Last night the BH and I went to our friends house to brew beer. When we arrived, most of the ingredients were already in a pot, bubbling away on the stove.
I have always been hesitant about home brewing. For one thing, the BH and I don't have the space. Also, we lack the time and the money. And it seems like an operation that requires some level of sterilization, like you might want to have a hyper-clean and sanitized set of tools, etc.
So we walked in and Pete was at the stove, stirring with a wooden spoon, talking shit and, um, smoking with the other. Meanwhile, our friend Sticks was pouring beer and playing with his daughter and her cabbage patch doll on the floor. He handed Pete a snifter full of something dark. I noticed, among other things, pine needles in the pot. There was also a cloth bag bound with string, similar to a tea bag, if the tea bag were constructed by a blind toddler with only three fingers. Pete sent around each bag of hops before adding it to the pot so that we could smell them. I could tell the difference between them, but they were relatively similar in that they were all citrusy and/or piney types that I very much enjoy. It's good to get to smell them individually because there are some varieties I don't like and being able to identify them would save me shelling out for a bottle that I don't end up liking. (Wow. that was a poorly constructed sentence. But you get the gist, right?) After the yeast and hops were added, Pete brought in a five gallon bucket from the back deck that was mostly full of water that had been outside in the snow all day.
Anyway, by the time it was through cooking, Pete was at least a couple of sheets to the wind. I went into the kitchen to help him strain the mixture from the pot on the stove into the bucket of nearly freezing water. The bucket has a thermometer on the side, and we had to make sure that the mixture stayed below a certain temperature. So Pete puts the World's Smallest Strainer on top of the bucket and starts pouring the pot of hot liquid through it. I am just about to grab hold of the strainer to keep it steady when the giant tea bag comes flying out, plopping directly onto the strainer and overflowing it. Again I reached for the strainer, but Pete, not noticing, kept pouring, and the whole thing fell noisily into the bucket.

"Well, shit," said Pete. He fished the strainer out with his bare hand.

"Should we transfer it back to the bucket and strain it again?"

"Nah, fuck it. We'll strain it at the next stage."

Oh. So, not an exact science then.