I've not done much home brewing for a while, not only have I not had time (It's a fairly time consuming process) but I've just not been drinking much full stop and I was finding that it was going off before I could get it supped. I guess that's just old age creeping up on me and running's not as much fun with a hangover anyway!
At some point in the future I'll no doubt get the kit back down from the loft and fire up the boiler for another go. In the mean time there's got to still be at least 100 bottles of home made wine and probably the same of home made beer sat in the cellar slowly maturing so there's plenty to be going on with. (See this blog post for a tasting)
Brewing's a bit like cooking and growing your own vegetables, there's nothing more satisfying that sitting down at the end of the day with a pint of freshly poured ale and saying "I made this"!
Does it get any better than that? Home made beer, freshly poured from a home made pump!
Mash in, Liquor (hot water) Grain and adjuncts, aiming for 65-67 degrees C.
A good, strong fermentation.
Home made mead - Matured since 2008.
Mashing - Sat for 90 mins at 65 degrees C whilst the sugars cook out of the grain.
This is when you get in trouble with "The Emma" - Fermentation escaping the bucket like a 1950's horror movie.
Looking good.
Taken around the end of 2012, but it's not much different now (except all that home made wines had another 9 years of maturing). I don't know how that can of Kronendeath's got in there!
Nothing better at the end of a days graft than a pint of home made Ale - Judging from the ceiling it looks like this was taken at some point during the Kitchen Caper in 2018.