After another lazy weekend morning, my DH, the kiddos and I headed over to our friends W&M for a lessons in home brewing beer. My DH LOVES beer! Last fall we purchased a kit to brew our own beer at home. When I say “our own” I mean “his own;” I am not a beer drinker. Anyway, we haven’t done it yet. W&M have been brewing beer since 1995. They offered to let us watch how things happen (i.e. DH helped W brew beer). And have also offered to come to our house when we brew our first batch! Yay!
I didn’t take pictures, as I was busy taking notes for my DH. I will try to better document when we brew at home.
The process was very interesting. It starts with sanitizing everything including the yeast packet. Next up is steeping the grain, followed by adding the malt and the sugar. After that, we added the hops…in three steps. Finally, an ice bath is used to cool down the brew. Once cool, it is added to the carboy. Add cold water to make 5 gallons and about 100 degrees. Temperature is important, we don’t want to kill the yeast!
The carboy gets moved to is fermentation location and a special stopper is placed. Fermentation will happen over then next week or two and then W&M will bottle.
I am actually excited to have my DH do this at home. He will love it!
On another note, I was not good at following my diet yesterday. I had chicken and rice. I had a little stomach discomfort afterwards, but nothing extraordinary. I am very torn. I kind of want to just try none of my “red” foods and see how I react, but knowledge is power and what good is the knowledge if I eat things I know I am not supposed to???? I am back to my regularly scheduled diet.
Carrie Ann
