I gave birth to a six pack.
God bless Jimmy Carter and his administration getting home brew legalization legislation passed.
Jefferson's Brewery batch one.
Given that it would be ready at Valentine's Day all sorts of names like Valentine Bitter or VD Beer came to mind, all more or less tacky names.
This is not my recipe, it is from a kit, but that felt like the best way to start.
Talking to other friends that have home brewed helped a lot, got some good and useful tips.
Showing off pics of the process was like a proud papa showing off baby pictures.
January 17, 2012 brewing
I had hours to kill, snowed in. I had this kit since last summer, but finally had the real stuck at home time to do it. It took a few hours, I wanted to do this right. The biggest advice I had was that I really needed to make certain about sanitation ... so I really overdid it.
January 20, 2012 capping
Nervous about getting this wrong and it was the simplest part. Really, it is just to create a little pressure but also to relieve it as needed.
January 31, 2012 bottling
This was where a lot could go wrong and I would not necessarily know for two weeks. However, the beer smelled fresh and that gave me cause for optimism. I again went way overboard with the sanitizing, but I do not think that there really is too much you can do wrong by doing extra boiling and sanitizing. I even boiled the cheese cloth. Then I filtered the jug all into a separate container and even boiled the honey. Instead of adding honey per bottle, since I had added a step it was added to the filtered middle step container prior to ladling into each bottle. Having spent the couple buck each on the good stopper bottles was also a good idea as things sealed up nicely.
February 14, 2012 ready ...
February 17, 2012 I took the time to grab a chilled glass, popped the bottle open (in the sink just in case) and poured. It smelled right and looked right in the glass. A sip, then a gulp, and it tasted nice and like a mild beer on tap.
Victory is mine!
Explanabragging and pictures followed ...
