Backyard Garden

We picked up the stuff to brew a dry stout yesterday from the Hop Shop in Grey. One can of hopped dark malt syrup and 3 pounds of dry malt for a richer brew. We started the brewing process last night after Honora was put to bed. Things went fairly well initially. Sanitized all the buckets and equipment, no boilovers, generally a good time. We filled the brew bucket with the water and wort and took the hydrometer reading to find out how much alcohol might be at the end of the process then walked the 95 bucket into the basement. Once in the basement I noticed the seal around the spigot was leaking. Some one tightened it a bit too much. Someone who thinks you can muscle everything just a little better. I couldn't reach my hand into the bucket to fix things so we had to move everything over to the glass carboy. In the process of moving everything to the carboy the hose we were using detached and began to spill future beer everywhere. We cinched off the flow of beer and began to clean u...

Here are a few pics of Jen and I removing labels from the bottles we will be using to bottle our beer. It was not fun and a word of advice; if you are saving bottle for brewing stick to Smithwicks and Bass as the labels come off with almost not work what so ever. Avoid at all costs Dos Equis and McSorley's as these babies are the worst. The Dos Equis has a metallic label that doesn't allow the water to soak through to the glue and the McSorley's glue is a rubbery mess that requires gloves to roll it off. We had to buy a 12 pack to get the 100 bottles we were looking for, but we have it now. Not the funnest part of the brew making process.

For my birthday I received a brew kit because a flooded garden and hunting ground hogs was not enough. This was our first kit.   And this is what it looked like bubbling. It is in the basement now waiting to be beer.