riderkb
Well-Known Member
All the serious talk of exploding carboys and trips to the ER has me feeling grateful that all my homebrewing accidents have been funny rather than dangerous. Here is a description (from rec.crafts.brewing) of my second batch of homebrew:
"My second batch of beer was a batch of Imperial Stout from Papazian's
book. We loaded it up with dark malt extract and a massive dose of hop
pellets, boiled, cooled the pot in a sinkfull of ice. We ran out of
ice and tried to strain it through a tiny, super-fine strainer, which
promptly clogged up. Our solution was to just dump it into the carboy,
hops and all, and pitch the yeast. The wort was about 85 F when we
pitched the yeast and it was summertime in NC, so the appartment was
about 85 F all night long.
Being a couple of smart guys, we decided to set up a Papazian-style
blowoff tube: narrow tubing jammed into a drilled stopper. We plugged
it in the top, set the carboy in a closet in the spare bedroom and
went to bed.
I woke up to the sound of rain at about 4 AM and went to close the
window, only to notice that it wasn't raining. The sound of running
water was very distinct and was coming from the spare bedroom. I
figured in out just before I opened the door and saw the blowoff hose
standing up on end, whipping around and spraying the ceiling of the
closet with half-fermented wort. There was black beer literally
running down the walls, which the cat thought was very interesting.
I grabbed the neck of the carboy and tried to point it into a nearby
bucket, but I lost my grip and the carboy landed on its side, which
shook it enough to blow the stopper off across the room. A 1 1/2"
diameter jet of beer shot across the room and nailed the cat with a
direct hit. She was completly soaked with beer and had bits of
hop-gunk all over her ears.
When I got it under control, half of the batch was in the carpet,
dripping from the ceiling or on the cat. I had to rent a steam cleaner
to get the carpet clean and we ended up repainting the walls to cover
the stains. It took the cat a week to get all the wort out of her fur.
The beer turned out OK, so I guess Papazian's favorite saying is good
advice.
My girlfriend thought it was funny, so I married her; excellent
decision."
I think that was way back in 1996 when we had to by our supplies at a used record store. The owner was a homebrewer, so he had a little stash of extract, hops and yeast in the back room. As I recall, you could get two kinds of extract in cans (dark or light), two kinds of of dry yeast in 5g packets, and a few types of hop pellets (all of them stale).
"My second batch of beer was a batch of Imperial Stout from Papazian's
book. We loaded it up with dark malt extract and a massive dose of hop
pellets, boiled, cooled the pot in a sinkfull of ice. We ran out of
ice and tried to strain it through a tiny, super-fine strainer, which
promptly clogged up. Our solution was to just dump it into the carboy,
hops and all, and pitch the yeast. The wort was about 85 F when we
pitched the yeast and it was summertime in NC, so the appartment was
about 85 F all night long.
Being a couple of smart guys, we decided to set up a Papazian-style
blowoff tube: narrow tubing jammed into a drilled stopper. We plugged
it in the top, set the carboy in a closet in the spare bedroom and
went to bed.
I woke up to the sound of rain at about 4 AM and went to close the
window, only to notice that it wasn't raining. The sound of running
water was very distinct and was coming from the spare bedroom. I
figured in out just before I opened the door and saw the blowoff hose
standing up on end, whipping around and spraying the ceiling of the
closet with half-fermented wort. There was black beer literally
running down the walls, which the cat thought was very interesting.
I grabbed the neck of the carboy and tried to point it into a nearby
bucket, but I lost my grip and the carboy landed on its side, which
shook it enough to blow the stopper off across the room. A 1 1/2"
diameter jet of beer shot across the room and nailed the cat with a
direct hit. She was completly soaked with beer and had bits of
hop-gunk all over her ears.
When I got it under control, half of the batch was in the carpet,
dripping from the ceiling or on the cat. I had to rent a steam cleaner
to get the carpet clean and we ended up repainting the walls to cover
the stains. It took the cat a week to get all the wort out of her fur.
The beer turned out OK, so I guess Papazian's favorite saying is good
advice.
My girlfriend thought it was funny, so I married her; excellent
decision."
I think that was way back in 1996 when we had to by our supplies at a used record store. The owner was a homebrewer, so he had a little stash of extract, hops and yeast in the back room. As I recall, you could get two kinds of extract in cans (dark or light), two kinds of of dry yeast in 5g packets, and a few types of hop pellets (all of them stale).
