Hi All,
Im about to plan my first ever AG brew and had planned on a creamy type Stout as i am a Guinness lover and unable to get it where i now live.. So this recipe sounds and looks perfect for me in many ways.. suits my tastes and seems to be a rather easy/fast brew to bottle to my mouth beer
A few questions that i dont understand reading through all the posts:
1. SG and FG.. how do i test this? From what i read it sounds like you guys are opening up the primary fermenter a few times to test? how is this good for the beer opening the fermenter ?
2. What exactly is the point/need of secondary fermentation? why is it not possible to just leave it in the primary fermenter the whole time until bottling?
3. When priming to bottle, can this be added to the fermenter and then bottled or do i need to add a little to each bottle?
4. When brewing, talking time of boil and such, is that time calculated from the point where the water starts a boil or just total time over the heat? This mash part confuses me cause ive watched videos where people are mashing whilst over a gas burner so heating, but also seen some home brewers mashing in an old cooler, with no heat at all.. just preheated water..
5. I live in a hot place, can this stout be ok fermenting at say 25 degrees celcius?
6. Dues to space restrictions, i want to do a 1 gallon first brew, and am hoping that i can maybe after primary fermentation that i can split it into 2 half gallon secondaries to maybe experiment with some different flavours in each like the vanilla and chocolate additions.. is that possible?
Im sure more questions will arise, and i know i have a lot to learn before actually doing this first brew, but at least i think i have now found the recipe that i want to do!!