The Dumba$$ brewer of the year award goes to....

.......me. I really outdid myself this morning. Taking a break from "kit & kilo" brewing, I actually took a day off from work to brew up a Munich Helles recipe from one of our local HB shops. It's a partial mash recipe, and after reading some Papazian and Dornbusch, I decided to do a full wort boil, even though it uses extract, to try to keep the color light. That meant literally dusting off my all-grain kettle and wort chiller. So, I'm up bright and early to get things going, all goes well until......I go to hook up the wort chiller to the faucet. Ooopsss.........I'd forgotten that in the 3+ years since I'd used the chiller, we'd remodeled the kitchen, and the new faucet won't connect to the chiller. Sooo I stood there, for 20 minutes, holding the two non-fitting fittings together letting the cold water run. It worked, to a degree [no pun intended] until I got tired of freezing my hands off. I shut it down and hauled the kettle outside into the 25F weather outside.

Lmao rocketcrab FTW

I lost a fitting like that once. I duct taped the two together. There was a stream of water sort of shooting out of the side of it. All I could do was laugh.

If it makes you feel better, I had to do the exact same thing for my first 5...yes, 5...brews. "Modernized" kitchen hardware sucks.

Duct tape only goes so far.
Had a garden hose i was useing to 150degree hot water.....got a bulg in it after a few brews. Go figure. Then one day POP it blew...so i got the duct tape out and wraped as tightly as i could. Next brew day....Hey it works...Its swollen a little but who cares.

SWMBO was talkin to me on the phone and all of a sudden i heard a loud POP and went WT*??? Look and sure enough i have a gusher going like no tomorrow and wife will be home in 10 minutes..... Was a wee bit fun to explain that to her on why water was dripping from the cieling.

Point is....At one time or anouther most of us have earned ******* of the year award.
Trick is making sure SWMBO isnt to pissed off!!

The Dumba$$ brewer of the year award goes to....


.......me.

Sounds like this contest was rigged!!!

I thought it was me for leaving the BK's ball valve open while full of sweet wort and disconnecting the qd yesterday

OP - sorry to hear about your chiller problems.

It's early in the year. I bet I can beat that sometime in the next 11 months.

scrambledegg81 said:

If it makes you feel better, I had to do the exact same thing for my first 5...yes, 5...brews. "Modernized" kitchen hardware sucks.

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Yea, whats up with that??? I get the heebeegeebies just walking past the plumbing department at The Home Depot, I know zilch about plumbing only that if I turn the spigot water is supposed to come out. I guess I'll be able to adapt my chiller fittings to enable it to work on the new spigot, but I haven't a clue how. I can see me now, dragging a wort chiller into the store, asking for assistance, all the while the guy working there is wondering what this goober is doing with that copper coil....

rocketcrab said:

Yea, whats up with that??? I get the heebeegeebies just walking past the plumbing department at The Home Depot, I know zilch about plumbing only that if I turn the spigot water is supposed to come out. I guess I'll be able to adapt my chiller fittings to enable it to work on the new spigot, but I haven't a clue how. I can see me now, dragging a wort chiller into the store, asking for assistance, all the while the guy working there is wondering what this goober is doing with that copper coil....

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Just tell him its part of a moonshine still, he'll understand.

Take another look at your sink. I thought I couldn't use my bottle washer OR my wort chiller in my new apartment. 6 months of complaining about this later, I realize you can unscrew the aerator on the faucet, and then it's perfect. D'oh!

I'll take that award for myself, if you don't mind.

winstonofbeer said:

Duct tape only goes so far.
Had a garden hose i was useing to 150degree hot water.....got a bulg in it after a few brews. Go figure. Then one day POP it blew...so i got the duct tape out and wraped as tightly as i could. Next brew day....Hey it works...Its swollen a little but who cares.

SWMBO was talkin to me on the phone and all of a sudden i heard a loud POP and went WT*??? Look and sure enough i have a gusher going like no tomorrow and wife will be home in 10 minutes..... Was a wee bit fun to explain that to her on why water was dripping from the cieling.

