First time home brewing, Irish Stout need advice!!

Hello everyone, I just started my first home brew this past Saturday. Im using a brewers best Irish stout kit. The wort process went well other than i forgot to get a gravity reading with my hydrometer before pitching the yeast. My airlock started bubbling after only about 5ish hours but I noticed this morning it wasn't bubbling anymore. Not to concerned about the air lock, but i went ahead and sterilized my hydrometer, popped the lid quick and took a reading. The kit directions say the OG should have been around 1.050-1.046. Being a noob at this im not sure how accurate my reading today was but i came up with somewhere near 1.026 ish. I need to be around 1.014-1.011 to bottle. How long should I allow it to ferment? And how often should I take a hydrometer reading? I dont want to make bottle bombs or do something that will screw up my brew so thus the concern. Any advice would be awesome! Thanks!

Let it sit another two weeks, then take a second hydrometer reading. Take another a few days later. If they are stable (the same), you should be good to bottle.

Figure you cam in on target for your OG, since kits are hard to mess up. Consider getting a turkey baster or something to remove a sample with. I wouldn't suggest just dropping your hydrometer into your bucket, though I'm sure lots of people do that.

Welcome to the obsession.


EDIT: And welcome from another MI brewer!

I am currently drinking this kit right now. The fermentation was pretty violent for 2-3 days. At the tenth day I bottled it. Turned out pretty good.

The first day of activity is always the craziest. If you think that is something brew a wheat beer sometime! It's normal for these things to slow way down after that and then look dead. Give it two weeks, check the FG, and then if it what you want, bottle it up.

Im going to purchase a 6.5 gallon carboy to use as my primary. Not being able to see whats going on in the bucket is maddening, lol. Then i can start another batch. Going to do another kit, red ale or American cream ale. If all goes well with my first two batches I want to try my own recipe. Anyone have thoughts on how to do a ale with honey and bourbon, and a bit of oak chips?