Take one beer obsessed chick, add one food loving girl, and you get the Gusto Girls.
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BLOG POSTS - Homebrewing
It’s time! The nut brown ale that has been comfortably fermenting underneath my hallway table, is ready for bottling. After a reluctant but much needed trip to the gym (aka ate & drank way too much at the Charleston Wine & Food Festival this weekend), I began the lengthy and exhausting process of sanitizing all the equipment. My fingers are now officially prunes, but those bottles are squeaky clean!
Then the bottling ensued! I now have ten 22oz bottles, eight 12oz bottles, and two 64oz growlers sealed & bottle conditioning at room temperature for the next few weeks. I can hardly wait to pop these bad boys in the fridge for a sip! It looks like it will be ready just in time for the March homebrew meeting with Low Country Libations. Super happy to take them another one of my experiments in homebrewing and get their awesome feedback.
And guess what guys…I remembered the priming sugar this time!
BLOG POSTS - Homebrewing
Today was incredibly rainy here in Charleston, so what better to do than homebrew! After my first foray into homebrewing a few months ago, I started this adventure significantly more prepared and with some semblance of a mental roadmap of where this adventure would take me.
A few weeks ago I purchased a Nut Brown Ale kit from Northern Brewer, which I’m happy to report actually included a recipe. These guys also include the full recipes online in case you lose the one that comes printed in your ingredient kit. So Mission #1 accomplished…recipe in hand!
I also purchased a thermometer to keep track of the the temperature during the boil. It was incredibly useful to steep the grains since they needed to be removed at 170°. The grain bag was also a new thing for me and it was so much easier than straining all the grains after the boil!
All in all today went much better than the first time around. No major spills. No breakage. No cans of nuts exploding all over sanitized equipment. And I actually felt like I knew what I was doing, though clearly I am still a novice!
In a couple of weeks I’ll move to bottling, so check back then to see how it’s going!
Now, off to enjoy an expertly brewed beer by Dogfish Head.
Hilary
