My buddy Kyle and I brewed a tasty batch of American Pale Ale recently and I really enjoyed both the process and the results. Enjoy these photos from the process!

Kit contents - American Pale Ale from Brewer's Best

Grains in a cheesecloth bag

Steeping the grains to make wort

Adding liquid malt extract

Bittering hops

Lots of boiling and hoppy smells

Finished wort. Delicious.

Transferring the wort to the fermenter via siphon

Pitching the yeast

Installing the airlock

Shazam! Fermentation!

CO2 bubbling through airlock

Fermentation Station - CO2 bubbles on top of beer

Done fermenting - about 1 gallon of trub rests on the bottom of the fermenter.

Time to bottle.

We used two types of bottles: capped, and flip top.

Filling the bottles one by one. Everything is sanitized before the beer touches it.

Capping the bottles

All capped up

The fruit: 4.5 gallons or 2.25 gallons each. Time to let it carbonate in the bottle.

Two weeks later & time to enjoy my American Pale Ale.

Timeline of the process:

November 22: brewing
November 23: fermentation is rocking
November 29: transferred beer to secondary container to avoid some sediment (trub)
December 2: bottling
December 9: Mr. Eager opens a bottle, and it’s definitely not ready yet.
December 17: respectably carbonated and tasty
January 4: only one pint left, time for a new batch of homebrew!

Just one of our designs

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my second online business, Mistle Mail. This new service allows you to customize your own Christmas e-mail with your own photos, text, and Christmas letter, while we worry about delivering it to your friends and family. It’s an economical and eco-friendly approach to sending your holiday greetings this year! You can send an unlimited number of emails for one low price.

Megan and I would love to hear some feedback on the service! Please check it out and let us know what you think.

It has been such a long time since we’ve updated! Emma has grown and developed so much since April. We had the privilege of traveling to Northern Wisconsin this weekend for our annual church retreat. With some free time yesterday, the three of us went out and took some great Fall pictures. Enjoy!