2nd batch done. I've never had anything fight me so hard!

[dawn_kiebawls]

*Warning, LONG read*

Hey guys and gals, as the title says I just got my second batch in bottles last night and am glad I can quit thinking about this one (some sort of hybrid between a highly hopped Saison and Belgian IPA, used WY3522)! From the very get go this batch has been a nightmare. I got all the ingredients and grains from LHBS and plan my brew day. I made a rather large starter, which blew its top and allowed me to practice cleaning up beer out of my cabinet. I let it do its thing for 36 hours before I cold crash and decant.

I get my BK out get my water up to 155 to mash/steep my grains in and all is going well. After 40 minutes of that I crank both of my range burners up to full blast to get the boil going. JUST before its boiling I added my first hop additions and everything goes black. Power outage. No lights, no heat coming from my electric range, no more AC. After 30 minutes of the stone-age the power comes back on but now only 2 of my 5 kitchen lights work for some reason. I finished the brew in a dimly lit kitchen while I'm getting more and more frustrated.

I poured the cooled wort into my fermenter, aerated, pitched and pulled a gravity sample. I somehow am 20+ points higher than what BrewersFriend said I would be. Panic, add in an extra 1/2 gallon of top up water, seal it up and put the airlock in. 24 hours later I get to put my beer cleaning skills to the test yet again while learning the importance of using blowoff tubes, which I didn't have and its about midnight so all stores are closed. Once the airlock finally got installed I had almost made a critical mistake by putting about a foot of the tubing in the sanitizing solution, almost literally causing the entire fermenter lid to pop off. That was a dodged bullet, I'm fairly certain I'd be getting divorced if the lid blew...

Once the airlock/blowoff tube situation got settled I just let it do its thing for a couple weeks. I check gravity again and I'm now 10 points LOWER than BrewersFriend said I would be. I got 94% attenuation and now my beer smells and tastes like jet fuel I decide it will be alright, give it a hefty DH and figure a month in a bottle might help. Who knows.

I usually enjoy bottling day. Coming to the end of a month long process and free up my fermenter again so I can start planning the next batch. I prepped 60 or so bottles, de-labeled, cleaned, rinsed and sanitized. Everything is ready to rock and I realize my siphon hose is missing. Just, gone. On top of that aggravation there is apparently only 1 hardware store that sells the size I needed (LHBS is a 40 minute drive, I only like to go there when I'm getting ingredients). I got the siphon situation figured out and carry on as normal, siphoning into bottling bucket. However, the siphon keeps breaking its seal and introducing large amounts of oxygen into the beer. It keeps getting clogged, and introducing more oxygen. Plus, I have already added the priming sugar for 5.5 gallons and I only got 5 gallons out. Hopefully they're not all bombs...

I microwave a coffee mug of water so I can heat up and fit my bottling wand to the spigot. Somehow, for some reason FAR beyond my comprehension, the mug of water exploded in the microwave blowing the door open and spraying boiling water everywhere (I want to elaborate, the mug itself did not shatter but the water erupted. I have NO idea what happened). Okay, all that weird s**t is done and out of the way. I get about a case filled and go to cap them just to find out that my wing capper can't cap 22 of the bottles I cleaned and sanitized. I squeaked by with 3 bottles to spare and I'm already looking forward to when this beer is GONE so I can forget about it!!

Sorry for that novel of a post, but I wanted to vent out and see if anyone else has ever had to fight a batch tooth and nail like I did on this one. I was originally going to call this brew 'Frankenbier' because I made up the recipe aimed at a highly hopped saison, turned Belgian IPA turned some 'mut' beer. I'm now thinking it needs to have Murphys Law incorporated. If anyone is still reading this, I'd love to hear some name ideas for this disaster of a brew! And an explanation for why the coffee mug blew up. That was unexpected, confusing and about made me piss myself! Anyway, RDWHAHB, this one is over

 

[lslbrew]

Sorry to hear about the troubles. I think we all have had terrible brew days and can relate. I have had occasion where I was heating the strike water and things were already looking so bad that I killed the flame canceled brewing. I have posted this elsewhere but I have a beer that I call Elanor from the movie Gone in 60 Seconds because every time I brew that particular recipe something goes terribly wrong.

What happened in the microwave is that you super heated the water. Basically the water got way over 212 but stayed in liquid form until something caused the 1st boil bubble. When that happened the entire contents boiled at one time. This can be done if the surface is slick enough that there is nothing to create the boil bubble off the inside surface.

 

[TungstenBeer]

Great story! Haha... the great thing about the hobby is, you learn your lessons. The blowoff issue? Probably will never happen again. Same thing with the siphon issue you mentioned and any other similar issue.

That is not an unusual attenuation for that strain. I know people that have seen 100% attenuation (yes, a saison that finished at 1.000).

Besides, if you drink it after carbing, conditioning, and you like it... it will be the best homebrew you've ever tasted

 

[Hopsimus]

I had the same experience with wing cappers. They are a pain to use. I found that certain batches of caps worked better than others, ymmv.

Better yet, I'd recommend upgrading to a bench capper. And, if you can afford it, get the most expensive one you can find. Williams Brewing http://www.williamsbrewing.com has a couple awesome ones, but they will cost you some $$$.

I bought one and it's the best purchase I've made brewing wise! My bottling days no longer suck. Haven't had a bottle that won't cap since...

Cheers