Home brewing kits ....

If your bottling do that straight away. The spoon of sugar you add is secondary fermentation - adding pressure to the bottle from the CO2 produced by the yeast. this CO2 will keep the beer fresh. Going from keg to bottle alone won't do this and after 8 weeks the remaining yeast will be dead and adding sugar to bottles then will just give sweet beer.

If your kegging just drink it from that. :)
 
Ah, OK. Just had a look at the kit contents (haven't received it myself yet) and it looks like a primary FV, and a barrel.

I take the barrel isn't the same as a keg? Or is it? You can probably see I'm clueless about this.

With a "barrel", is it best to simply syphon across from the FV once primary is complete, add the sugar, then bottle immediately and leave to condition for a few more weeks?
 
I use baby sterilising tablets. I haven't compared the price, but they work and you can get them everywhere.
 
Looks like the kit comes with steriliser so I'll use that to begin with, and grab some baby sterilising (that just sounds dodgy!) tablets when that runs out.

Can we get these Campden tablets in supermarkets to dechlorinate tap water? Don't fancy buying 20 litres of bottled!
 
I stopped bothering with sterilising, just a good clean with fairy liquid and in the 100+ beers/ciders iv made never had issues. If you do want to sterilise a small amount of unscented bleech is all you need no need for fancy stuff.

The slight amount of chlorine isn't a problem, as the yeast converts it anyway.
 
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They sell campden in the larger Wilkinsons stores, along with a lot of other brewing equipment. Otherwise I have to get it on Ebay because there are no home-brew shops here.
 
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Got my tap fitted direct to the cornie ready for camping.
 
I have thought of taking a corny camping but how do you keep the presure in the keg, i dont want to be carting a bottle of co2 as well.
 
Well I took 2.5 gallons of cider with me in demijohns at the weekend and it got me and a number of other people completely plastered :D
 
I've just discovered this thread, never attempted brewing before. I've now got a smile on my face and thinking of brewing cider, Jams Turbo Cidre maybe :)
 
Well, couldn't resist and drew a couple of litres from my Wherry after 11 days in primary and 7 days in secondary. Tastes nice and bitter, but hasn't yet managed to absorb CO2 to make it fizzy. It means after a couple of pints it just starts to feel a bit like bitter stagnant water (the lack of head doesn't help the appearance in that regard, LOL).

I've heard it takes 3 weeks+ for carbonation to complete, so I'll leave it untouched until then and fire in a CO2 bulb if it still isn't playing ball.
 
I would try resist drinking it early and leave it a good 3 months before starting.
You might have a leak and so pressure isnt building up inside.
 
What can I make.
I wanted to make mead but that takes to long and root beer just didn't work in the slightest, tasted horrible as well.

So what can I make from scratch, need ideas and preferably recipes. Be nice to make something from "fresh" ingredients rather than a kit and a bit unusual would be good.
 
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