Bottling Day

So the beer has been in the fermenter for 2 weeks. Fermentation has done it's thing & it's time to bottle.

First I had sanitize (24) bottles. I used the dishwasher.

Added a bit too much sanitizer.

Then I have to get the beer out of the fermenter and into the bottling bucket. You do this by placing the racking cane into the fermenter, attach a rubber hose to it, suck(hey now), and let the beer flow into the bucket. I put 4 ozs of dissolved corn sugar into the bottom of the bucket. This will work with the remaining yeast to make the beer have bubbles.

After the beer is in the bucket it's time to start filling up the bottles.

Then cap em off.

Beer should be ready to drink about in 2-3 weeks. I tasted a bit before bottling and it tasted like flat beer. Which I guess is a good sign.

Hope I don't end up with 24 bottles of crappy beer.

Easter 2008

Spent Easter Sunday at my sister's place. Had a great time hiding eggs with my nephew & niece, Ethan & Sara.

Sara




We filled plastic eggs with Hot Wheels & play kitchen accessories. I think we hid the same eggs 47 times. It was fun.


The hunt begins.






Sara wearing her chef's hat, oven mit, & apron

Let's open em up.

This tooth wasn't knocked out during the fun, I promise.

Random camping pictures

Big Sur from May 2007. We're heading back here again this summer. It's awesome.

Big Trees June 2006

Bodega Bay July 2005

Big Basin July 2005

Home brew batch # 1

New hobby. Making my own BEER~! Oh snap. Started my first batch last Saturday. Am Americam IPA made with all Columbus hops. This is mostly a run through of the process to see if I enjoy it & see if it turns out okay.

The ingredients are basically water, malted grains, hops, & yeast. Who ever took the time to come up with a recipe of these simple things to make something so delicious should have at least have a statue somewhere. Or his face on some currency.

1.5 lbs of Crytal grains

9 lbs of ultralight malt extract

6 ozs of Columbus hops

The hops are the pellet version. Hopefully I'll graduate to using whole hops.

They smell awesome.

Steeping the grains in 3 gallons of water. Tea bagging if you will.

Water at a rolling bowl. Add the first batch(bittering) of hops and boil for a complete hour. Add the second batch(flavoring hops) for the final 5 minutes, and the last batch(aroma hops) for the final 2 minutes of the boil.

That's a long time to be standing around. Better have a beer. Research on flavor profiles & whatnot.

After the hour boil the wort needs to be cooled to below 130*. I saw Alton Brown do a trick where he pours the hot wort into a bucket of ice to cool down. I did the same thing here. Then transfer into the container for fermentaion and add cool water to reach 5 gallons.

Once the wort has cooled again to below 80* the yeast was added. The yeast is ALIVE & will eat the sugar from the malt and create alcohol. Which makes beer taste yummy, and improves life. And makes most people tolerable. And funny. And attractive.

The beer will sit in here for 2 weeks for the fermentation process to take place and for all the stuff floating around to settle. Then corn sugar will be added & the beer will be bottled. The sugar is what makes the carbonation.

The cloudiness is all the hops, yeast, & gunk settling to the bottom.

Got my fingers crossed that this will at least turn out okay. I'll bottle next Saturday.

Wine?