On December 1st, Etienne, Mina and Benoit came from work to try their hand at making beer and cider. It was the largest batch I have ever taken on…four batches at a time! We decided to make Longhart Red Ale from scratch, some apple cider, an IPA and an Australian bitter.
The evening was tons of fun. The guys were really into it and I’ll be honest, it’s always fun to create beer with a few friends over.
Today, amongst the horrible weather outside, Etienne and Benoit made it to the house to bottle the beer. I had brought bottling operations up into the kitchen instead of downstairs as I didn’t know how many people would be showing up to help and we may be a little cramped downstairs.
I was worried about the lack of bottles, but as the guys joked about (after having to sanitize every bottle in the house!), we ended up with more than enough. Unfortunately for us, we sanitized every plastic bottle from the garage only to realize that the plastic bottle caps had melted rubber bits inside them (from the time two years ago when I put them in the dishwasher and then switched to glass bottles). So…we couldn’t use all the plastic bottles, but no matter! Somehow it all worked out and Etienne drank approximately 17 gallons of San Pelligrino water so he could have the bottles for the weekend. He proceeded to spend the day in the washroom as it was a constant flow. Ha ha.
Four batches done and I’m itching to start a new batch in the new year! I’m toying with the idea of moving to a keg system instead of using bottles. Any tips?