Beer!

Not only have we made cheese (twice) since coming back, but we started our first batch of beer! I think it took us an hour just to clean and sanitize everything; a good 45 minutes to bring the water up to a boil (we started off too slow with our grain, worried it would heat up too fast); cooked the wort for an hour, adding the hops at the proper time; cooled it in the sink until it was cool enough to put in the fermenter (oh yeah, and started the yeast before that time), topped off the wort with fresh water (not tap) and when it was cool enough we added the yeast. Put it in the pantry in the middle of the house and turned the air on so it would be below 75 degrees in that room (which we may need to cool more. We'll figure this all out). Anyhow, a day later it started to foam and work! It was cool to watch the progress. The wort was churning, the foam was coming up on the top, and the airlock was working away! Now it's been three more days and it's been fairly quiet, but I see a pop now and then. We took an original hydrometer reading before adding the yeast (it was a lot lower than we expected) and we're set to take our next one this weekend. I'm quite excited about all of this and hope it will turn out okay. I ordered enough 22 ounce bottles to bottle it, but I've also been saving good 12 ounce bottles. I plan to wash and sterilize those this weekend (and make some more cheese)!! And my husband and I had so much fun doing the first batch, he already ordered the stuff for a second batch! But we agreed not to start that until we've had a chance to try our first beer and see where we need to improve our technique. In the meantime I've also been doing the mozzarella cheese. And I ordered supplies to make a couple of other kinds of cheese. If that works out, and I hope it does, then I'll be buying the pattern to make a cheese press and trying my hand at some hard cheeses as well. But also, I need to make room for some more toys in my garage so I've been going out there and cleaning up a bag of trash every other day. At this rate, my part should be done in a couple of weeks and it's just a matter of my husband cleaning up his tools (I will put them all close to or on his work bench) and him and my daughter cleaning up some of the car parts that I can't move. I'm rather excited about it all.

Oh, and a new Belgium Pub opened up in our town in a little alley by the theater. We've gone there the last three weeks and enjoyed some very good ale and then twice went to the movies afterwards (my husband loves the movies)! I'd have to say that I've been enjoying myself :-)

Now, if the beer turns out any decent, I will also put up a few pictures along with my comments!