New Beer Kit

[WriterWriter]

Hey all,

A friend of mine just bought a beer kit from the LHBS. It came with a pail and glass carboy. He's never brewed beer before.

So I'm thinking he should run through everything a few times using the secondary just to see how he likes it, but what I wanted to know was this: once he's done the process a few times, can he just make the beer in the glass carboy and use the pail as the bottling bucket? What would be required for him to do that?

I'm asking because although the guys at the store were really open to any kind of way of making beer, they hesitated when I mentioned this and thought that a beginner should probably just run through the steps a few times before trying something new.

I've never made beer just in a glass carboy and want to make sure I don't give him the wrong directions.

Thanks!
WW

 

[llazy_llama]

He should be fine fermenting in the carboy, as long as he leaves enough headspace. If it's a 5 gallon carboy, he might want to stick with the bucket, and only use the carboy for secondary. If it's a 6 gallon carboy, he's fine.

Since you're asking if he can use the bucket for bottling, I'll have to assume it has a bottling spigot on there already. He'd just need to hook up his tubing, attatch a bottle wand, and bottle away. If not, he'd need to drill a hole in the bucket, buy a spigot, and screw it on first.

 

[slomo]

x2 best to use the glass carboy for the primary. If the bucket has a spigot the spigot could come loose, starting a leak, and you dont want to deal with that for the first brew.

 

[WriterWriter]

Since you're asking if he can use the bucket for bottling, I'll have to assume it has a bottling spigot on there already.

Could he not just use a tube, auto-siphon, and bottling wand to bottle from the bucket? He bought those.