It's getting warmer!

I was going to look for a job today, but instead, I carefully reconsidered my priorities and decided that going to the beach all day was a much better idea. We played beach volleyball ALL day. I gained a good amount of satisfaction, spiking over and blocking over my 6'4" roommate, with "freaky white dude ups". We also threw frisbees and footballs, and I got my daily allotment of sodium chloride whilst trying to bodyboard. The waves were HUGE today. My roommate couldn't even get out far enough to attempt to ride a wave. I got out no problem, but then had no idea what I was doing, and generally just got my butt kicked by the ocean. This is a lot like what usually happens when I go into the ocean, except, now I was getting beat in the face with a buoyant board of pain.

After that, we came home and I bottled my third batch of beer. Instead of using Cooper's carbonation drops, I primed half the bottles with table sugar, and half the bottles with carbonation drops, carefully labeling each one. This beer is DARK, and the brew enhancer 2 seems to have given it a large, creamy head, just as claimed! I also let it ferment longer than usual, which is supposed to improve the taste. I expect this beer to be about 4.7% alcohol, based on an initial gravity of 1042 and I bottled it at 1010.

I tasted a little bit of it, and I was pretty happy with it (as far as flat, warm beer goes). It's definitely quite a bit more bitter than my other beers, should be tasty. It's still got a bit of a cidery taste to it, which both of my other batches have had.

"Cidery flavors happen when there is not enough nutrients from the malt to help the yeast eat the sugar. The general rule of thumb is you can have up to 30% sugar base without any off flavors." I'm going to try using less sugar in the next batch and more malt extract or something.


Rugby tomororow, away game at Singleton. Because it's over an hour away and it's our last away game of the year, we're staying at one of the coaches cabins. Lots of beer and meat pies for all!