It was just one of those brew days...

I had shoulder surgery a couple of months ago and haven't been able to brew. Needless to say I was excited to brew my first batch in a while. Unfortunately I enjoyed my previous brewing efforts a little too much last night so my brew day started off with a bit of a homebrew hangover. I shook it off and decided to brew anyways. As i was gathering up my ingredients, I remembered that I bought old fashioned rolled oats from the grocery store rather than just getting flaked oats from the LHBS like I should have. This meant that I had to cook the oats prior to adding them to the mash... Annoying, but no big deal. Near the end of my 60min boil I realized that my 5gal batch is still about 6.5gal. My boil off rate was way different on the stove top. So I looked at beersmith and adjusted my hop schedule for a 90min boil to try to get it down at least close to my target numbers. After the boil I chilled my wort and realized that in the shuffle I forgot to add my lactose at the end of the boil... Dammit. I thought about taking it out of the recipe (coffee stout) anyways, so I decided just to leave it out and continue on. I filled my carboy and pitched my yeast into my now 6 gallon batch because it would take another hour to boil it down to 5. So I now have 6 gallons of wort that is a point low in my 6.5gal carboy. I am just waiting to find my blowoff hose puking all over my ferm chamber in the morning. Even through all of that it was still fun and I'm sure the beer will turn out great but I sure hope my next brew day goes a little more smoothly!

Shoulder surgery sucks.. Welcome back to brewing, it will feel like an old hat again here soon.