Technically, this is beer. It is also the result of eight plus hours of work.
It started at 8:00 AM sharp at my friend Russell's house. After a cup of coffee I was put to work. The first job, grinding eight pounds of barley malt. Then a few more pounds of specialty malts, black and chocolate. There was then a lot of boiling and cooling and mixing and siphoning and sanitizing and temperature taking and transferring from one carboy to another.
We avoided calculating how much it cost to make the five gallons you see here. Which even after all this work is still a few weeks from being drinkable.
Well, not all the time was spent working. We had time for music. And food (the walnut 'meatballs' were quite tasty!).
And even a bit of backyard birding.
And of course, we sampled the previous efforts.
We did a lot of sampling.
And I can't wait to sample the brew in the carboy at the top of this post.
It was a great way to spend the day.
7 comments:
I can understand the moonshine, I almost understand the deliverance look of the second shot and the waiting buzzard I won't even blink at, but half drunk mugs of Amber Nectar I understand NOT IN THE LEAST!
That fiddle caught my eye!
What's with all the foam?
@ Ron: That's easy, we were only half way through drinking them.
@ Laura: That is an artifact of pouring into the carboy. It will quickly disappear, only to be replaced as the yeast works its magic.
Tell me about the fiddle then!
@ Laura: Ah, the fiddle, the most important instrument in the brewer's repertoire.
As can be seen in the image, the players, Ron on fiddle, Tom on guitar, and Russell on banjo, are playing around the boiling wort (the silver pot). But the wort didn't really start "dancing" (a technical term) until Ron joined in. Now Russell and Tom had played together in the Sugar Sand Ramblers, but Ron was a newcomer. The only songs they had in common were Irish folk tunes, which fortunately make great brewing songs. (Good drinking songs too.)
And as they played we had a chorus of titmice and chickadees and woodpeckers and even a wren join in. At least until the sharpie flew through.
Yep there was some fine fiddlin'.
WOW, looks pretty amazing, beautiful earth tones, I'd love to sample some lol, I wonder what the alcohol content is?
@ Lou: It was fun. Russell was aiming for an alcohol content of about 8%.
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