottles straight from there?
Sorry for all the newbie questions - I have read through the threads regarding this but as it's my first brew I just want to be absolutely sure I won't wreck the house or, more importantly, the beer.
I've got a terrible feeling I might get sucked into moving into AG far too quickly once I've mastered a couple of kits. I missed two AG brewery setups given away on my local freecycle a few months ago - if only I had seen it...
Still, it leaves me with the fun of putting my own together?Thanks a lot! (Thanks for the advice I've already got from these forums, too)
