Funny brew day story

So I've read the stories about grommets falling into the primary but how about this...

My second brew ever yesterday and I'm determined to make everything right this time... I've got everything planned out, my ingredients laid out and i plan on sanitizing all my stuff while i'm boiling. So far so good, i steep the grains, bring to a boil and start my hops and DME schedule. I fill up my primary with sanitizing solution and dump everything inside. After a few minutes i transfer to the sink and put my lid and all the small parts in. Awesome, i'm doing great-i have like 40 minutes left and everything is almost clean.

But wait-last time i had some issues inserting the airlock into the primary after i put the lid on so i figure i'll put it in ahead of time. Low and behold the grommet rips apart as i'm trying to push it through! With just under 40 minutes left in the boil, i need to come up with something quick-i run downstairs to the shop and look through all the parts drawers and find some sort of a rubber stopper with a hole in it in the "misc. sink parts" drawer. It looks close enough to work but it's slightly too thick to fit through the opening-not wanting to make the hole bigger and risk losing the top forever, i decide to try and start cutting down the rubber stopper to make it fit-i'm somewhat successful but not even knowing what kind of rubber i'm dealing with i decide to scrap this idea and run to the local hardware store. I check my boil and it's not doing anything crazy so i run out and within 10 minutes i come back with 3 different grommets that are close but not quite what i have. Luckily one of them fit pretty perfectly and the crisis was adverted with 25 minutes left to spare!

You walked away from your boil and went to the store??

Ok, for future reference, never leave the house with the stove on. What I woudl have done is to go through the steps for brewing, right up through adding the yeast, and then find something to cover the bucket (towel, or whatever) while I went out to get an airlock grommet.

Just a little safety suggestion.

Right?

You could've ruined your HB with a HF!

(House Fire)

my brother was in the house... forgot to mention that part lol

I'd have parked the bro in front of the stove before I left. If you weren't in the least bit worried about a boilover when you checked your kettle, then you're not getting enough of a rolling boil IMHO.

yeah that is another reason that i'm picking up a propane burner once the weather gets warmer. My gas stove struggles with 3 gallons. The only way i can really get a rolling boil is to keep the lid on (I typically keep it partially on but when i left i just took it completely off)

ChshreCat said:

I'd have parked the bro in front of the stove before I left. If you weren't in the least bit worried about a boilover when you checked your kettle, then you're not getting enough of a rolling boil IMHO.

Click to expand...

Early on , yes, but it sounded like he was way past boil-over mode.

Well, no blood, no foul, eh?

With Fermcap foam control you don't need to worry about boilovers

Funny story? Bah, that sounds pretty normal to me... My brew-days are always an adventure.