holy cow, am I having a rough night....

This fat tire brewing session has been a comedy of errors.

I had everything I needed, plan laid out, ready to roll.

Then I forgot to turn the burner off when my steep water got to 160, and.. welll... the water got really hot. Not a big deal, but th at one hitch threw me off track and I have been sipraling out of control for a bit. strainer problems, etc, etc. (I just had to go change clothes because I was drenched from shirt collar to knees... don't ask.)

I just added the extract right now.... I've been in the kitchen since 9pm. It's going to be a long one.

waiting for the boilover now.....

wait......

OK.. there it is... gotta go.

I just got a Bock in the primary. Never start brewing after 6 PM. Mrs. Monkey has gone to bed and the Little Monkeys are on their way. Thank God they stayed up long enough to help me out some ( stir this a minute... Scrub your tub out with bleach and fill it with cold water.....Daddy loves you..... Move , move, move!!! ... Will you hold this funnel ?). Don't know what I'll do when they're grown and gone. :cross:

I am not allowed to start until the kiddies are in bed (8-ish).

-walker

Mine are 12 and 14. I'd collapse if I had to wait for them. I used to laugh at my parents for going to bed at 9pm. Now' I've become them.

hell, I stay up LATER now than when I was single and childless. I go to bed at about 2am, get up at 7am.

-walker

I was just informed tonight that I'm now going to have to brew on Tuesdays. The cleaning ladies come every other Wednesday, and apparently my sloppy wort-pouring has lead to one too many cases of sticky floor.

towels on the floor. lots and lots of towels. the kitchen here gets a temporary carpet on brew day.

-walker

Walker said:

towels on the floor. lots and lots of towels. the kitchen here gets a temporary carpet on brew day.

-walker

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DME may be sticky, but it doesn't hold a candle to Wort. It's like walking on fly paper.

My worst brewing experience can be summed up in, "Michael, the recipe called for 4 oz of rye, not 4 lbs." Can we say 14 lb doughball?

calamity continues. I OVER-cooled my wort. Now I have to warm it back up for the yeast to be happy at pitching time. Gladd I hadn't topped off completely! Water is heating up to boil now.

"Fat Tire"? More like "Flat Tire". Or... given how long this night has been, maybe just "Slow Leak".

-walker

It's 1230 in the morning for me too. I just got finished cleaning up from brewing a Helles Bock and bottling a Hefe Weizen.

Towels on the floor? You betcha. They are just so easy to grab with your foot and slide on over to soak up drippings, etc.

i'm an hour ahead of you, Bill. 1:34am and counting....

-walker

Hope you guys got a good nights sleep I could never stay up that late brewing, I try to schedual my brew days for the weekend, start early and be done before noon if possible.

2nd Street Brewery said:

Hope you guys got a good nights sleep

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Not at all. too many issues last night. I think I finally crawled into bed at about 3am. 6 hours for an extract brew session!

My son woke me up at 7am so I could make his breakfast and get him ready for school.

I'll be dragging @$$ for the majority of today. Good thing I don't have anything terribly important going on.

-walker

Last weekend I had an espresso at 8:00pm to keep me awake through Wicked. Yadda yadda yadda, I started brewing at 11:30pm, yadda forward to 3:00am when I was finished.

The rustoleum garage floor coating is impenetrable by wort! A quick hose down and cleanup is done.

My worst brewing experience was last Monday evening...a stuck sparge. When I blew into the drain hose there was a Mt. St. Helens-esque eruption from the top of my MLT which deposited wort in my hair.

Walker said:

6 hours for an extract brew session!

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Holy moley! I've got my AG routine down to about that. How long does it normally take you? I did that cranberry zinger, my first extract in a while, and it took just over an hour total. That was only a 1.5gal, 30 min boil, though. Oh yeah, no grain steep either. Reminded me that I can still do extracts if time is tight!

Sucks that you have to start so late. Hopefully they go smoother in the future!

Normally, I get started at 8:30 with a pot of water heating for steeping my grains. Steep is done at 9:15, bring volume to 3 gallons and boil..... hot break at about 10pm. (I don't start timing the boil and adding hops until the break happens), flame-off at 11pm, rapid cool with ice-water, let stand for 20 minutes for cold break to settle, and transfer to carboy/aerate for a few minutes. This leaves me pitching the yeast at about 11:30 or so.

So.. 3 hours is normal for me, but I still have to rinse everything off and pile it on the counter so SWMBO can wash it properly for me the next day.

edit: yeah... my stove sucks. it takes a while to get things to a rolling boil.

-walker

Reminds me; ya know that spray-on plastic coating for truck beds... Ryno-lite or Rino-light or something, anyhow, my buddy had the cab (all the floor, and a good foot up) of his truck sprayed down with that $hite...... wonder what my kitchen would cost.

No more vacuuming, hose the MoFo down, like the work horse it is.

Good to hear you guys survived the night at least

The last batch (my first AG), felt the same way (took too long, forgot stuff, broke stuff, etc).

