Pumpkin Beer

I just finished bottling my pumpkin beer! I must admit I am excited. I decided to prime this beer with maple syrup (priming sugar creates carbonation!).

Yes, this sounds like a wonderfully planned out recipe, a pumpkin spice beer with a hint of maple at the end.  I actually only used it because I started the corn sugar I originally bought on fire. One second it was sitting on the stove, not boiling, and the next second my entire apartment is filled with smoke! My roommate and I ran onto the roof, and watched as smoke poured out of the house. "OH NO! THE CATS!" Let's just say we stopped the fire, saved the cats, and found out that our fire alarm doesn't work. No harm done, right?

Pumpkin Spice Ale with Maple Syrup

Grains:
8lbs 2-row
1.5lb Vienna
1lb Light Munich
1lb Carapilis
.5lb Crystal 60L
.25 Chocolate

Hops:
1oz Mt. Hood at 90 min
1/2oz Saaz at 20 min
1/2oz Saaz at 2 min

Yeast:
American Ale Yeast

Other:
1 cup brown sugar at 90 min
1 tbsp irish moss at 15 min

Spices: (Adding cinnamon and nutmeg at different times during the boil takes out a range of bitterness from the spices, just like hops!)
1 tbsp cinnamon & 1/2 tbsp nutmeg at 90 min
1 tbsp cinnamon & 1/2 tbsp nutmeg at 20 min
1 tbsp cinnamon, 1/2 tbsp nutmeg, 1/2 tbsp ginger, 1 tbsp whole clove at 2 min

Prime with 6.86 ounces of maple syrup (assuming I would have used 5 oz of corn sugar)

A Blog? Really?

I was over at Corina's the other day. We were chatting about her cleansing diet, brewing beer, being sick of eating squash even though it's only the middle of November, and other general domestics. When I told her about the 3 different batches of apple sauce I made, one with brandy, one hard cider, and one with wine, her reaction was "why don't you write a blog about this stuff?" My reaction to that was "why the hell would I write a blog? A blog about what? Homemaking and domestics?" Ms. Corina is the one who stayed up until three in the morning one night canning over 100 quart jars of tomatoes. She is the one with 1/2 a cow in her deep freezer. She is the one who sold home-sewn menstrual pads at her garage sale, not ME!

A couple days later I was making a pie, and I started to think. Here I am, making the 4th pie this month, and I don't even eat pie that much because it's so bad for you. Yet I still make it at least once a week. I mean, I LOVE pie, don't get me wrong. I love everything about pie. I love making pie for my friends, family, boyfriend. I would even make pie for my cat if he didn't have bladder issues from eating anything but his expensive prescription cat food. Why am I doing this? Forcing the people around me to eat pie that I won't eat myself, but can't stop making!

And then I thought, maybe Corina was right. Perhaps I should write a blog about pie. Give some purpose to the fact that I make it so much.