Got beer?

For months now Roberto, Ken D, and I have been talking about brewing beer. By chance I was able to score seven 5 gallon glass carboys off Craigslist for a great price and this became our catalyst for brewing beer (and me doing something about the mead that's been brewing for the last two years.)

I knew I wanted to brew my imperial chocolate stout again, of course Ken D wanted to make a hoppy IPA, and Roberto wanted to try making a fruity beer. So on Saturday we all went down to American Home Brewing Supply to get our goods.

It was a lot of fun scooping and grinding our grains, picking out of hops, and choosing the right yeast for our desired beers. Then we got hit with the bill! $377.00! Okay it was a lot. But we're brewing 8 gallons each and we had to also get supplies other than ingredients.

We made a whole day out of brewing beers. Roberto brought his slow cooker with a pork shoulder which we slowly cooked all day for carnitas while we were boiling our beers and drinking beers.

By the end of the day we had gone through 40lb+ of malt extract, 25 gallons of filtered water, several 32oz beers, In-n-out, and amazing carnitas. Here's two pics I managed to take. First we shredded the pork and I am frying it in a cast iron pot with some duck fat to crisp it. The second pic was the beer 24hrs later in the fermenter.