first time brew

hello everyone. I just brewed my first batch of brew ever, my wife bought me a kit about a year ago and i finnaly got around to doing a batch. It was a truebrew october fest, followed the instructions with the exception of screening the hops. it has been fermenting for two weeks i have not done any tests. I was going to transfer to a secondary and let it go another week or two then bottle.heres my ? my bottling bucket a 6 gallon plastic bucket seems to have soom scatchs in it should i be concerned, does the the beer stay in long enough to make a defference. Second ? my temp was a bit hi the first couple days 73 room 78 on the glass corboy should i be concerned sorry for the long post

Year old ingredients? Can you be more specific on your recipe? Extract? All-grain (I hope not)?

What yeast did you use? 73 is not terrible, but 78 is getting a bit high.

No need top transfer to secondary. Leave it in primary another week and then bottle it. Why does your bottling bucket have scratches if this is your first brew? Is it a paint bucket?

You always want to be concerned with scratches in plastic buckets as bacteria can hide in places you may not see or be able to clean. Have I used buckets with scratches? Yes. And the beers I made with them came out fine. Guess it depends on how much it is scratched and/or weather any bacteria was present.

Fermentation temps vary depending on the yeast used. Those seem to be on the high side for most ale yeasts I have used and definitely high for any lager yeast that I know of. I have brewed in those ranges with some yeast with great results.

All in all, you may not have anything to worry about.

The yeast that comes with that beer used to be S-23 (probably still is), so the temp was fine in terms of producing alcohol, but it did pump out some fruity esters. Far from "bad", just a tad out of style. And don't worry about the hops, it doesn't really matter.

I personally would never take the chance using something plastic that is scratched. As anyone who has done it can tell you, pouring out a batch of beer sucks. Doubly sucky if you spent the time bottling it too.

Yea bottling buckets are cheap. What $7?

thanks for the replys, the kit was a liquid extract. as for the bucket it was shipped with a glass carboy in it, causing some lite scatching. I will go get a new one food grade.