(1) almost boiled my steeping grains (got up to 195 before I realized I still had the heat on)

(2) this had a lot of grains compared to my normal batches. the strainer I normally use wouldn't hold them all. I got out the bigger strainer, but it lacked 'feet' to hold it on top of the pot, and it actually fell INTO the pot a couple times, re-wetting the grains and making a splattered mess on the stove (luckily, very little sugar in there at that point, so it wiped up easily and didn't get too bad)

(3) used my thrifty 30lb container of bulk LME.... Mr. Cheapskate here opted to not buy the $3 spigot for the cubitainer, so I had a bit of a mess trying to STOP pouring it into my measuring jug. sticky stuff... thank god I was in the garage for that one.

(4) Spilled 1.75 oz of teeny tiny hop pellets all over the counter trying to prevent a boil over (I HATE ELECTRIC STOVES!) At least the kettle didn't erupt and I just scooped the pellets back up.

(5) The snake-head on the kitchen sink got away from me and went crazy, spraying me with hot water from head to toe. Had to change clothes.

then there was a period of calm for about 30 minutes. I drank two pale ales without breathing too much.

(6) Overcooled the wort (60°F). Had to top off with some boiling water to bring it up to match the temp of my starter.

(7) went to the garage to get things in order while waiting for my top-off water to boil. Then realized I did not have my keys with me, and the doors to the house lock automatically when you come out. I could see my water starting to boil on the stove, but it was about 2am and I had to use my cell phone to call inside and wake someone to let me back in. Luckily, my sister-in-law responded and not SWMBO.

(8) pitched my entire yeast starter into the wort. that's not necessarily bad, but I had intended to keep half set aside for a couple weeks for a second batch.

I'm sure there were some other things, but my tired brain cam only recall those at the moment.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"...

The night DID have it's good points, too....

(1) the wort smelled and tasted really good. I got no harsh flavors from overheatig my grains, and I was very thankful.

(2) the yeast starter took off like gangbusters. I had the starts of kraeusening after only 5 hours.

(3) I nailed the starting gravity, according to two brewing software packages. I usually don't check gravity, but since I had so many issues and had to add more boiling water than I wanted to to recover from the overcooled wort problem, I decided to check it and make sure I hadn't watered it down too much. Spot on. w00t!

I have improved my 'contingency plan'. I always keep an extra gallon of very cold water on hand to top off wort that is too hot, but I will also keep a gallon of hot water handy incase I overcool again.

-walker

Man, you gotta start brewing earlier. I didn't sleep worth a damn last night worrying about you. Get too tired and stupid things happen. They call it exhaustion. Pretty funny about getting locked out, though. Glad it ended well. I woke up this morning to find last night's Bock doing quite well. The airlock was bubbling like a hookah pipe. It even told me to have a nice day !

Truble said:

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"...

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LOL....

Walker--sorry I haven't commented on your brew day yet. I saw this thread this morning and got distracted.
Anyway, you definitely need to brew earlier bro!
After I read you locked yourself out, I blew Mountain Dew out my nose (ouch.).

I can't remember how long you said you've been brewing but each time I brew the process goes smoother. I've got it down really smooth (to about 4 hours) now, and I rarely have any problems anymore. I rarely drink on brewday until the boil is almost done. Too much to screw up if you don't watch it.

been brewing on and off for about 8 years. it usually does go very smooth, but I think that was my problem. it usually goes so smoothly, I don't have room for error in my process. that grain getting too hot threw me off and I started stumbling. then the beer started going do to help me relax, and then I got too relaxed.

last night was more amateurish than my FIRST brewing night in 1997.

my wife saw a lot of the problems before she went to bed. she thinks I should name this batch "Downward Spiral".

-walker

How about "Curveball", "SNAFUbreu" or "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

How about "Tail Spin Ale"

So, have you decided on the name yet?

not yet.... I know if I give it time, the right thing will come to me.

I do like SnafuBrau. Maybe throw an umlaut over that first 'u'.

Well, when you do, your going to have to get a label like that Scottish Ale
that describes your dilemma. That is such a cool label!


<edited because I can;t friggin spell >

i wish I would have taken a picture of myself last night at 2:30. that would have been perfect for the label.

a nice black and white image of me, frazzled, in the kitchen surrounded by wet clothes, dirty towels, brewing gear.... hand pressed to my forehead as if I had a headache.

Hell... if I had that picture, I wouldn't even need to name it.

-walker

How about "Dead Man Walkin" Ale.

or.... "Pandora's Bottle"?

Murphy's Ale (as in murphy's law)?

Yes, that's it. Oh, there has got to be some good art work to go with that one. Your on the right track man!

Walker said:

Murphy's Ale (as in murphy's law)?

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If you have to explain it .. it just doesn't work. Go in the direction of Pandora..
IMHO.

I'm on a roll..."Pandora's Grog"

Sudster said:

If you have to explain it .. it just doesn't work. Go in the direction of Pandora..
IMHO.

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think with the right image, the murphy's ale would work without clarification.