Point is....At one time or anouther most of us have earned ******* of the year award.
Trick is making sure SWMBO isnt to pissed off!!

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I picked up some 'Super Tape' at the Outdoorsman show last year. Highly suggest having a couple of rolls around the hose.

It is a no glue, self adhesive that is rated to 500 psi and 700 degrees, (or maybe it is the other way around). But it will close water and gas leaks, and with no gum, does not 'get into your stuff'.

I have a roll in my car, my tacklebox and the kitchen drawer.

Wellshooter said:

It's early in the year. I bet I can beat that sometime in the next 11 months.

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Agreed, it is FAR to early in the year to be calling this one!

jamesnsw said:

Take another look at your sink. I thought I couldn't use my bottle washer OR my wort chiller in my new apartment. 6 months of complaining about this later, I realize you can unscrew the aerator on the faucet, and then it's perfect. D'oh!

I'll take that award for myself, if you don't mind.

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Already did with mine...damn Kohler designed it to be a non-threaded faucet head. Either way, the landlord & I worked out a brew room with threaded faucets, so all is well.

jamesnsw said:

Take another look at your sink. I thought I couldn't use my bottle washer OR my wort chiller in my new apartment. 6 months of complaining about this later, I realize you can unscrew the aerator on the faucet, and then it's perfect. D'oh!

I'll take that award for myself, if you don't mind.

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On our old faucet, I just unscrewed the aerator and plugged in the chiller. I can take the aerator off the new one, but the chiller won't hook up.

Here's my terrible chiller mistake from the weekend:

I dropped my chiller in the boil w/ 15 minutes to go. At the end of my boil a dozen or so friends showed up to say high, one with a new bloodhound puppy. I usually don't have large crowds around the brew kettle, so I didn't even think twice when I cranked up the water on the IC. Well, sure enough, the exit hose comes alive and points directly at the beautiful bloodhound pup, and yes, sprayed him with boiling water. The dog was terrified and burned...the owners rushed him to the snow and started rubbing the cold snow on his coat. Needless to say, I felt terrible. The dog turned out to be just fine, but I'm afraid those friends won't be coming over any time soon

I think that at least deserves honorable mention for ******* Brewer of the Year.

That trick would not have worked here in Austin. It is 44 degrees out right now and my hose water is 60 degrees. WTF? I have to use a pre-chiller here 12 months out of the year.

I've been doing the hold-the-chiller-connection-to-the-faucet deal for several batches. Luckily this week I'm moving and the new house has laundry hookups that fit the connector.

Hey Rocketcrab, we're neighbors. What homebrew shop did you visit?
For your plumbing dilemma you might try Mervin Zimmerman's in Lititz. They'll help set you up.

I neglected to clean the mash tun (an Igloo cooler) after a late-night brew session on Tuesday night. Four days later, I open the cooler to dump the spent grains and promptly puke my guts out. Man, that stuff gets nasty.

So that was my ******* move for January. I might top it in February if I can brew frequently enough. We'll see.

Hugh_Jass said:

I thought it was me for leaving the BK's ball valve open while full of sweet wort and disconnecting the qd yesterday

OP - sorry to hear about your chiller problems.

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You too? Sweet wort drained on the garage floor for a few minutes before I came back in to the garage and saw it

Hoppus_Poppatopolis said:

Hey Rocketcrab, we're neighbors. What homebrew shop did you visit?
For your plumbing dilemma you might try Mervin Zimmerman's in Lititz. They'll help set you up.

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Thanks for the tip! PM sent.

goose_on_fire said:

So that was my ******* move for January. I might top it in February if I can brew frequently enough. We'll see.

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We managed to set the hose from the propane tank to the burner on fire the other night. Flames everywhere, but no damage except to the hose itself, which is 90% burned through. Hopefully I spent all my ******* points for Febrary now.

Well, I can't be sure, but I don't have a clear memory of emptying the two cups of Star San out of my keg before filling it this afternoon. I shook it around real good to make sure it coated the inside. I do remember that part, but, for the life of me, I don't remember draining it. The beer seemed awfully foamy when I filled the keg. Hopefully two cups in five gallons won't be TOO noticeable!!!