HOMEbrewing Adventures

Hiya!
I hope everyone had a good and relaxing weekend. Mine was really, really quiet. The boy was up in Austin on a boys trip and I stayed home and ODed on my newest obsession.. Breaking Bad. I know I'm super late to this train. Hey I'm here now. LOL. Also been preparing for Pia's party this coming weekend. Pretty stoked on that but also super nervous.. only one little girls mom confirmed that she was coming. I hope I don't put all this work into a party and no one comes. That would be a total bummer for sure.
Today I thought I would show y'all some snapshots of some homebrewing we did a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting until I got pictures from the bottling so that it could be one entire post. I also have a video on Instagram if any of you are interested in the bottling process.
So the brewing itself doesn't even start until you get everything cleaned and completely disinfected. Which is the biggest pain in the butt ever!

After all the disinfecting and cleaning for a bit we turned on the propane to get the water a boiling. Bob was a little apprehensive about the propane, kept saying he felt like everything would explode as soon as he turned it on. Needless to say, we were all fine. Nothing caught fire. We're all alive. The beer got brewed!

After the water reaches a good boiling temperature you steep the grains to make the wort (beer). It's pretty much like making tea. You have to hold the grain bag to make sure that it doesn't burn and let the grains out into the wort. You do this for around 30-45 minutes. You don't want to leave it too long because, just like tea, it gets bitter. This is done to release sugars and enhance the flavor. The malt + the grains release the sugars that get fermented, which turns into the beer!

These three pictures on the top are the addition of the malt into the wort. It has the consistency of like porridge when you add it into the boiling water. Pretty icky looking. I hope you're not entirely lost.. it's a straightforward but also complex process of measuring and timing. It's actually super interesting to read about. I'm just barely scratching the surface with my explanation of the whole brewing process. I didn't get to take pictures of the hops that got added to the wort. They were added twice actually.. on brewing day and later on when the primary fermentation was over. 

So here comes the lame part of me documenting this.. I fell asleep not too long after brewing when the wort was being cooled. Bob brews way too late! I will hopefully change this and document it at another date. 

I didn't get pictures of the wort being cooled or it being put into the fermenter, which is just a plastic carboy. The yeast gets added to the wort when it goes into the carboy and it sits for typically around a week to a week and a half to ferment. Then it gets transferred to another carboy so that the yeast sediment can be separated and a secondary addition of hopping can occur. Ok, so now that your mind is spinning around that... bottling day!

The picture above shows the carboy it went into for the secondary hopping. We had just uncapped it. As with brewing day, bottling day requires tons of cleaning and disinfecting as well. As soon as we have enough saved up we will be kegging. Bottling is a paiiinnnnn. 

These show the siphoning of the beer into the bottles and then all of them capped and ready to sit for a little while longer to ferment. I guess I didn't even tell you all what kind of beer this was! A double Ipa! So super hoppy.

I hope y'all enjoyed my brief explanation of the brewing process. Hoping I didn't bore you to death!

Do any of you brew?

With All My Love,

Pati

Weekend in Review: Sara Bareilles/Last drink party

Hi, you lovely people, you!

I would like to first say that this weekend was nothing short of A-mazing. I had way too much fun and it should definitely be illegal. Seriously.

Also, I've been trying to post this since this morning.. all the photos were grainy and were driving me nuts! I finally figured out how to fix it. ::sigh of relief::

Really.. who wants to know about that?!  No one! 

Friday afternoon Bob and I drove up to Austin, which is five hours away, to watch the lovely Sara Bareilles. She was nothing short of amazing. Seriously.. if you only like her a little don't forgo getting tickets in a town near you. I sound like some kind of paid spokesperson. She was that amazing! 

I learned that Sara likes to cuss, crowd surf, and to sing songs from The Little Mermaid. I mean, hello? How could she be anymore rad. She couldn't. I regret not staying to give her a hug afterward but we had to drive home. We're totally insane. I'm fully aware. 

