We (the Marquise and I) just finished bottling our latest batch of beer today. Its an Irish stout, kinda, sorta Guinness-y. The Marquise wasn't to convinced last week when we started. The wort looked like tar and smelled almost as bad. We had some minor problems during fermentation again. There was a blow-out during the first 24 hours of the fermentation. Lucky for me, we do everything over at the Marquise's place, so I don't have to clean up any messes. I wonder if I'm pitching the yeast to early and the wort is just a tad bit to warm. The yeast gets a big, quick start and clogs up the air-lock. I may wait a little longer next time and let the wort cool a little more before I pitch the yeast. Maybe that will slow the process down just a tad. The bottling went fairly smoothly, however. The beer is a wonderful chocolate color and already has a nice smooth finish to it. It looks like a stout we had at Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem last weekend on our way home from Grandfather Mountain. However, it tastes much better. I'm not a big fan of traditional stout beer. (They did however have some other beers that were more to my liking. They have a great Hefe and Bock!) It will be interesting to see how this batch ages.
Socks
I got tired of working on the black and white sweater and went out to the corner LYS to see what they had available for socks. I figured I should try again since my last endeavor ended with less than stellar results. (the ribbing along the top of the sock relaxed something fierce. I now have socks that resemble elf boots!) I found a fantastic hand painted yarn.... Heritage yarn by Cascade Yarns. Picture below. Cheap it was not, but it is a wonderful yarn to work with; good color and great feel. (probably why I got tired of the sweater, not fond of black/white and using acrylic yarn.) I am working on a toe-up pattern I got off the net. I actually got much further than this, but realized I had made a fundamental error at about this spot and had to rip it apart. Don't ask, it was one of those Duh! errors. Oh, well,
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