Let me explain…

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Tasting notes are overrated.

Just a Quick Garden Update

With all the beer nonsense going on lately, you may have thought that our garden was getting the short end of the stick. You’d be wrong.

It’s just that after the seeds have been planted, there’s very little to do for a few weeks.

Well a few weeks have passed, and now there’s work to be done again. Believe it or not, pretty much everything we grow should be started by now, and our peas, carrots, and spinach should already be in the ground. (Don’t believe me?) There are a few things that I deliberately do “wrong”, and starting the squash indoors early is one of them. I start my squash when I start my tomatoes and peppers, so that they’re bigger when we transplant them and give away the extras come mother’s day. Unfortunately, that means that from late February through the middle of May, traditionally the end of the coldest part of our year, I’m trying to find space for over a hundred seedlings. Fun!

The other day I transplanted the squash out of their single thirty six cell flat, and into individual 4″ pots. Through careful selection, and judicious root separating, I went from twenty eight cells with viable seedlings, to forty one pots with seedlings that have room to grow. Considering it would be difficult for us too realistically fit any more than ten plants in the space we have allotted for squash, it looks like I’ll be giving away a lot.

Tomatoes and peppers grow MUCH slower than squash, which is why they’re actually supposed to be started so early. as a result, that seventy two cell flat that’s holding them will do for quite a while.

And Knowing is Half the Battle.

HEADS UP: Since it REALLY BUGGED Emma, I reordered the list to match the image.

[...]the initial setup is only like $50-$80. But of course, then you have to build a kegerator, and buy a $300 stockpot, and buy kegs, and have your drunk friends over to drink your beer.

Then you have to buy more expensive beer to compare your end product too, and take your wife to breweries and homebrew shops on every vacation.

Then you decide you want to mortage your house to start a microbrewery with some friends, the wife leaves you and takes half your brewing stuff, and you have to start over again.

Might be safer to stick with stamps or coins.

reddit user heavysteve, on the cost (real and imagined) of homebrewing

As I finished reading that comment, and laughing appropriately, I realized something. Up to this point, my beer preferences have been influenced almost 100% by others. For years when given the choice I’d choose “real booze” over beer, or perhaps wine, or even water. Not because I expressly disliked beer, but because buying various styles seemed an expensive way to discover my tastes, when I knew that I could avoid throwing away money on something I wouldn’t enjoy drinking, just by buying wine or whiskey.

Unfortunately that’s no longer an option. If we’re going to brew beer, I’m going to have to find a whole selection of beers that I enjoy, if only to give Emma some variety. Now here in the not quite as ridiculous as Utah state of Pennsylvania, our beer sales (among other things) are regulated by the PLCB an archaic institution existing solely to frustrate and annoy the citizens of the state in which it has its totalitarian grip.

If you don’t want to pay PA’s roughly 15%-30% higher than everyone else in driving distance 6pack prices – you can buy a case. The end, thank you for playing. Needless to say, when I discovered Wegman’s has a craft-your-own 6pack I gassed up the car almost immediately. (the nearest Wegmans is just shy of 30 miles away, back towards civilization)

For the six of you that haven’t put two and two together yet, I’m broadening/discovering my beer palate one custom craft beer 6pack at a time. Yesterday, Emma and I selected 6 brews specifically to determine our mutual palate, by being as distinctly

Familiarity Breeds Stuff

So as I didn’t really write about, not that long ago Emma and I brewed out first beer. Since then, I’ve pretty much been hooked. In fact, last Saturday I went to a workshop at one of my local homebrew shops.

A short while after I arrived, the roughly 15 of us attending were polled to see if anyone had already made a brew. Two of us had, and several others claimed to have witnessed the process. Nonetheless, as promised, it was a true beginner’s class – even if you lacked a single shred of knowledge when you walked in that morning, you would’ve left with enough information to make beer. Drinkable beer – maybe not, but beer nonetheless.

Beer In Brief

So apparently we’re beer people now.

Here’s some proof:

Sanitized and ready to begin.

Mise en Place

Bagging grains.

Temp check!

Mommy’s Serious Face.

Mommy’s – er I mean Gabriella’s Serious Face.

Even Gabriella Helped!

Double double toil and… you get the idea.

I is for ice bath!

Transferring to the fermenter.

Yeast!

TRYING to get a clear hydrometer reading through massive bubbles.

Let the primary fermentation begin!

For those interested, it was a Brewers Best Kit. Specifically their Imperial Nut Brown