The video below is a tiny vine that I made of her singing.. Super short. Don't get too excited.

We got home in the wee hours of the morning. I slept for around two and a half hours and went to work. I was seriously running on fumes for the rest of the day.

Saturday was my litte brother's first communion and the whole family was in town to celebrate. I went to the mass, not by choice, and then went to the party. Hung out with my sister who was down from Dallas for the rest of the afternoon/early evening while the kids splashed in the pool.
The photo below is my brother, my sister, me, my mom, and my dad at our first communions. I know it's blurry. My mom didn't get a very good photo. Good memories, even though I no longer follow any religion.

I came home to some friends already drinking without me :(! I had to remedy this immediately.

Cheers!

We looked super intrigued, right? Boys be more entertaining!

It wouldn't be a party without burgers! We're always burning some kind of meat on the grill outside.

There's always someone over, with some kind of drink, and tons of laughs during the weekend. Laughing is for sure the best medicine. We had this little get together for one of Bob's best friends pictured below with him and their slayings for the weekend.

This took them two nights worth of drinking. Chuck, Bob's friend, won't be drinking for next 5 years because of some craziness with the law. Who would've thunk it? Just kidding! 

Sunday we dedicated to laying around and watching movies. The boys finished the beer later on that night and I went to sleep. Every girl needs beauty sleep. Right?

Hope you enjoyed that because I know we sure did!

With All My Love, 

Pati

Badass Weekend (Food Edition)

Hiya!!

So, yesterday I showed you a little glimpse into what was my weekend and today I wanted to share some yummy things we ate in Houston.

My younger sister lived in Houston, she graduated from Rice, for four years. I figured she was the best person to ask where we should get our grub on. She definitely did not fail me. 

She suggested tons of restaurants but the one she REALLY wanted us to go to was a sushi place called Miyako. The sushi was serioulsy TO DIE FOR.

 I couldn't have asked for a better ambience as well. We went around 1 on a Saturday and were seated right away. My kind of restaurant. 

 I've never had this many pictures of us together.  There was another that I liked but his smile was SO fake. What a jerk. 

This is the other couple that went with us. One of Bob's best friends and his girlfriend. 

Bob had an Asahi Black with his meal because that's what you do when you're out of town. Beer with everything. These were our appetizers, some crab puffs, so delicious!

 Then.. came the sushi. Heaven in my mouth!

 I cannot remember the names of the rolls but they were the best I've ever had! I know the ones in the background on this picture were some type of buffalo chicken; which was odd so we tried it. Pretty good. The first roll above was the best though. 

 Our friends ordered some pot stickers, not sure of the technical name, and shared. NOMS!

They also ordered some roll that had would I would describe as a crab coleslaw. I'm salivating just thinking about it!

As if the food wasn't delicious enough, they went up a notch in my book with this turtle pond! I'm such a sucker for any type of animal.

So after this delicious meal we were suppose to go to the St. Arnold's pub crawl. We got close to it and already saw TONS of people. As we passed the bars that were participating, we saw just how packed it was. We would've seriously had no fun standing in line for a beer. It was decided to abandon this idea, the boys were bummed, but we did a lot more with our time.

Both of the boys love craft beer and actually Michelle also, the girlfriend, I use to not like it but I'm coming around.

They went and bought some beer, which we don't get in south Texas, and then we headed to a place with a good tap list. 

The place is called Hay Merchant. I would REALLY recommend this place to any craft beer lover for sure.

We didn't come for the food but it was so delicious. Good food and good beer.. I mean what more can you want?

We got sat ourselves by the little bar area that they had and chose a good brew.

I thought it was really cool that they change the menu every week , but then Bob reminded me that they can't continuously have the same beer year round. Duh! Some beers are seasonal and some are a one type thing. 

Look! I even ordered a beer. In a fancy tulip glass. I'm just awesome like that. The boy ordered me the beer, La Folie by New Belgium, and I actually liked it. He's pretty good at knowing what I can handle and what I cannot. I'm glad I gave it a shot. Not going to lie, I'm scared of loving craft beer as much as he does because it's so darn expensive! One person in our relationship is more than enough..

