So here's a brand new %*^@-up for you...

**Cape Brewing** · 11-30-2010, 06:11 PM

The SWMBO wants a blueberry beer so I says... "sweet... you wanna Blueberry beer, you're makin' it". So, I ran her through the whole process. I showed her how to load a recipe up into BeerTools Pro... explained what all of the variables meant (SRM, IBUs, OG, etc.). She conditioned the grains. I fired up the rig... and away she went.

(I have a 45 gal "semi-automated" herms system. It is all "flip a switch" to turn on pumps and solenoids)

So... single infusion.... she dumps the grains in... pumps in the correct temp and gallons... boom, hits the strike temp dead on. She circs through the herms heat-ex to keep temp. Perfect. 75 minutes at 151 on the button.

Ok... let's run off and then spahdge (we're from Boston). She spahdges... bada bing bada boom, hittin' temps left and right... run off into the boil kettle... WHAMMO... bout a gallon over on final volumn. No prob... we'll boil an extra 30 minutes.

Boiling away a crystal clear runoff since it has been running through the grain bed for 75 minutes... all of the hop additions are dead on. A lb of honey for the hell of it.... irish moss... boom boom boom... like freakin' clock work.

Ok... time to chill.

her: "How do I do that?"
me: "Hook up the hose to the plate chiller, turn it on, and flip these two switches. Know what? I'll just do it quick... no real 'learning' behind that and I'll take care of it for you."

Yeah...

so...

Her PERFECT beer that she had made the entire day?? Yeah... I've made a TON of batches on my rig and while my rotund buddy PTN will make fun of me, I've only had a real mechanical breakdown once... on my first batch... so this has NEVER happened before.

I flipped the wrong switch and instead of pumping through the plate chiller... I pumped the entire batch back into the mash tun that was still full of grain.

DOH!!!!!!

NO good. So... LUCKILY... I'm looking at the mash tun temp and the wort was chilled enough that it only brought the mash temp up to about 165.

I ran off completely into the boil kettle again and boiled for about 10-15 just to re-sanitize. Then I chilled AGAIN and ran it off into the fermenter.

So!!! Whatta ya think of THAT F-up?? I'm trying to figure out what is gonna be wrong with the beer and I haven't come up with anything.

The "Re-mash" wasn't hot enough to pull tannins or anything like that I don't think. Maybe some DMS due to the short "re-boil"??? I'm not going to have the same hop profile since I had a 0 minute addition that got cycled through a freakin' grain bed and boiled for ten minutes.

Any theories on what is gonna be f-d up about the final product?

wildwest450 · 11-30-2010, 06:17 PM

Have Tom Brady stick his tongue in it, then it should be fine.

.

**Cape Brewing** · 11-30-2010, 06:23 PM

now now... this isn't the football trash talk thread.

Besides, I would use a small piece of his flowing locks instead.

**motobrewer** · 11-30-2010, 06:26 PM

tom brady t-bag, lol.

i think it should be fine, but what do i know.

i'm more interested in how you did the blueberry - extract, or? what was the base, a wheat?

**Cape Brewing** · 11-30-2010, 06:33 PM

She's going to dry-berry.

Adding a yet-to-be-determined amount of fresh (if we can get them) or frozen blueberries to the secondary.

**motobrewer** · 11-30-2010, 06:34 PM

bah. do blueberry extract, because that's what i'm interested in.

**Cape Brewing** · 11-30-2010, 06:35 PM

I was going to go extract but then decided I didn't want it to suck so we're going real blueberries.

FOCUS... Stay on topic!!

What's gonna be wrong with the beer after my f-up?

Mischief_Brewing · 11-30-2010, 06:42 PM

The only thing I can think of, that you didn't reference (i.e. messed up hop additions), is the additional proteins that the irish moss would have helped remove are now back in.

**the_bird** · 11-30-2010, 06:57 PM

Why the ****'d you put a flameout hop addition on a blueberry ale? You really think blueberries and hops are two great tastes that taste great together? You probably saved your ass from a ****ty beer.

EDIT: Did you vorlauf after pumping back into the mash tun? Might have picked up a few stray grain particles... maybe some food for your buggies.

**Randar** · 11-30-2010, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cape Brewing

I was going to go extract but then decided I didn't want it to suck so we're going real blueberries.

FOCUS... Stay on topic!!

What's gonna be wrong with the beer after my f-up?

Might as well go with em frozen. One of the favorite ways to deal with the fruit is to freeze em for a few days and then thaw and smash and throw em in. No boiling/heating requires as long as you have primary fermentation done. This is a real typical fruit wine/mead way to do it and I have seen it done by a lot of brewers.

What's gonna be hosed in your beer? Maybe hop utilization as you already noted. Late addition aroma will be mostly lost I would think (not that it will matter since most of the time you want the berry aroma to show through so most don't use the aroma hops at all).

You re-mixed with the sludge so you might mix it up with the originally left-behind "thin runoff" and get some tannins?

I dunno, just guessing at this point. Only thing you're sure to get is an unrepeatable recipe!