Watch out that baby's not sterile!!!

I worked out a deal with my friend Heather, The York Central Market Plant Lady. We had a couple of days where Tim and I were trying to be everywhere at once so Heather agreed to watch our stand at the market in exchange for babysitting her two kids a couple of days for her to go to her master gardener class. Yesterday was my first sitting day. Two of them, one of me. It went well, I managed. I even figured out how to use the carrier thingy. These things are awesome! Highly recommend them. Keeps your arms from falling off carrying kids around! The picture below is once I finally figured all the straps out....

When Heather got home we made beer. At this point I needed one. :) We made two batches, Oatmeal Pumpkin Stout and Peach Pilsner, which I have been talking about for months. But Before we could start the beer, there was another matter to take care of....

If you guessed those were fresh hops, you were right! If you guessed anything else....well.....anyway, the fresh hops came from Heather's hop plant she grew this summer. She gave me one, but it never really got buds. I am holding out hope for next year, since they don't really produce in the first year, hence Heather's whopping harvest of 9 hop flowers in total! But we were excited to use them anyway.

We got the pots boiling and started making our beers. Here are pictures....

The Oatmeal Pumpkin Stout!

And the Peach Pilsner!

The beer making was pretty uneventful (this time), with very little splashing, spilling, or dropping. The only excitement came at then end when when we were about to pour our beers into their sterilized containers. Liam, the baby pictured above, got the urge to motor his way into the kitchen and straight towards our freshly sterilized containers!! Heather saw what was about to happen and started yelling "Baby not sterile! Watch out the baby's not sterile!!!" Fortunately, her husband scooped him up before he could reach his cruddy little hands into our nice clean containers. Crisis averted. Today, the report is that the beers are bubbling happily away, with the little yeasty invaders eating sugars and pooping out alcohol. I love science!