The tap list.

The decor was really cool and really chill. Hay Merchant is actually named after Westheimer, who built Houston's first public school, because he was a hay merchant as well as many other things. The restaurant itself sits on Westheimer Road, so it's very fitting to say the least. 

Look at these fans!

This was a couple of hours after the sushi and I really wanted dessert. I ordered this delicious treat and was not let down. It's chocolate chip bread pudding. If y'all could only taste it..

After I ordered this everyone else got something as well. I however did not photograph any of the other dishes but they were so yummy. Bob got a lengua pastrami sandwich, Chuck got a fancy hot dog (cannot remember what was on it), and Michelle got a pretzel with a delicious cheese dip. I could not choose a favorite. That's how amazing they all were.

I leave you with this silly picture of me eating Bob's  hand, not really though. I hope that wasn't too much of an overload of pictures. I just could not leave anymore out. 

Tomorrow I'm going to walk you through, my favorite, a cemetery we went to!

Ps: I know none of this is low-carb but sometimes I need to live a little. :)

With all my love,

Pati

Austin Adventures (512) Brewing Co.

Hi Guys! Eep.. it's been too long since I had a chance to sit down and blog. Hope you had a wonderful holiday! With tons of family and food.

I miss you all! Between going out of town and Christmas festivities it's been insane over here.

Don't fret. I'm back. With so many stories to tell.

Austttiinnnnnnn, Texas how I love thee. I will live in thee soon. Now to
retell (part of) the adventures that we went on this weekend.

The one and only thing we had planned for the whole weekend was a brewery tour at (512) brewing co.

Not going to lie.. this was all for that amazing man of mine.

It's cool. We give, We get.

Plus, I ended up having the best time ever.

These taps were rad. rad. rad.
What came out of them.. even better.
I'm not a fancy beer drinker like Bob but I have been sampling his beers for quite a while.
This past weekend I got pints of my own.. and GASP, waddaya know? I kinda liked it.
I can't lie. He might be reading this.

That's what I was drinking all afternoon. Tripel. Delicious. 

Unfortunately this brewery rarely bottles. The owner kind of likes the environment and doesn't want waste. Yeah, what a concept, right? 

Another reason to love them! Also a reason to come to Austin and sample some of their stuff out.

Some of the random people waiting around for the tour. Being inside a brewery is always a treat.

This is just his casual face. NO biggie.

Warning: There's no pictures of me. Boo! I need to get better at being in front of the camera on these adventures as well.

Will totally do better next time. Promise.

These next couple of pictures show the fermentation tanks which is where the beer, which is called wort while undergoing fermentation, is kept. 

The giant metal things.. for anyone who is lost.

This is where they mix the grain, hops, and whatever else will be going into the beer.

Above you can see some of the many, many kegs laying around the place.

Before they can get into those kegs though, the beer needs to be made.. and needs to ferment.

They attach hoses to the tanks so that some of the gases from the fermenting process have ample room to escape the tanks. If they weren't there..it would be a HUGE mess.

Buckets of water are filled so they can see how aggressively it is fermenting at a certain period of time.

These two buckets were bubbling like crazy!

Barrels where some of the beer goes for secondary fermentation. Most of these, if not all, are whiskey barrels. Pretty cool stuff.

After the tour we got to just hang out and enjoy some good brews and make some new friends.

Two dudes from the brewery. Facing us (Hugh) Back to us (Phil).

They were super cool, chill dudes who just love beer.

My hand made an appearance!

When everyone leaves.. boys sit and laugh about beer..

Phil giving, and trying, a shot of barrel aged whiskey. Can't remember what it's called but this is the whiskey remnants that are extracted from the barrels they receive. They apparently have loads..

Hope you enjoyed the brewery tour. We sure did!

Murals coming tomorrow!

With all my love,

Pati