best to follow instructions?

Alright, brewed my first batch last Saturday, it was a Brewer's Best Milk Stout Kit. The fermentation went fast, I never saw any bubbles in the airlock but the krausen appeared Sunday and reabsorbed into the wort by Wednesday, so I checked the gravity and it was within range at 1.024, OG was 1.061.

The instructions make it seem like I could bottle now but my LHBS suggested to leave it alone for a total of 2 weeks.

I'm tempted to just follow the instructions and bottle tomorrow but wanted to here what people thought on here. Here's the recipe:

FERMENTABLES
3.3 lb. Special Dark LME
3.3 lb. Light LME
.5 lb. Lactose
.5 lb. Maltodextrin

SPECIALTY GRAINS
8 oz. Caramel 120L
4 oz. Roasted Barley
4 oz. Dark Chocolate

HOPS
.5 oz. Magnum
.5 oz. Cluster

YEAST
Nottingham

If you hit FG that fast it could be that your yeast are still viable and you are are going to end up with a lower than expected FG. If that is the case bottling now could result in bottle bombs. You're best to play it safe and wait a bit longer. Stouts aren't time sensitive like IPAs so aside from the frustration of wanting to taste it there is no downside to giving it the recommended 2 week primary even if FG hit the "target".
Take gravity readings each day and when it is the same for 3 days then you can consider it finished.

johngaltsmotor said:

Take gravity readings each day and when it is the same for 3 days then you can consider it finished.

Click to expand...

That was the route I was leaning towards, thanks for the reasurance.
I'll check the gravity again tomorrow, if it hasn't changed, I'll probably bottle it up.

A week primary to bottle is too early for a stout IMO. Let it clean up a bit and as already stated check the gravity make sure it's done fermenting. If it was me. I'd let it sit for at least 2wks then bottle. Then another 3 wks in bottle before a taste test. But it's your beer to have fun with. Remember take notes so you can make corrections for the next one.

Let the yeast do its work. Why the rush? Let it sit for a few weeks unmolested until you check the gravity. You don't want to keep opening the top every day and pulling out samples of your precious beer to test...that's less to bottle when the time comes! As a new brewer I know its very hard not to want to "do something" while your beer is fermenting but you have to let nature takes it's course. Just do what I did and brew a couple more batches so you have more beer in the works, at different stages.

Good Luck and welcome

I guess waiting another week won't be so bad, I had to wait about 4 months until I had the money to buy my equipment (I've been paying down debt). I actually borrowed a kettle to save some dough. Anybody want to loan me a kettle so I can put something in my empty carboy?

It best to follow instructions.

Just not necessarily the instructions that come with the kit.

Find a set of rules that work, and make sense, for you and apply them to your overall process. A set of ingredients isn't going to follow one schedule while another set of the same ingredients will follow another just because of who packaged them and declared them a kit.

The waaaaiting is the haaaaaardest part!

I just started a thread about how good my first porter is after 8-10 weeks in the bottles. Instructions from LHBS said to condition for 1 week. The difference between this beer at 4 weeks and now is crazy. Instructions gave me an unreasonable timeline and I drank a bunch of crap beer as a result.

Wait it out.