Saturday before last we had a barbeque and beer making bash over at a friend's house. I was in charge of getting the beer making supplies and the ribs and working out the schedule. I had plenty of willing help once we got underway. One of my friends has a huge shop which was ideal for being inside while making the beer. It was snowing lightly and gave us pause about doing an outside barbeque, but that stopped us not.
I cooked 30 lbs of ribs under a canopy we set up and although it took a lot more charcoal than normal, the ribs came out as good as ever.
We made 2 five gallon batches of Red Ale. A friend, who has never made beer before, wanted to participate and also wanted to try using the water from a spring near his home called Indian Springs (also site of a GA State Park).
The Beer recipes were exactly the same in order to compare the effect of the spring water. The Indian Springs water did have a decided sulphur smell to it, and left us wondering if that would make for bad beer.
After a week in primary fermentation we transferred the beer to secondary fermemtation yesterday afternoon.
Fortunately, the sulphur odor was gone from the Indian Springs batch and both beers tasted very good (they are not yet carbonated so are a bit flat). We will bottle them on Feb 16th and have a tasting party probably in late April or early May.
I took my camera along but stayed so busy cooking, beer making, drinking, lying, and cutting the fool that I completely forgot to take any pictures.
Altogether, we had about 25 people (in spite of the lousy weather) and even the wives were allowed to participate this time.
Lots of work and lots of fun. I have many friends who helped and made the day more fun and interesting.
I will let you know how our Red Ale turns out and if the Indian Springs water made any difference. From the small sample while we were transferring the beer to secondary fermentation, both beers will be quite tasty.