Brewing Up a Storm: The Unboxing

Made beer last year for the first time and it went down very nicely indeed. So...as its my 30th b-day this year and I am planning a bit of shindig at my place I decided it might be a good idea to make some more. Thankfully a like-minded friend was making his first foray into the art of Home Brewing so we were able to cut down on the cost of delivery. (I'm still own him in fact but I think it's been written off as a birthday pressie :))

Doing some research I came across this review site and since I like Pale Ales (especially Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) I went with the Coopers IPA. I'm planning to brew it with 500g Extralight (or Light) Spraymalt and the equivalent of  300g of Brewing Sugar in Honey. (According to Homebrewtalk honey is only yields at 75% so you have to adjust your amounts accordingly)

Unfortunately, I forgot to get brewer's yeast so all we'll be doing tonight is the unboxing...


So here it is. I'm looking forward to it already!

PS I subsequently realised that it comes with the yeast!

Making Raised Beds

I have been thinking of making some raised beds for our garden. Taking this...





 And turning it into something like..

In fairness our garden looks nothing like those pictures as they were taken about a year ago before we planted loads of stuff in it and the winter made it look a bit crazy but you get the idea. So I got onto a timber supplier and they were great delivering the wood the same day as I ordered it.

I set out the bamboo and string to give myself an idea of the size of the beds. Then using my trusty workbench I got cracking. 5 hours later...

One slightly blurry photograph and a load cut wood. Then I drilled all of the wood so that screwing it all together would be easier.

This is far as far as I got on my own. Needed some help at this point so had to finish up there.

Got some help putting up the sides and with a delivery of three tonnes (which wasn't nearly enough) or hopefully decent topsoil they were done.