Kit contents - American Pale Ale from Brewer's Best

Grains in a cheesecloth bag

Steeping the grains to make wort

Adding liquid malt extract

Bittering hops

Lots of boiling and hoppy smells

Finished wort. Delicious.

Transferring the wort to the fermenter via siphon

Pitching the yeast

Installing the airlock

Shazam! Fermentation!

CO2 bubbling through airlock

Fermentation Station - CO2 bubbles on top of beer

Done fermenting - about 1 gallon of trub rests on the bottom of the fermenter.

Time to bottle.

We used two types of bottles: capped, and flip top.

Filling the bottles one by one. Everything is sanitized before the beer touches it.

Capping the bottles

All capped up

The fruit: 4.5 gallons or 2.25 gallons each. Time to let it carbonate in the bottle.

Two weeks later & time to enjoy my American Pale Ale.

Timeline of the process:

November 22: brewing
November 23: fermentation is rocking
November 29: transferred beer to secondary container to avoid some sediment (trub)
December 2: bottling
December 9: Mr. Eager opens a bottle, and it’s definitely not ready yet.
December 17: respectably carbonated and tasty
January 4: only one pint left, time for a new batch of homebrew!

Just one of our designs

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my second online business, Mistle Mail. This new service allows you to customize your own Christmas e-mail with your own photos, text, and Christmas letter, while we worry about delivering it to your friends and family. It’s an economical and eco-friendly approach to sending your holiday greetings this year! You can send an unlimited number of emails for one low price.

Megan and I would love to hear some feedback on the service! Please check it out and let us know what you think.

]]> http://www.benholmen.com/blog/2009/09/fall-portraits/feed/ http://www.benholmen.com/blog/2009/04/family/ http://www.benholmen.com/blog/2009/04/family/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:14:14 +0000 Megan http://www.benholmen.com/blog/?p=318

Emma is so lucky to have the family she does, that we thought we’d post some of her favorites from the last month! Enjoy!

At the Baseball Halfmoon Handout

Our Easter Picture

Emma with Mommy and Nona on Easter Sunday

Emma and Oompa

Emma and Noah at Easter

Emma with Grandma Debra and Grandpa Jay

Emma and Uncle Dan on Easter

Emma and the Holmen cousins

Right after our last post, Emma learned how to roll from her back to her stomach. She has since mastered this and does it almost immediately after having been put down. The difficult part is that she forgets how to get off of her tummy! Well, today she has figured it out. Her floor time today has been spent rolling from her back to her tummy and then onto her back again. It’s so much fun to watch her grow and develop!

Rice cereal for the first time!

Also, at the end of last month we started Emma on solid foods. She began with rice cereal and has also tried oatmeal cereal. She really seems to like both of them and will start orange vegetables (sweet potatoes and squash…Ben’s favorites!) next week. She enjoys sitting in her highchair and is learning quickly how to open her mouth! Emma also loves to talk while she eats!

It is still really strange to think of what Ben and I did without Emma around! We just love her and can’t imagine life without her. She’s growing up before our eyes…it definitely goes by much faster than you expect!

Emma at 4 months.

The last 4.5 months have gone by so fast, we can hardly keep up! Emma is growing up before our eyes into a beautiful little girl. On the 8th of March, Emma started laughing for the first time. What a treat! It is so innocent and sweet!

On Monday Emma’s friend, Nora, came over to play for the evening. Ben and I had so much fun watching the girls interact. Nora rolled all around while Emma watched. Nora would steal Emma’s toy, but then Nora would be distracted by Emma’s ear, so Emma would steal the toy back again! We look forward to seeing how close these two will be in the years to come!

Emma (left) and Nora are sporting their matching outfits.

Emma and Nora are finally starting to play together.

Nora thought it would be fun to "play" with Emma.

What a sweet picture of them playing side-by-side.

Yesterday, Emma took her first trip to the Mall of America. A lady on the elevator commented, “Her eyes couldn’t get any bigger!” She had fun playing with Oompa while Nona and I shopped. We went to the Carter’s outlet store and found great outfits for Emma. During her awake time this morning we played dress up!

Emma sporting her new swimming suit and sun hat!

Emma in her new hat!

This weekend we are off to Madison once again. Auntie Sue is here from CA, so we are all making the trip down to see Noah! Also, Uncle Steve and my cousins haven’t met Emma, so she is resting up for the big event!

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We took two trips to Madison this month to see our new nephew, Noah John Irwin, who was born on Feb. 15th. Emma doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the little guy but we sure like seeing him!

With Noah and Emma

So Cute!

Daddy + Emma Tummy Time!

With Auntie Jessi

Exploring her bear

View the photos at www.erinelizabethphotographyblog.com