Assistant (to the) Brewer

For Christmas Keith got a bit of a brewing kit and yesterday evening seemed like a good time to start brewing! Along with all super cool equipment, Keith got a recipe kit for brewing a Breakfast Stout, which is described as a cross between an Oatmeal Stout and a Sweet Stout with a coffee-like flavor-yup that sounds like breakfast! It was a little hard to pick out a brew that I know I won't like, but I don't doubt that there will much more beer to come!
As prep, we watched the DVD on how to brew-this was pretty great since I had pretty much no idea how all this works. It seems brewing is all about keeping everything clean and taking time to drink a beer while the brew (wort) is on the stove.

My job as assistant was pretty easy-just keep stirring! While I like to think of myself a little more like Dwight, the reality is that as an assistant, right now I am much more of an Igor right now-if only I had that great outfit! :)


After the barley and oats seeping, malt and lactose added, then the hops added and boiled, it was time to chill the wort as quickly as possible-it is suggested that you create an ice bath in the kitchen sink. Really, with 30 degree temps and snow on the ground, I don't an ice bath was necessary! Now we wait for fermentation to take place. With the yeast added and the wort hanging out in a warm dark place (Keith's closet), we have two weeks before we bottle what will hopefully, actually be beer! After that we still have two more weeks to condition the beer in the bottles-so we will have really no idea if it's any good for about a month. At this point we know that the original gravity is extremely close what the recipe says it was supposed to be-we have our fingers crossed!

Now, Keith has been seriously bitten by the brewing bug-I can't wait to assist again! Updates to come!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Wallowa County!

Yesterday was our Christmas, since Keith is on call today-he may be delivering a Christmas baby at some time today so it's a good thing we did our presents and dinner yesterday. Speaking of presents I'm writing this blog post on the most awesome present-a Mac! It is so amazing to have a fully functioning computer again!

Of course BJ doesn't care about any of this-all he wanted to do yesterday was open presents-he started with his, then moved on to ours. At least he waited until Christmas to start opening everything!

We've been enjoying our awesome view this winter, although it would be a little nicer if it snowed a little more before Christmas!!

Of course all these pictures are just from around the house, since I'm still not traveling very far-but thank you Gil for reminding to get off my butt and take some pictures! I think this may be a long month of hobbling around in the snow, but hopefully my knee will be 110% pain free and all of this will be worth it!

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays! We've had an amazing Christmas and want to thank everyone for such thoughtful gifts and cards. We hope that we can share our winter wonderland with you some time soon!