1st brew

[kenny850]

Hi guys,hoping to tap into the rich vein of knowledge on here,40 pints of woodfords wherry are now sitting in my kitchen at 15c,s.g was 1040 and 14 hrs later has a nice head on it.Thinking ahead somewhat woodfords instructions say "Transfer the beer into bottles or a pressure barrel with a little sugar (1/2 teaspoon per pint) to help condition the beer" . Now they neglect to mention what type of sugar should be used and i keep reading on here that ordinary sugar is a no-no on here. I am going to use one of my 2nd hand King Kegs so does that translate as 20 teaspoons into the barrel before the beer? Sorry if this is an obvious one guys.Cheers Ken

[Bru4u]

Boil 1/2 cup of corn sugar or 3/4 cup of DME in 1 pint of water for 5 min, you must use a bit less than you would for bottles, put this first in to the sterilized and rinsed FV, have a read of the destructions for kit brewing at the top of the page.

[macleanb]

I think you could use regular sugar with little detriment. I mean its only a tiny amount in a kit beer. If you have dextrose and/or DME go ahead, but I wouldnt make a special journey just for priming.

I would use somewhere between 40-80g (probably toward the lower) depending on how much fizz you want.


Boiling is de-rigeur, and I think you could probably do it in 250ml. I actually bottle and use a giant syringe to squirt 5ml into each bottle (I typically make up 250ml as this works for the number of bottles)

[kenny850]

Thanks guys-i used to do this years ago and it seemed simpler, then again i remember producing some pretty foul stuff that we still drank, it tasted better after the first bottle!

[espressomanfishing]

We are on our 4th brew, and our first was Woodfordes admirals reserve. We used plain old granukated sugar straight int the barrel, the results were fantastic. we left it 3 days after the frementation had stopped to clear a little then racked off into a keg and left for 3 weeks to condition. Bloomin Marvelous pint! Since we have done Nelsons revenge (more amber and fruity that Admirals) Milestone IPA - Drinking now and we have Muntons gold smuggler wassisname fermenting away at the moment to bottle when its ready. good luck

[kenny850]

Thanks Espressoman,one of the things i like about this site is the level of encouragement and advice that is quickly available,i wonder how my brew would have turned out without the help of people on this forum. My wherry is now reading 1022 after 4 days, but i have no idea what the final reading should be-i have bought a 1kg bag of brewing sugar so will use that in solution in my kk-NOT the whole bag obviously Cheers ken

[Totem]

Your probably looking to get around 1012 gravity. Mine started off with a fast ferment and took the last 10 gravity points about about 5 days to get off. Just check back with the hydrometer in a few days

[kenny850]

Thanks Totem, i wondered what it should drop to-am tending to drop the hydrometer in daily. GOD this is worse than having kids!

[kenny850]

Transferred my wherry kit into a king keg today-looked and smelt good, didnt taste too bad either although it was flatter than a flat thing. I noticed bits of crud going into the keg as well but i gather this is not too important.Primed it with 60g of brewers sugar (dextrose?) in 200ml of boiling water. SO WHEN CAN I DRINK IT! Cheers ken

[SiHoltye]

You can drink it whenever you like - it's your beer!

However if you save at least some for 4-6 weeks, the thought is it'll be at it's prime. It's a tasty kit that, enjoy the fruits of your labour, in the meantime get another brew on!

[kenny850]

Thanks for that Siholtye, already got the next one on the go-almondbury old-early days yet but looking and smelling deliciously different, Cheers ken