A little concerned with my first brew!

[Robd]

I seem to be going away from my festival ale kit instructions and need a little reassurance/advise. Instructions say after 5 days add the hops and then after a further 5 days it can be kegged. After the recommended 10 days the gravity was 1.018 but instructions say it should be 1.009. After advise on here ive left it longer by another couple of days but the sg is still high at 1.0016 so hasnt dropped much in 2 days. Ive actually decided to bottle it rather than keg so what should i do from now to get the best out of my brew. Someone mention racking on here so do i need to do that? Basically i need help on finishing off my brew. I still need to add the sugar but when do i bottle, should it be in a warm place after and when can it go into the garage which is quite a cold place?
Cheers in advance, Rob

 

[RobWalker]

5 days isn't a long time and can take a while longer depending on a number of things -

it's still dropping so leave it a few days. maybe your yeast arn't too healthy, and just need a bit more time to chomp up the more complex sugars in the brew. Racking isn't required, and it can stunt the yeast somewhat in my experience.

Adding sugar when bottling, you need at least a week in the warm, then a few in the cool to round off the bad flavours and absorb the co2 into the beer for fizziness. :thumb:

 

[brewtim]

Try warming it up by a degree or two to try and keep the yeast working.