2 questions from a newbie

[droche]

Hello everyone , I'm new to the home brew hobby and I bought a starter kit that came with Norfolk Wherry . It's been in FV for 2 weeks now and at the weekend I plan on bottling 12 500 ml bottles (so I can take some for my Father in law to try) and putting the rest in the pressure barrel . After reading posts on this and other sites I'm just a little unclear on a couple of things .
1 - when I've put the primed beer in the barrel and tightened the cap, do I use the CO2 bulb straight away. If not when should I use it ?
2 - How long should I keep the barrel and bottles in a warm place ? some say 2 days, some say 2 weeks

hope someone can help

Cheers

 

[Moley]

Welcome to the forum :

After you've primed and either bottled or kegged your beer, then ideally it needs around a week at normal room temperatures and then a few weeks somewhere cooler.

It could be a good idea to inject a bulb of CO2 after you've filled the keg, but then unscrew the cap slightly to vent that pressure. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air so this will expel any oxygen from your keg.

Apart from that, CO2 injection is only needed to maintain dispensing pressure after you've drawn a few pints from your keg.

 

[droche]

Thanks for the reply. I realise now that the fizz in the beer that is in the barrel will come from the priming and not the CO2 that I add. I was just worried about the pressure that could build up.