Adventures in Home Brewing

Last night I brewed my first solo batch of beer. It was great (though I think it would have been easier if I had an assistant). The only drawback is that it will be weeks before I know how it turned out. I made a German Weitzen (recipe was from F.H. Steinbart).

 My beautiful Beer Pot...it makes me happy :-)

 Tettenager Hops

 Hallertauer Hops

 If Jesus lived in Portland he would definitely turn water into Beer :-)

 Yeast...ready to pitch.

 Malt Extract (someday I'll do all grain but I'm starting with baby steps)

 This is what Malt Extract looks like...kind of like caramel in consistancy...so sticky!

 My new investment...I've always wanted an infared thermometer :-)
155 degrees F is the magic number.

 Boiling away just after the first hops were added.

 Just chillin'. The wort has to get to 72 degrees F before pitching the yeast...lots of waiting.

Wort...ready for the magic to happen.

Invite Photo Shoot with Kaity + Daniel

Here are a couple of the pics from the Invite shoot. Can't actually show you the one we used but it was fun!

Oregon Garden Brewfest

I volunteered to serve at the Oregon Garden Brewfest- it was fantastic! I can't wait for the next one! I poured for Blue Moon and even got to meet the brewers.

May 10

Wow...has it really been 30 days since I posted? Life has been CRAZY! Between working overtime and helping my little sis plan a wedding I have completely neglected my Project 365 commitment. But let's face it- who has time to catch up on 30 days of daily posts at once? Not I. So I'm going to do a couple of posts from the last couple of weeks and call it good enough. Then back to the drawing board of trying to stay caught up.

Coming up:
Oregon Garden Brewfest -I served Blue Moon to the hordes of beer enthusiasts that descended upon Silverton. It was such a blast.
Wedding Invite shots with none other than Daniel + Kaity- It was a good time (so much better than hand addressing envelopes only to realize that we needed to start over :-) )
and
My own foray into amateur brewing...I figured I've roasted my own coffee, infused vodka and other do-it-yourself projects so beer was my next frontier!

I'll post later today!