Copperpots_Brewing
Well-Known Member
This was the single worst brew day of my brewing career...
So i brewed my holiday ale yesterday, well I attempted to at least... I just bought a hop rocket, and I was stoked to use it to spice my holiday ale. I used my hop rocket for the first time, and did a couple upgrades to my HERMS single tier system on top of that, which all should have been figured out before i actually brewed... not mid-brew. I upgraded all of the hoses I'm using from 3/8" to 1/2". Including the dip tubes and such. I figured it would help move liquids faster. So while i was mashing, i was trying to remove dip-tubes and such and solder new ones together, which ultimately didn't go as smoothly as i would have liked. It didnt help that my wife had her friend over, and i didnt know her husband was coming too, so i was trying to entertain while brewing which always ends in disaster.
So I ended up having to mash a bit longer becuase i didnt have my hardware ready, which isnt a big deal, it just made the day longer. So after i got it all together, I put my 1/2 hoses on my pump, but i didnt have hose clamps big enough to clamp them on. I kept having troubles with my pump not pumping, from what i thought was due to my mash tun having a 3/8 dip tube and 1/2 hoses, i thought there was too much air getting in, so i kept having to screw with it to get it moving. Then, I was about a gallon of water under my total boil volume. I did my boil while i was playing darts, and when i ran out to put my honey and molasses and whatnot in at the last 10 min mark, i looked and realized i had run out of propane because i didnt put my new tank on, instead i tried to stretch my old tank out. So who knows when it stopped boiling. So packed the hopback with hops and spices, but then i had the same issue again of my pump not pumping, but this time it didnt make any sense because all of the tubes and hosing was 1/2". So i tried to rely on gravity to help me out. I put my old 5gal pot upside down on my brew stand and set the keg on top of it. But the keg has a domed bottom so it was wabbly, but i had it sitting still and everything was moving just fine. I was trying to get stuff cleaned up, and then i heard a giant CRASH! I turned around and the whole boil kettle had fallen off and about 3gallons of beer just spread across the driveway. I was so unbelievably pissed.
What i'm pretty sure happened was, since i didnt have the hose clamps, air was getting in the lines and the pump wasnt able to create enough suction to pull the wort through.
So needless to say, i have a 3gallon batch that i am less than confident in. So i will be rebrewing next week... during the day, not the night.
ugh.
So i brewed my holiday ale yesterday, well I attempted to at least... I just bought a hop rocket, and I was stoked to use it to spice my holiday ale. I used my hop rocket for the first time, and did a couple upgrades to my HERMS single tier system on top of that, which all should have been figured out before i actually brewed... not mid-brew. I upgraded all of the hoses I'm using from 3/8" to 1/2". Including the dip tubes and such. I figured it would help move liquids faster. So while i was mashing, i was trying to remove dip-tubes and such and solder new ones together, which ultimately didn't go as smoothly as i would have liked. It didnt help that my wife had her friend over, and i didnt know her husband was coming too, so i was trying to entertain while brewing which always ends in disaster.
So I ended up having to mash a bit longer becuase i didnt have my hardware ready, which isnt a big deal, it just made the day longer. So after i got it all together, I put my 1/2 hoses on my pump, but i didnt have hose clamps big enough to clamp them on. I kept having troubles with my pump not pumping, from what i thought was due to my mash tun having a 3/8 dip tube and 1/2 hoses, i thought there was too much air getting in, so i kept having to screw with it to get it moving. Then, I was about a gallon of water under my total boil volume. I did my boil while i was playing darts, and when i ran out to put my honey and molasses and whatnot in at the last 10 min mark, i looked and realized i had run out of propane because i didnt put my new tank on, instead i tried to stretch my old tank out. So who knows when it stopped boiling. So packed the hopback with hops and spices, but then i had the same issue again of my pump not pumping, but this time it didnt make any sense because all of the tubes and hosing was 1/2". So i tried to rely on gravity to help me out. I put my old 5gal pot upside down on my brew stand and set the keg on top of it. But the keg has a domed bottom so it was wabbly, but i had it sitting still and everything was moving just fine. I was trying to get stuff cleaned up, and then i heard a giant CRASH! I turned around and the whole boil kettle had fallen off and about 3gallons of beer just spread across the driveway. I was so unbelievably pissed.
What i'm pretty sure happened was, since i didnt have the hose clamps, air was getting in the lines and the pump wasnt able to create enough suction to pull the wort through.
So needless to say, i have a 3gallon batch that i am less than confident in. So i will be rebrewing next week... during the day, not the night.
ugh.