Woodfordes Admiral's Reserve kit / Kegging

[Chris77]

Doing my first Beer kit, a Woodfordes Admiral's Reserve started last week its had about 5 days and the air lock has stopped bubbleing, took a hydrometer reading at day 5 of 1018 there were a few bubbles rising in the sample. Having not done a beer kit is it normal to have bits floating on the surface, also had a little taste and it's bitter a hell.

Should I be thinking of bottleing now or transfer to a secondary.

[EoinMag]

Personally I'd say leave it another week at least....if not longer.

[thedeckking]

If you take a hydrometer reading again tomorrow and the day after it should be the same if it's stopped. But I'd always play on the safe side and give it a few more days in the FV anyway. The flavour will mellow after a few weeks in the bottle/keg so don't worry about the bitterness.

[EoinMag]

Admirals reserve will end up as quite a bitter beer in the end, but very nice, the hop powder makes it considerably more bitter than your average canned kit.

[Chris77]

Thanks for the help, I saw on here someone recommended giving it a little stur to try and get the yeast going again as 1018 - 1020 is a common place for these kits to get stuck is this worth doing.

[EoinMag]

Yeah try it out, personally I left mine fermenting for 25 days I think it was, anything not fermented out at that stage is minimal I think.

[sonicated]

It gets better with time. I tried it after three weeks and didn't really like it, I thought it could be because it was an old kit (it only had a month or so until it expired). I put it in the loft and forgot about it.

A fellow homebrewer came around for a QA session one night (read: piss up) so I got a bottle to show him not to use old kits. It tasted wonderful! The aroma was like undiluted Ribena.

[Chris77]

Tested it agian and now it's dropped to 1.014 what should this kit go down to.

[sonicated]

Sounds perfect - get it bottled or kegged.

[Chris77]

Planning to bottle and keg at weekend

After a little help on keging, I'm going to bottle half the brew and want to put the other half in a corny. Only done TC before with the Co2.

When I bottle the kit say add 1/2 tsp of sugar to each bottle to get the fizz then leave in warm place for a few days, then move to colder place to clear.

Do you still prime when using the corny keg, and when do I give it a shot of Co2 and what presure. The reason I ask is if it's primed isn't there going to be some sediment in the keg bottom and wont this been pushed out when pouring a pint as it's drawn from the bottom of the corny.