I stare at the title I just wrote and wonder how it can be. On Friday it will be five years ago that Debbie died.
Five years of changes. In the last five years my daughter Alicia married, my son graduated from high school and will graduate from college in May. I’ve taken up writing and have been blogging for almost three years. I’ve been to Tanzania. I’ve seen a total eclipse of the sun. And yet, nothing’s changed. Debbie is still gone. I still miss her. When my contacts dry out I can still moisten them by remembering those final days. Some people might feel that five years is too long to grieve and I should be “over it” by now. The truth is you’re never entirely “over it” any more than you could get over having a limb amputated. Your life goes on and you learn to live with loss. Life goes on. While that dark cloud is always hanging around, it’s not always cloudy and raining. There are days with sun, days with joy, days with new experiences. Things change. And some things don’t change. I will always have gratitude for everyone who has helped my along the way. Every expression of concern or support, every hug has helped. I am blessed by my family and my community. Thank you all.
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I recently read a book about brewing Belgian beers. And now, of course, I want to brew some. In my head I’ve developed a schedule for the year for experimental batches, that would help me come up with a recipe that I can use to make a big batch for sharing. Last night I began. I figure this batch will be ready in mid to late April. I’m experimenting with different malts. Belgian beer usually uses a pilsner for the base malt and then different types of malt can be added. I brewed four beers using my OJ containers that will yield about four bottles each. The first is uses just the pilsner base. The others use the pilsner base but added one different malt. One was Munich malt, another was Caravienne, and the last was Abbey malt. Other than that, the beers are the same, so any differences will be due to the malts. When they’re ready to drink I can do a taste test and compare. That will help me decide what malts to use. I may get fancy and mix two of the beers together to see how they taste.
After that I’ll pick my malts and brew again sometime around the beginning of May. That batch will be testing some more grains and sugars. That would mean another taste test in June. That would be followed by brewing at the beginning of July and testing various hops. Tasting in August. Then, at the beginning of September I would brew with different yeasts and taste test in October. Finally, I would brew a larger batch in November. That’s the plan. But then again, we all know how often life goes exactly according to the plans we try to make. : ) #retroemoji I’ll keep posting about my experiments and what I come up with for a final recipe as I go along. |
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