The brew's coming on nicely, the gravity got down to 1.010 by Sunday (7 days) and hasn't changed since then so I'll be conditioning it in a couple of 5 litre mini kegs this weekend. The taste is superb, very different from the Coopers APA I did with the same hop schedule before Christmas and although it's still in the FV I can see it being far superior to the kit.
I have to say I was worried about it for a few days and thought I might have introduced an infection. I've only done kits before this and I'm used to the krausen building up nicely as a good frothy (but dry-looking) head for four or five days before vanishing completely. With this one the krausen was very glossy looking and subsided to a layer about three or four millimetres thick after five days but then it stayed there with no sign of disappearing. I took a sample for hydrometer testing on Sunday and the krausen looked slimy and worrying even though the beer sample tasted fine, I thought maybe I'd introduced infection by straining through the voile without sanitising it thoroughly enough and was dreading going back for another sample but I've just checked it again today and it's fine, no shiny froth at all and it still tastes great so I'm happy! I'm guessing here that the difference in the head is due to the proteins in the wort which aren't present in kits but I've got no experience of AG brewing, does anyone know what I'm talking about here?
I'm away for a few days next week but I'm back next Monday so I'll be sampling it then and I'll post the results
Cheers,
Ian