Dabbling in Beer

My wife got me the Coopers Brewery Micro-Brew kit for Christmas.  So I have been doing some dabbling into beer making.  Started with a simple Can kit the was supplied with the kit.  Then I made an Extract W/Specialty grains version of a Dunkelweizen. and than another Canned Kit but added some extra flavoring Hops. The first batch came out real well.  The Big battle in making beer in Florida is the Temperature.  Since most ales light to be fermented at 68F it does make it a little more difficult with temp control.  Nothing like a fermentation swamp cooler

(tub with water and a towel wrapped around the fermenter and frozen water bottles to help control the temp).  A little Ghetto, but it works.  I use the same thing when fermenting White Wines.

Spring in the Vineyard.

Looks like it is going to be good year in the Vineyard.  These are a couple of pics of my Black Spanish Grapes.  I have expanded my Vineyard as seen in some previous posts.  All my more mature vine have grapes, except for my largest Magnolia.  It is just now waking up.

Total of 18 vines 17 of which are for Wine Making:

7 Black Spanish, 3 new this year

5 Blanc du Bois, new this year

2 Muscadine Noble

2 Muscadine Magnolia

1 What was suppose to be Muscadine Carlos

And

1 for eating, Thompson Seedless, new this year