How pleasant to awake not only to the sight of snow on the ground, but two carboys each with a healthy head indicating a good start to fermentation.

Today I led a work trip to Portsmouth Royal Dockyard.  What a delight!  Many interesting things I did learn… notably ‘to let the cat out of the bag’ comes from the cat ‘o nine tails being let out the bag, indicating imminent punishment.

Thankfully there was also some important alcoholic infotainment… the daily alcohol ration for a sailor in the Royal Navy was eight pints of beer, OR four pints of wine OR half a pint of brandy or rum (sounds rubbish… but it was 160 proof!).  That’s not bad.  This is not to say that Her Majesty’s navy encouraged drunkenness.  No, no.  Anyone caught drunk on board would be subjected to lashings of the cat out the bag type.  These plenitudinous supplies would not only keep the  troops in good spirits, but would also provide a regular source of nutrition.

Eventually got home, and returned to my room to find fermentation was going rather too well, as one of the airlocks had been blown off by the level of suds.  Thus ensued a two hour frenzy of trying to somehow lose the suds.  Had we been brewing in the big fermentor, I could have reached in.  Instead I tried to siphon off the suds.  Seemed fairly alcoholic already!  I would have given in much earlier, were it not for the fact that I’d lent WebMonkey my spare demijohn!  In the end I realised I would never win this battle, and had to bottle some of my cider to free up a demijohn, and then siphon off some of the wort.

In bed around 2am.  Nasty.