LumberjackJohn
Well-Known Member
Hey everyone, just had to vent my frusrtation.
Woke up this morning, expecting my package of hops from HopsDirect to come today. In anticipation of that event, I figured I'd go ahead and make a starter today, run to the LHBS and pick up my grains, and either brew tomorrow or Sunday. I take out a vial of yeast that I had cultured myself, boil up my DME for the starter, put it in my flask, cool it to pitching temperature, open the yeast and realize... Hmm, some of these cells look darker than the rest.... I shake up the vial and open it and take a whiff. Smells kind of sour, so I take a sip. Yup, definitely sour.
My thought is that the darker yeast cells were dead cells, and their rotting corpses ruined the rest of the vial. I could live with this small set back, because it was my first time culturing yeast and I'd just pick up a vial at my LHBS and call it a lesson learned.
Then I decided to open my chest freezer/ferm chamber and look and see if I left some odd and end in there. I was assaulted by the stench of mold, and greeted by a slimy film over the one keg I had left in there. Luckily the keg was mostly empty and only contained cream soda, so I dumped the soda down the drain, not wanting to take a chance, and cleaned the keg, then cleaned the freezer with bleach and water. Turns out the freezer had come unplugged from the wall. My frustration level rose a notch.
As I was cleaning off the CO2 tank to make sure it didn't have spores growing on it, I noticed the high pressure gauge was showing it was low. I weighed it and confirmed. Tank tare weight = 7.5lbs. I measured about 7.9lbs. Now I'm pissed.
I'm going to proceed in my plan and hit the LHBS here in about 10 minutes, and hope my hops come today with no problems, and maybe go tomorrow and get my CO2 tank filled and inspect my system. The more advanced your brewing gets, the more there is to go wrong!
I did drink a Busch the other night, maybe this is my payback. I hope I have accumulated all the bad beer karma for the year so that none of you suffer from its affects!
Woke up this morning, expecting my package of hops from HopsDirect to come today. In anticipation of that event, I figured I'd go ahead and make a starter today, run to the LHBS and pick up my grains, and either brew tomorrow or Sunday. I take out a vial of yeast that I had cultured myself, boil up my DME for the starter, put it in my flask, cool it to pitching temperature, open the yeast and realize... Hmm, some of these cells look darker than the rest.... I shake up the vial and open it and take a whiff. Smells kind of sour, so I take a sip. Yup, definitely sour.
My thought is that the darker yeast cells were dead cells, and their rotting corpses ruined the rest of the vial. I could live with this small set back, because it was my first time culturing yeast and I'd just pick up a vial at my LHBS and call it a lesson learned.
Then I decided to open my chest freezer/ferm chamber and look and see if I left some odd and end in there. I was assaulted by the stench of mold, and greeted by a slimy film over the one keg I had left in there. Luckily the keg was mostly empty and only contained cream soda, so I dumped the soda down the drain, not wanting to take a chance, and cleaned the keg, then cleaned the freezer with bleach and water. Turns out the freezer had come unplugged from the wall. My frustration level rose a notch.
As I was cleaning off the CO2 tank to make sure it didn't have spores growing on it, I noticed the high pressure gauge was showing it was low. I weighed it and confirmed. Tank tare weight = 7.5lbs. I measured about 7.9lbs. Now I'm pissed.
I'm going to proceed in my plan and hit the LHBS here in about 10 minutes, and hope my hops come today with no problems, and maybe go tomorrow and get my CO2 tank filled and inspect my system. The more advanced your brewing gets, the more there is to go wrong!
I did drink a Busch the other night, maybe this is my payback. I hope I have accumulated all the bad beer karma for the year so that none of you suffer from its affects!
