Our First Homebrewing Adventure

For Josh's 25th Birthday, I wanted to get him something nice. He gave me several ideas. My top choices were beer brewing supplies and fishing supplies. I thought about it for a while. I decided on brewing supplies since we would probably rarely go fishing. I just pictured Bailey trying to attack a flopping fish. Haha. Anyway, I contacted one of my friends who has been home brewing for a long time and he pointed me in the right direction! I spent a bit more than Josh wanted me to but I think it was worth it. It's something we can do together. We have a lot in common already but it's nice that we can share a new hobby. 

We brewed our first batch Thursday night. The whole process took us about 4 hours, so it was a late night. We were exhausted by the end of the night since we stayed up much later than normal. We both really enjoyed it though. 

Our ingredients. We used a kit this time because we pretty much had no idea what we were doing. We have already picked out a recipe for our next batch. We'll be making a Pumpkin Ale, just in time for Fall!

Josh sanitizing his carboy. Just sanitizing seemed to take forever.

Adding ingredients

Stirring

TONS of foam after adding the hops

Into the carboy it goes after cooling

Shake it!

It's fermenting now, we should be able to bottle within a week!