Kicking Monosaccharides, Taking Names

Woo! The fermenter's bubbler is up to two "burps" a second, even and steady. I'm surprised by how evenly the fermentation process is proceeding - I would have thought that, being a biological process, it'd have been more herky-jerky (as, for example, my wort-stirring rhythm was), but the bubbler is popping with the regularity of a ticking clock. Very, very cool.


My Equipment
Please excuse the muddy quality of the pictures. I'll try and lighten them up eventually, but for now, enjoy them (click for larger versions). The detail pic on the right is a closeup of the bubbler. You can kind of see that it's half-full of water. The dark strip on the bucket is a stuck-on liquid crystal thermometer.

I'm currently enjoying a glass of Thoroughbred Red poured from a 44-oz. "growler" bottle I collected from the Hops brew pub across the street from my apartment. I hope my red ale is anywhere near as good. Lots of excellent bitterness here - I appear to be turning into a "hophead."

I am brewing this ale from a recipe, but it occurs to me that since I did prepare it myself (and wound up departing from the recipe in one or two small ways), a nice inagurual name for the beer might be in order. The name of the recipe is "Red Red Ale" (a la the reggae "Red Red Wine," no doubt), so perhaps something like "Rich's Red Red Richmond" or "Rich's Red-Squared Richmond Ale."

"Rich's Second-Power Red?" Dunno. Will mull.

(Second power - squared - get it? Hmm.)

-Rich