Flares Making a Comeback

Brew Night tonight, and the whole time there was a glow in the sky to the south. While it's obviously not a good thing in general, for photography purposes I was hoping Grangemouth would hang on long enough for me to bottle 60 bottles of Saison, and get a new brew of Porter into the fermenter, so that I could get to a vantage point.

Followed vaguely I route I just about remembered from a bike ride, climbing up through Culross, and found a teeny little country road, with a couple of cracking views out over the Forth where it was easy to pull in.

Busy / tiring day, with the day job (especially in the morning) taking up every ounce of brainpower; adding more slats to screening in the stone shed in the barn; and then the brewing - normally I have time to read a bit of a book, or watch an episode of something on the iPad. I've never done a bottling and a brew on the same night. It certainly filled those moments when I'm waiting for things to get up to temperature, or waiting for the next addition of hops - gathering the bottles for sterilising and rinsing, fixing the cabinet they're going to sit in for the next couple of weeks, priming the bottling tub, filling and capping... Satisfying in the extreme.

Need to rack off the Amber to secondary in the next day or two as well. And straight onto another Saison as soon as I've taste-tested a bottle of this batch once ready. March launch still the aim...