My weekend started out with Racking my Arrogant Bastard clone to a keg. That brew had some problems. Mashed at to high a temp, and I knew I had some un-fermentables, but let it ferment away. It finished high. I've been tasting it all along the way, and it has a really weird, sickening sweet taste. I chalked that up to unfermentable sugars and figured they may settle with time, but when I racked to keg on Saturday (and tasted it again), it just about made me puke.
I back tracked and discovered a freezer cube (one of those blue freezer things filled with anti-freeze) that I used to cool my wort was full of wort.
Hmm... if wort can go in, blue weird **** can come out.
I tossed that brew.
Lesson learned... don't use weird blue **** to brew with.
Sunday I get up to brew my pumpkin ale, and look outside, and my 5 gallon carboy is lying in a heap of broken shards. Oh crap, I left a folded sawhoarse too close to a freshly cleaned carboy, and the wind came up in the night, and now I'm down 1 carboy.
No sweat, I have another.
I needed a new bag (for BIAB) but when I went to the fabric store and asked for voile, this time they just looked at me weird, and couldn't find it anywhere. I settled for another similar material that is a finer mesh than I'm used to. Spent a good amount of time making a new bag with little loops that I can use to hold open the bag in my strainer. Great design, and I'm stoked to try it out.
Brewed my pumpkin ale and when I gathered the bag to squeeze, found that if the cloth is too fine, even BIAB'ers get stuck sparge. That's right, absolutely no liquid would squeeze through that bag. I ended up popping the seams, and got a mix of spent grains and wort. ****.
OK deep breath, and get my fine mesh screen strainer.
The only problem here is that straining 170F wort introduces hot-side oxygen. I'm careful, and strain onto the side of the 2nd pot, but still, I'm worried about that.
Got that one in carboy #2 at 10pm tonight.
What about that 170F airation? The wort tastes great. Hope it turns out OK.
I back tracked and discovered a freezer cube (one of those blue freezer things filled with anti-freeze) that I used to cool my wort was full of wort.
Hmm... if wort can go in, blue weird **** can come out.
I tossed that brew.
Lesson learned... don't use weird blue **** to brew with.
Sunday I get up to brew my pumpkin ale, and look outside, and my 5 gallon carboy is lying in a heap of broken shards. Oh crap, I left a folded sawhoarse too close to a freshly cleaned carboy, and the wind came up in the night, and now I'm down 1 carboy.
No sweat, I have another.
I needed a new bag (for BIAB) but when I went to the fabric store and asked for voile, this time they just looked at me weird, and couldn't find it anywhere. I settled for another similar material that is a finer mesh than I'm used to. Spent a good amount of time making a new bag with little loops that I can use to hold open the bag in my strainer. Great design, and I'm stoked to try it out.
Brewed my pumpkin ale and when I gathered the bag to squeeze, found that if the cloth is too fine, even BIAB'ers get stuck sparge. That's right, absolutely no liquid would squeeze through that bag. I ended up popping the seams, and got a mix of spent grains and wort. ****.
OK deep breath, and get my fine mesh screen strainer.
The only problem here is that straining 170F wort introduces hot-side oxygen. I'm careful, and strain onto the side of the 2nd pot, but still, I'm worried about that.
Got that one in carboy #2 at 10pm tonight.
What about that 170F airation? The wort tastes great. Hope it turns out OK.
