Brewing

We've always had in mind that we'd like to try a bit of home brewing. Both our Dads have made wine in the past, and we have an abundance of things like elder trees and bramble bushes nearby that are good for this kind of thing. I'd also heard that beer is fairly easy to make. We'd even got a few bits and pieces (some inherited from my Dad, and a couple of demijohns from a kirk shoppie in New Deer).

As seems to have been the case with many other people, lockdown presented an ideal opportunity to give this a go. So, armed with this classic book, and this much simpler more recent one we got a starter kit from the local brewshop, including a fermenting bucket, a couple of tubes and a hydrometer (to add to the things we had already). Since then we got a bit carried away! A brief tour is below, but on the whole this all seems to have worked out pretty well. It's been good fun, and has resulted in some tasty additions to our cupboard. Well worth a go if you're thinking of it.

Off to pick some elderflowers...

The first shot ended up being a rowan flower wine - this is it going on to brew.

Careful stirring is very important.

Not all of it is alcoholic! This is elder flower cordial. Our girls really like this stuff.

The very first wine beginning to ferment. That was an exciting moment. The chemistry and experimenting parts are one of the most appealing bits of the whole process.

And of course, we can't do home brew without a bubbling airlock. Tremendous.

This was my first go at a beer. A pale ale of sorts. Most of what I've been making has been a variation on this theme, with different kinds of hops.

This view is often visible behind me on the various virtual meetings I'm in. Thanks to the computer (and my own hot air) the office is consistently warm enough to keep the fermentation going.

Bottling time. Who doesn't appreciate a syphon?

My first beer ready to go...

...it just had to stand a few days to fizz up.

Yum. The first one was a bit rough, but quite tolerable.

Rhubarb wine in preparation.

A bottle of elderflower. This (and the fizzy version of it) has been the most successful wine so far. Lovely stuff.

Another batch of ale going on. I'm up to batch 11 at of now (each has been a few bottles, and slightly from the previous ones)

A couple of times I've made two lots at once, to see the difference. This pair were looking at the difference between adding sugar and dry malt extract. (DME is easily the winner)

Bramble wine incoming. 

One chore - cleaning and sterilising a lot of bottles.

I've tried harvesting yeast from previous batches a couple of times, rather than using packets.

Here it is settling out.

I was a bit optimistic with how much one demijohn could take here, so this brew spent the night in the shower.

We've had a go at cider too, but using apple concentrate as that's a good it easier than mashing them.

Using the kit does, however, mean a slightly larger batch. This is 40 pints.

Elderberry wine. A really nice red.

I've had a couple of shots at using grains instead of malt extract for the beers. A bit more fiddly, but interesting seeing it coming out of the raw ingredients.

Here's the bramble wine. Not bad either (I prefer the elderberry though)

More elderflower.

You won't see this on camera, but this is usually the view around my feet in my office.

All jolly good fun!

Garden 2020

Well, it's a bit late to be reporting on our gardening activities in 2020 - though we had plenty of time around the house for such things this year!

We managed a really decent crop of potatoes and carrots...

... stacks of strawberries and raspberries....

...

...and even a couple of decent peppers in my office window.

There was plenty of rhubarb. Enough to make a crumble, two bottles of wine, some sugary raw rhubarb sticks, and a bottle of juice:

We also had a decent showing of flowers this year...

...but the star seems to have been the one sunflower that reached over 10 feet (and we hard about ten much shorter ones)

The girls made some bird feeders. You can possible make out a blue tit and a couple of sparrows here:

I also though it worth sharing the diligent work of our estate's hedge trimming people....

...and  our fine haul of elderberries from near the river. These made some cordial and six bottles of reasonably nice wine. Hurray!

Lockdown Fun

Time for a catch up on all things lockdown for us...

Lydia is missing her P1 class and teacher. We've run in to her teacher a couple of times when we've been out walking, but as she's a probationer she won't be in the school when school resumes after the summer. Meanwhile, she is reading a story for the class each week - here is Lydia enjoying that.

We have been enormously thankful for the garden and the good weather the past few weeks!

We still get to jump in muddy puddles sometimes though. (Esther LOVES her dinosaur coat!)

As well as exciting indoor challenges like making the tallest Lego tower.

This is what church look like just now

And this was Easter Sunday's egg rolling. The slide was most helpful.

I couldn't find Lydia one morning. It turns out she was looking for clothes!

The girls get sent Sunday School activities each week. Here they are learning about Goliath. 

Of course, without a physical school to go to the girls often play schools. (yes, we do schoolwork with them in the mornings too - but they are much less willing to do that!)

...and why not just go the full distance and wear our school uniforms too? (this was genuinely one of the days that Lydia say her teacher out on the walk)

More wholesome games include hospitals - this is the sheet written up for one of the patients.

Our house has rainbows in every window of course, but also this to welcome the postman every day.

Work, of course, involves a lot of video calls for me. Sadly one of the meetings usually has bacon sandwiches provided, so I had to bring my own this time. Still good!

The lack of groups and activities means we can do a lot more with our weekends, including clearing some odd jobs. Lydia and Esther needed some new under-bed storage, so I got a chance to make some decent boxes. Great!

The older two have been promised more colours in their bedroom for months. So, here we go!

Sleepovers are limited to just staying in your sisters' bedroom. Still fun though.

Wednesday evening Kids Club is still on, but the crafts and dances are all a bit in-house.

The girls have enjoyed a couple of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals on YouTube. Joseph was the best! This is them enjoying Cats.

Naomi took it upon herself to make dinner last weekend. Jay provided instructions, then she took care of it all herself. Great job!

Last week we saw ducks in the school playground when we were out for our walk.