Im so mad at myself

Hello,

I made 10g AG red a few weeks ago. I ferment in sankes. My airlock consists of a 5 gallon bucket with water/sanitizer. I am well aware of suck back and have learned from my mistakes in the past. Well like an idiot, I turned my thermostat for my chest freezer to 35* to cold crash before kegging. I forgot the bucket of sanitizer/water in there and ofcourse it sucked ATLEAST 1.5 gallons of fluid into the keg.

I was so F'ing mad with myself AGAIN!

I think what makes me so mad is that I did it for the 2nd time. Anyway just wanted to vent.

Joe

just siphon the beer out the sani will rise to the top.... just make sure to stop befor the sani reaches the bottom...

I assume you mean stick the cane in further toward the middle to start the racking as to avoid the sanitizer. The sanitizer isnt the issue, its the excess fluid/water that will change the taste.
Thanks for the help though

Are you using a five gallon bucket full of solution with a blowoff hose running into it for an airlock? I've never heard that one before. Five gallons? Or did I misunderstand you?

And you were using it on fully fermented beer? I'm not familiar with using Sanke kegs as fermenters, but is there a way to close them off? I just don't see why you couldn't plug the hole up with something that wouldn't/couldn't get sucked back in. It is fully fermented, after all, so nothing needs to get out.

beer and water dont mix the sani / water will rise to the top rack the beer off the the keg leaving the water / sani behind..

bkirkland said:

beer and water dont mix the sani / water will rise to the top rack the beer off the the keg leaving the water / sani behind..

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...seriously?

I definitely think the sanitizer will mix with the beer... both water based.

awesome...It's mixed...move on to plan b.

bkirkland said:

yeah i'm serious. the sani water will mix at first then it will separate to the top... if you dont believe me try it and stop hating on answers unless you know better bone head!

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water based solution + water based solution = mixing.

bkirkland said:

yeah i'm serious. the sani water will mix at first then it will separate to the top... if you dont believe me try it and stop hating on answers unless you know better bone head!

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You're out of your element Donny.

They are miscible. They will mix in any ratio.

As for you ILOVEBEER....my condolences....at least it was only 1.5 gal in 10 gal of beer and not 5 gal of beer? I bet it tastes fine anyway.

PS. I just reread that. I thought you were saying they wouldn't mix at all. Now I see you are saying that they will mix, then separate again. This is patently impossible for anything, as it breaks the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

LOL

Im only laughing because Ive done that too. You have two options.

1- proceed as normal, keg, and try to enjoy. Just dont tell anyone
2- dump it, and try not to do it again

Chimone said:

LOL

Im only laughing because Ive done that too. You have two options.

1- proceed as normal, keg, and try to enjoy. Just dont tell anyone
2- dump it, and try not to do it again

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I will not (dump it) thank you very much I will not say a word and people will never know

Man oh man, what is up with the name calling guy? Relax.

I'll explain why I use a bucket:

When I brew I have a rope tub full of water and sanitizer that I use throughout my day. Once I am done I have a bucket setup with a hole drilled near the top that I feed a hose through. Once my brew day is done I dump some of the sani/water into my bucket and into the chest freezer/fermenter the sanke goes. My fermenter top for my sanke utilizes this hole for it's hose.

I've had very violent fermentations that got nasty so I decided to move up to ~ 2 gallons (in a 5 gallon bucket) for an airlock. I had it happen once before and that is why I am so pissed at myself.

I am going to keg it anyway. I got smart, grabbed a red marker and wrote on the chest frezer lid "DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE AIRLOCK STUPID!"

Thanks for the help
Joe

ILOVEBEER said:

I am going to keg it anyway. I got smart, grabbed a red marker and wrote on the chest frezer lid "DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE AIRLOCK STUPID!"

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That's the way to go I leave reminders for myself all the time...

HAHA I am thinking of adding the word "ass" also. If I do it again it proves two things....I am stupid and drinking while performing tasks that require "some" attention to detail isn't good.

You should put a post-it note on the temp control...

I am pretty sure the RED permanent marker in 72 size text will remind me....thanks for the advice though

Now I feel like crying or throwing something.

