More of Josh's concoctions

...Only this one took a little longer than the chapati or tortillas he's brewed up before.

To encourage Josh's new-found fascination with from-scratch cooking (and thereby potentially saving us from another few Megan-made meals cooked just a tad too long as a result of my quest for constant multi-tasking) and to have some fun of our own with a great English past-time (drinking beer, not making it), I gave Josh a beer making kit for Christmas. After a few months of intense bottle-saving, including the swiping of eleven empty Communion Wine bottles from church (yes, they are so-labeled) and our introduction to British lemonade (imagine a very tame Sprite that comes in the cheapest two-litre bottles we could find), he finally started the process.

Let's make beer...
Step 1: pour in the sugar. Josh always smiles when handling sugar.
Step 2: Add the nasty looking/smelling mix with all the good beer-making stuff in it. Some people do this with big bags of ingredients and measuring cups, not pre-packaged tins; we are first-timers. This is a stout, thus the thick dark color. Also, add the yeast, but that wasn't a very exciting picture.
Step 3: Mix it together.
Step 4: Add water.
Step 5: Let sit for a week in a warm area. We don't have a photo of our little beer cocoon because it looked a bit embarrassing, but since our heat is on only twice a day, we took the nightly precaution of a bubble-wrap-lined cardboard box, communion bottles of hot water, and a big duvet cover. Our "beer" slept better than we did. Also, it stank. Oh, and also, never, ever look directly into the little hole at the top of your overpriced, food-grade plastic container as it causes a surprisingly painful stinging of the eye and may make you question the consumptionability of your concoction.

Step 6: Go back to the Beer Lady at the covered market and buy a plastic tube. Then siphon the beer into your sanitized bottles (if you happen to find sanitation necessary, which, well, Josh did not) while your wife is at work so she can't take photographs of it. Try this in the lounge first; when it makes a big mess, move to the bathtub. Add sugar to each bottle a few hours later for the secondary fermentation when your wife reminds you of this (and the fact that instructions are in fact helpful sometimes) when she gets home.

Step 7: Let the annoying stuff sit in the corner a few more days.
Step 8: Give the liquid yet another week for clarification before consumption, unless you have overseas guests who are leaving soon, and you want to subject them to first-time, home-brewed, not-quite-ready beer.

Step 9: Enjoy! (Notice the skeptical looks. It's not that bad, really. Actually, it's not too bad at all, if you like a slightly flat, dark stout...)