New Beer

After a long discussion about how we shouldn't start any new projects until we've closed up all the house's open wounds, and how finishing things is good, and blah blah blah, I hear a funny noise while I'm cleaning up in the garage and whoops! My lovely husband has started ripping out old plaster and lath. Oh well - that rotten plaster was pissing me off too. You should probably know that taking off a door (that has no porch or overhang) and replacing it with only a badly installed security screen, will cause your plaster and doorframe to rot. Consider yourselves warned.

Previous owners of our home were not too bright about this sort of thing. We're taking this serendipitous opportunity to fix some really bad wiring too.

If you're not into home improvement, hey look a bunny!

He's got some ears on him, that one.

The main event last week was to execute the next step of turning this:

into some form of drinkable hooch. I was all afraid that it had gotten screwed up when the gasket blew and the airlock fell off, but when I opened it up it smelled good. I have to keep reminding myself of something my SCA brewing mentor used to say (and probably still does - hi Henry!) - peasants brewed every day...and they somehow managed it without food grade plastic buckets and degrees in biochemistry.

The next important step in any brewing process is to pour yourself some of whatever you brewed last time. It's a good reminder that this crazy stuff actually works, and gives you something to do while you stand around siphoning proto-booze.

Usually I like to use a tourniquet to tie the siphon to the bucket handle, so that it doesn't dip too low into the muck at the bottom (as a medical professional, I have that sort of thing lying around. Afterwards I checked its blood type) but this time I forgot to get the siphon, so I had to just stand around drinking beer while holding the racking tube. Worse ways to spend an hour, I'm sure.

The last step in brewing is to wash up all your gear to avoid incurring the wrath of others in the household. In the past I would have thought that no one could get angry at a person who makes alcohol appear, but I was wrong...plus, that muck at the bottom of your primary fermenter gets really hard to scrub off after a while. Next week, bottling!