Full Sail to Birch

Today I finally bottled the beer that I made from the kit my sister sent me. Its been a while...relatively speaking...since I bottled beer. Mostly wobblee pops and wine the past little while. Its the first beer I made using grains and hops. It seems like it turned out pretty good...we shall see in a couple weeks. Its a Full Sail clone. I have never had Full Sail so I won't be able to compare it. But it was fun to make.
After a super speedy bottling session compared to what I'm used to, I went up around to see how the spruce is making out. No new tips on the branches yet so no making spruce beer for another little while. Soooo I decided to start a batch of birch beer.
Last year I started my brewing again after about a fifteen year hiatus with a batch of spruce beer. Now it wasn't very good compared to modern kits. I did it ole timey way with bread yeast and a raw potato. This year it will be awesome. But while I wait for spruce its birch.
So I went up and started harvesting new birch shoots that are everywhere. The chickens came with me. Of course they follow me everywhere. Once I had a pot of branches I pulled up a bucket of water from the well to rinse them and brought my potful into the house.
Boiled the branches for a couple hours...threw in a cinnamon stick for fun. Drained the must through cheesecloth. Sloshed some cold water over the branches. Added sugar and molasses. Checked its temperature and added the brewers yeast. And now we wait. Five days or so and I'll rack it and then wait another week or so...then prime and bottle. Hopefully during the waiting I'll start the spruce. And then we'll be having a garden party.