New Beer Kits

Hello,

Im new to this, and I have a few questions. I just bought a beer kit, it came with a large plastic tub, and a carboy among other things. My main question is the primary fermentation supposed to occur in the carboy or the plastic tub. The plastic tub has no air lock ( i'd have to make to hole in the lid to do so). So I mixed it in the plastic tub, and then transferred to the carboy and added the yeast, put the air lock on it and let bubble away. After 6 days (today) it stopped bubbling in the air lock. Now for the secondary, do I need another carboy or let it occur in the bottles (I still need to add dextrose) My final questions is plastic or glass bottles?

Appreciate any help or suggestions

First off, read this site: How-to-Brew.

To answer your question, the bucket was intended to be your primary, but since you've already got it in the carboy, I'd just leave it there for 2 - 3 weeks, than bottle it.

In reading your post I suppose you did not boil up the ingredients. Not terrible, but leaves lots of room for issues. Next batch I'd boil up 1.5 or 2G water with the kit for an hour and then dump in the remaining water to cool it and transfer to the carboy and pitch hydrated yeast (I pressume you used the pack and just sprinkled it in). To hydrate, sprinkle over 1 cup of warm (previously boiled) water and let it sit covered with foil until it looks like it is beginning to froth up a bit...then pitch. Let sit in an air lock carboy until fementation looks like its stopped. Transfer to a second for carboy for two weeks or so. Transfer to bottling bucket with corn sugar and bottle in GLASS. This, of course is my $0.02 opinion and you will likely get 1,000 differing from others.

Read as much as you can on brewing and keep viewing the posts in this forum, even if you don't know what we are talking about yet! Welcome. !

PS...I just checked out the site offered up by El Pistolero...like he said, I'd start there. Cheers.

Appreciate the replies.... Couple more questions, Will the taste of the beer change after bottling or is the pre bottling beer the same taste minus the carbonation. Finally do you guys follow the directions that come with the beer kits or do you have your own methods.
Thanks.

My first batch is an IPA from Coopers http://coopers.com.au/homebrew/hbrew.php?pid=1&id=124
Has anyone tried this?

My thoughts on a couple of those:

Taste change - yes, over time the taste normally improves as the beer ages a bit - but they can be good from as short as a week after bottling. Normally by the time the taste is fully matured, all of mine are gone.

Directions: I don't follow label instructions, but I do have a "standard" process. Sanitize everything. An hour of boil time (spring water always), including malt (I use LME only), steeping grain and hops. Normally I do some hops for the full boil and some to "finish" (the last five minutes of boil). Into the brew tank with cold spring water, pitch the yeast, close it up and leave it alone. Bottle in two weeks. Drinkable in a week.

I might - most likely WILL - start using a secondary, but so far I have been pleased with how this has worked for maybe ten batches.