As you all know my beer fermenter sucked close to 2 gallons of water/sanitizer into the keg.....blah blah blah. I decided to rack it anyway.

I have a 15CF chest freezer I use for a fermenter that has an external thermostat (inexpensive but works ok), I have been using this setup for a month now and works good for fermentation and cold crash.

I go to rack my beer into cornies today and the F'ing beer froze. I was able to rack 5 gallons out of it when I realized the bottom froze??? The beer stopped flowing out of my racking cane C02 setup so I looked in the freezer and the bottom of the keg was frosty and ofcourse indicating frozen liquid.

The funny thing is I had the analog knob thermostat set @ 36ish which allows it to drop to 34 and go as high as 40....never freezing temps.
I cold crashed my APA last month (same procedure) with great results but ofcourse I remembered to remove the bucket and it did not suck an extra 2 gallons of water with sanitizer into it.

I have no idea what the heck happened but I racked 5 gallons out of it which seemed to smell and taste ok and FG was good. I set the freezer thermostat to 50ish. I will attempt to rack the remainding 5 gallons on Sunday. Does it sound like a beer gone bad after it thaws?????

Sorry for the crying but WTF?
Any ideas what happened?

Thanks
Joe

Actually you may be in luck. You just removed the 2 gallons of water you had accidentally added (along with a little extra).

"Accidental Eisbock"

At this point I have one full corney and 1/2 gallon in another. I am going to defrost the frozen section and rack it on Sunday....I'm drinking it regardless.

Just another reason to use StarSan over Iodophor... well just assuming, but I really hope it was StarSan since you said you are going to drink it anyways.

Just another reason to not be paranoid about airlocking the brew at every possible moment. When it comes to cold crashing, just put some foil or cling wrap on and call it good...just MO?

I would personally leave the frozen section behind. It's probably going to contain a ton of the extra water/sanitizer you added like bovineblitz mentioned above.

wilserbrewer said:

Just another reason to not be paranoid about airlocking the brew at every possible moment. When it comes to cold crashing, just put some foil or cling wrap on and call it good...just MO?

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I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately in a rush, I turned the knob and went to work. By the time I got back, I never bothered to look in the chest freezer again until 48 hours later...that's when I said DOH!

I think it would be a great way to try an Eisenbock. If you choose not to do this, I would recommend you rack out what will thaw and make sure to mix it with what you already racked out. If you don't one corny will be beer and the other will be mostly water/NA beer/MGD 64. Unless you keg in the Sanke also in which case everything will be mixed together anyway.

Not sure what an Eisenboch is......at this point I think I'll have a Sanibock with what is left. Since alcohol does not freeze, I am pretty sure I ended up with the majority of it in my corney.


Im still debating whether to keep the remainder or just dump it. The only bummer is 5 gallons wasted....but oh well.

I guess it is actually spelled Eisbock. It is Ice Beer.

From Wikipedia:

Eisbock is a traditional Kulmbach specialty beer that is made by freeze distilling a doppelbock and removing the ice to concentrate the flavor and alcohol content. Alcohol content ranges from 9% to 40% by volume. It is deep copper to dark brown in color, often with ruby highlights. Head retention is frequently impaired by the higher alcohol content. It has a rich, sweet malty flavor, balanced by a significant alcohol presence. It has a clean, lager character with no hop flavor. Examples include Schneider Aventinus Eisbock, Kulmbacher Reichelbrau Eisbock, Eggenberg Urbock Dunkel Eisbock, Niagara Eisbock, and Southampton Eisbock.

So even though you didn't make a Bock of any sort it would be a more concentrated, higher abv. version of what you intended.

I kept 5 gallons and dumped the rest. I didn't have the patience to do otherwise. I am still trying to figure out why the beer froze????

The external thermostat did not fail....it is currently in operation chilling the single corney I racked from the batch. Only thing I can come up with is that once the vacuum sucked the 2 gallons of fluid into the keg, the freon filled bulb on my thermostat (which sits in a 15" thermowell) sensed a drastic temp change....turned on the freezer and did not cycle off until the temp of the new fluid was cold enough....obviously freezing the bottom portion that was already @ 35*F.

I don't know and I am still wondering WTF happened.