New to brewing..

daveyOWLS

I recently bought a starter brewing kit with pressure barrell, i also bought a heat plate for the initial stages of fermentatiion as i understand its important to keep at the right temperature.what about when the beer gets put into the pressure barrel does it still need to be warm them or not.? Any help and general advice is welcome ,thanks!

sine_nomine

Normal practice is to keep it at the temperature at which it was fermented for a few days, so probably best to keep it in the same place. This should be for at least 3 or 4 days for secondary fermentation to take place but up to a fortnight or so is fine if you have the patience. It then needs moving to a cooler place for at least two weeks, but ideally 4 or six weeks for it to condition and clear. At this time of year perhaps the garage is the best place for this — but keep a weather ear out in case of frosts.

daveyOWLS

Ok thanks i was hoping to put it in the garage anyway so sounds good to me :-), i am going to brew a lager for my first brew would i be ok to put half in the barrel and bottle the rest as long as i used the carbonation drops?

sine_nomine

Don't forget to add 80 or so grams of sugar or brew enhancer to your barrel to allow secondary fermentation to proceed. If you forget this step your beer will be pretty flat, too much sugar and it will be too fizzy. You'll have to experiment to see how much you prefer.

sine_nomine

Half and half is fine, you get the convenience of both worlds then. Don't forget to adjust the amount of sugar or enhancer you use.

Make sure you use the yeast that comes with the kit which, if you bought from Home Brew Online, will almost certainly be an ale yeast, and follow the instructions that came with the kit for adding the yeast. True lager yeasts are much more tricky to use, as I found out recently to my cost. 

daveyOWLS

Oh ok then thanks for your advice i will do, what happened with your brew btw?