Last night Ken and I convened at Troy’s house for a typical brew flavoring session. We had about 2.5 gallons of unflavored product that we wanted to portion and add fruit to for flavoring.

We had a lot of luck with some lemon and lime fruit juice concentrate last time, so most of what we made was with these, but one was plain and another was sweetened with black sugar. We added blueberries, blackberries, cherries, and even some dragonfruit in various combinations until we had 7 distinct concoctions. We’ll wait a few weeks to see how the flavors are progressing, then figure out how to strain out the fruit, which tends to decompose and turn to sludge if left too long.

We also discussed our next brewing session. Our calendars are hard to coordinate, which is one reason we had to skip Homebrew Fest this year. But it looks like July 18th and/or 19th might be good days to brew.

We were considering making a beer for a change. Since we have the equipment to ferment 10 gallons now, we’d be able to split the beer into two kegs to be kept at different locations. This would be pretty nice.

I was hoping to make something light for the summer. Perhaps a saison or a small ale.

The other option for “brew day” is to skip brewing and head to Lancaster to forge some axes. Quite a diversion from the brewing, but something we’ve been talking about for a long time. Ken seems to really want to forge a knife, but I’ve got my eye on a full-sized throwing axe that I can use when we do axe-throwing team-building events at work.

I’ll have to build an axe-throwing target for the back yard. There are instructions available online.