A Visit from the Plumbers

Through my friend Mark, I have contacted two competent Plumbers named Craig and Dave.

They came by the house a few weeks ago, before the demolition of the bathroom began, to survey the situation, find out what we wanted to do and give me a worst case scenerio bid. That bid was $1,500.00. That was within our budget, so I have picked them. As far as the quality of their work goes, a recommendation from Mark is good enough for me.

Craig told me that they are not available to do anything on the bathroom for another week and a half. That means we are looking at around August 6th before they do anything.

That works for me cuz we still have a shit load of work to do before they can get started.

The first thing I am going to do is make some beer.

I am using a recipe that is different from anything I have ever made before. As I write this paragraph, the wort (my Beer) is boiling. It contains some water, some syrupy malt extract, and a half ounce of Polish Lubin Hops. That mixture has about 20 more minutes to boil before I add a quarter ounce of Crystal Hops. After five minutes, I will add a quarter ounce of English Kent Goldings Hops and let that boil for another ten minutes.

Just before I end the boil, I will add a quarter ounce of U.S. Ultra Hops and then remove the mixture from the heat.

Now comes one of the unusual steps with this beer. I will add a mesh bag of Indian Sassparilla Bark to the wort and steep it for an hour.

By then it will have cooled enough for me to pour the wort into my Primary Fermenter and top it off with water. When the temperature reaches the exactly precise temperature of about 70 to 75 degrees, I will add the yeast and let the magic begin.

What follows are a procession of pictures from the brewing session.

The picture at top left shows my cooking apparatus. As you can see, I am cooking my beer out on the deck. It is much too hot to be doing this on the stove in the kitchen. The middle picture shows a pan with a cup of Malt extract. I carmelized it and then added it to the boiling wort.

Here I added some Hops. Also pictured is the bag of Sassparilla Bark and then the Fermenter filled with the wort and topped off with water and ready to receive the yeast. It should be bubbling away when I return from work tomorrow. More pictures to come at that time.