Wilkos Dark Velvet Stout

I started this kit six days ago, it's nothing fancy just the standard kit made up with 1kg of brewing sugar and made up to 23l.

I did screw up my hydrometer reading a bit though, I forgot to take it before adding the yeast, so I took it after instead.
I also managed to read it completely wrong, as the numbering on the hydrometer confused me fully. On my other hydrometer the numbers are conveniently marked 01 02 03 etc. On the new hydrometer I got with my birthday present it doesn't have the first number, and reads 10 20 30 etc., so i ended up with a reading of something like 1.308, when I realised my mistake I crossed it out and replaced it with 1.030 (forgetting about the 3rd number). As I can't remember the original reading properly, I no longer know what the OG is.

No worries though, just means I won't have an accurate strength at the end of it all. Today I had a sneak pick under the lid of my FV and it looks to be burbling away happily, so hopefully I'll get a decent brew out of it. I've finally reached a compromise on trying to keep the beer at a constant temperature for fermenting, and not cooking the house. I've set the house thermostat to 18, and put an oil filled radiator near the FV's set to it's lowest setting. This seems to be keeping them at a steady 19 degrees.

That's about it really, just decided to make a post as I'm getting a bit excited about my new brew. I'll leave it for another few days before taking a new hydrometer reading, and again two to three days later.

Picture from the day after starting the kit.

The OG would have been 1.036. The last time I made this it finished at 1.006.

Tastes great.

Excellent information, thank you. I did have some small doubts lingering in the back of my mind that my reading was way off anyway as I seem to only see reports of the OG being around 1.04X for a lot of beers (although, this may just be confirmation bias and I've forgotten all the non 1.04X readings). It seems I wasn't so far off after all.

How long did you find fermentation took?

Try to just be patient and leave it for say 10-12 days untouched, then check the gravity, then check again after a further 2 days until you have a steady gravity for 2 consecutive readings (2 days apart) around the level stated on the kit instructions. Mine are usually completed at 1014-1010. Haven't had any go lower than that, but I haven't done the Wilkos Stout kit to know where that one finishes to be fair. 1006 sounds quite low to me, so I wonder if MattN's hydrometer may just be calibrated differently to mine(?)

Cheers, I'll be leaving it until 10 days before I take my first reading. The important bit sounds like getting two consecutive matching readings rather than what that reading is. How important is hydrometer calibration?

Calibration is important for ABV calculations and to make sure that the brew has fully fermented out, but is argueably less important than having two consecutive readings.

Check this how-to out which is brilliant:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=24822

Thanks for the link. A quick question though, would it make much difference between say a faulty (but consistent reading) of say 1.040 SG, and 1.010 OG for working out the final ABV, compared to a real (still consistent) reading of 1.042 SG and 1.012 OG?
I have a feeling I may have OG and SG mixed up.

I have always been told that if you are going to be inaccurate, then be consistently inaccurate so that the comparable values are consistent. It wont make too much difference unless you really cant read a hydrometer.
Try playing around with the 'calculators' at the top of the forum pages on the LHS - blue boxes, 3rd one down.

And don't worry too much about it all, I am sure it will all be fine! :thumb:

Well, I took the second reading of this kit yesterday when I got in from work, and it was the same as the first at 1.008. A quick look at my notes and some guess work gives me a final ABV of about 3.4%, so a pretty weak beer. So we'll see how it goes.

After giving everything a last clean and sterilise I roped my wife in to helping me bottle and barrel it up. That was a catalogue of disasters. Beer all over the floor, me, and my wife's trousers. Eventually we got four glass bottles, four plastic bottles and the pressure barrel filled. Huzzah. The plastic bottles were super easy to cap, the glass bottles were a nightmare.

It would seem that the fat neck under the opening on Wychwood bottles makes them unsuitable for use with a twin lever capper as it can't get it's mechanism past the fat bit. So we only managed to cap the one bottle that wasn't from Wychwood, which destroys my plan to drink lots of lovely Hobgoblin to get the empty bottles for my own beers. In the end I figured that since everything was sterilised and clean, I would just pour those three bottles into the main barrel and let them condition there.

So I now have a pressure barrel and five 500ml bottles sat with my (still!) fermenting cider, where they will stay for another week or two before I take them down to the cellar for their final conditioning.

Yea hobgoblin capers won't cap using those types of capers if you still want to use them you need to get yourself one of these and a hammer http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... yG-A_l_vBo. Alot more effort but means you could still drink the hobgoblin. :

I looked at that when I was picking up the twin lever capper, but I know what I'm like and I feared for my safety with broken glass going flying.

D'oh! The plastic bottles didn't carbonate, I didn't close the lids fully. I only realised this today when I had a look at the bottles in the cellar and gave one a squeeze, it bent out of shape and stayed that way. I've closed the lids properly now, so I felt the pop as the collar slipped fully over the retaining bit of plastic, I'll move them back to a warm place and hope there is enough sugar and yeast left to have a second go at carbonation.

In slightly better news, the bent bottle got sacrificed to the greater good, and the contents are now in a pint glass being supped. It's still tastes 'thin', but it's improved a lot since tasting the final hydrometer sample, with a nice burnt edge to it. I don't think it will ever pass the feck test though. :rofl: