It's Rainin' Beer!

And I'm sure those of you who hang out in "those" type of night clubs will notice that the title of this post is a play-on-words of a particular song that is still popular in those clubs.

Or at least that's what I've heard...

Yesterday afternoon I noticed there was some sort of odd, weird, atmospheric disturbance in the sky. No, this wasn't anything to do with the asteroid that almost smashed into earth with only 2 days warning but instead did a flyby of 68,000 km. Hmmmm, perhaps some of the war dollars could be routed to NASA so that just perhaps, maybe, we'd have a wee bit more than 2 days warning!

Aussie austronomers found that puppy, with some funding from NASA. Perhaps with some more funding, austronomers and astronomers 'round da woil' could find these objects and maybe we'd get more than two days warning.

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Ahhhhh, I feel so much betta now. *contented sigh*


So what was the weird atmospheric disturbance that caused so much panic down unda? Well, I'm not quite sure. [insert Twilight Zone music here]

See, yesterday arvo the sky wasn't blue no more! And then the tree branches all started swaying to and fro! It got dark! Really dark! An odd howling was heard, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from!

I naturally assumed this was the Rapture (me being a huge believer in the Book of Revels --oops, Revelations). So I sprinted outside, flung my head back, stretched out my arms and waited for what I was sure would come.

Then the oddest thing happened...

My face and skin felt like it was being bombarded by tiny, viscous pellets! I naturally stretched my arms even further out as I was sure this was the rapture!

At that point I fell backwards and passed out.

WP came outside with a bucket of dry dirt and tossed it in my face to revive me...

She then explained about this odd concept of "clouds" and water falling from the clouds which is called "rain".

Ah yes! Of course! My memories from Alaska came FLOODING back to me! Now how could I have forgotten the Seward Rain Festival that runs from January 1st to December 31st?

Ok, I'll be serious now.

maybe

Yesterday arvo we got a whole whopping 0.6 millimeters of rain. WOW! For those of you who don't know how to use a calculator, that comes to about 1/42 of an inch! And we were happy! It brought the yearly total up to 3.1 millimetres (1/8 of an inch)! Oh lawdy the crops be saved!

But what's so cool is that there was even more rain this morning! More than we'd had for the ENTIRE YEAR! Yes, in the space of 3600 seconds (that's one hour, BTW) we had 4 millimetres of rain! In only sixty minutes! Good gosh golly!

Hmmmm, that brings the total for the year to just over a whole whoppin' quarter of an inch!

Naturally with all this extra precipitation falling from the sky I just couldn't go in the pool today. I mean, heck, I didn't want to get wet from the rain.

*break* *break*

We interrupt this silly post for your daily parrot pictures

Whoops, that's my cue to give you some birdie pics. A couple of days ago I was using a slow shutter speed to try to get some blurry wing effects. Ummmmmm, it worked! See for yourselves:








I am, of course, inviting every one of my 5 faithful readers *waving HI!* to come up with their own captions for the above pics.

*break* *break*

Sorry for the interrupt, we now return you to this silly blog

...and that's how I saved the world and made a billion dollars. Oh, sorry about the commercial break. Maybe when my fingers dry out I'll retype the part you missed.


Next Topic

BEER

As I left you intrepid newbie brewers, I was just about to add the sugar. See, look: brewing sugar:




Be very very very very very careful when opening the bag. This stuff can go EVERYWHERE!




Dump the sugar into your primary fermenter




Oh, in case any of you are confused, just have a look at yesterdays post as I'm sure it'll confuse you even more.

This is what it looks like before you stir the sugar into the mix




This is what it looks like after you stir the sugar into the mix



Anyone notice a difference? Yes, stirring helps dissolve the sugar!

We need to fill the primary fermenter up to this level:


How do I know that? Cus on the outside of the jug there are some heiroglyphic markings that show you the amount of liquid in the fermenter. In this case we want to fill it to 23 litres. 23 litres is 6.07 gallons so let's just say 6 gallons.

This is done by the use of my "beer bucket".




Did you notice there's a temperature strip on the outside of the fermenter? Yup, there is. This should be between 21 C and 27 C after adding the boiling water and the room temp water. Mine is usually at 28 C, but that's ok cus anything up to 32 C is alright. You also don't want to let the wort (that's the liquid in your fermenter) sit for a while before you add the yeast. So even if the temp reads 28 C, just feel free to add in the yeast, no worries.

Look, here's some yeast:




Just sprinkle the yeast evenly (sort of) over the top of the wort, no worries.




Coming up next: Sealing that jug. Fitting the airlock. Taking the initial SG reading.

Oh, and just for some nice lady up in Berkshire, we'll also be following the yellow brick road :)