3 Brewing Lesson Learned... don't repeat my boneheaded mistakes

[FiddlersGreen87]

This hobby has the ability to make you just hang your head and laugh at your own stupidity. Thankfully I don't keep count of how many times this has happened because the number would be daunting. I recently had one of my biggest bonehead moments. Please learn from my mistake. If you don't feel like reading the article of failure below, see the bold for the sources of my boneheaded mistakes.

I made a 10 gallon batch of a Porter. I split both it into two carboys with the intent of 5 gals going into a keg and 5 gallons getting coconut and vanilla added.

Well I haven't added quantity markers to my 6 gal carboys yet, and corny kegs hold 5 gallons. You can already see where this is going. I sanitized the keg with StarSan, pouring out the excess liquid and leaving the foam. I put my auto-siphon in and started it like usual keeping an eye on the siphon to keep from sticking it into the trub at the bottom. Well the foam started coming out like a 4th of July charcoal snake, which is fine, I just let it billow out and wipe it away later.

Here's where my expectation did not meet with reality. I thought as long as the foam doesn't start turning brown meaning I was at the bottom of the foam that had mixed with a little bit of Porter, I was good, and I'd stop the siphon once I saw the brown. Well I did stop when I saw the porter... because it came out like a wall of water coming over a dam. Fortunately my corny keg has handles, and cuts in the rubber where the poppits are like all other cornies. This helped to disperse the direction of the beer in 3 different directions all over my garage floor.

But wait... there's more! So I cleaned up the excess spill on the top of the keg, hit it with my spray bottle of StarSan, and left the rest of the mess for after I was done. I capped off the keg, hooked up the Co2 and made sure there weren't any leaks. Lesson learned. Don't over fill your kegs. After ensuring no leaks were present, I went to bleed off the Oxygen, and allow the Co2 to fill the keg. I typically do this inside my keggerator because that's where my Co2 and other kegs are. Well pulling the pressure release valve created a great spray cone pattern of porter in my face, on the walls of my keggerator, and the keg next to it. Yet another mess to clean up.

Final lesson learned.

If you're going to add flavor additives to your beer, put them in the carboy first and rack the beer onto them. I did the opposite. I transferred the 2nd half of the 10gals into my clean carboy. I poured the few ounces of vodka/vanilla solution into the carboy. Then it was time to add my 5 POUNDS of coconut. Do you have any idea how long it takes to add 5lbs of coconut through the narrow neck of carboy? It took me over an hour to pack the coconut into the tank. I had hoped the eventual weight of the coconut would eventually cause it to sink, well coconut is buoyant as hell. Eventually I had to pour a little coconut, then pack it down in with a sanitized spoon, add a little more, pack it down, and repeat that process for pounds 3 through 5.

All in all, a process that should of taken me about an hour of work resulted in almost as much time as it requires to brew a full AG batch....

 

[Rjppunk]

Oh man! Fun times eh?

 

[JINKS]

Not to hijack the thread but your story reminds me of this story I got in my email a few years ago


I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer— no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slowly and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set beforehand ... kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head — almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.

That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal — like a horse — strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down. Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are lying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey.

 

[Rjppunk]

Lolololol I'm actually laughing

 

[Reisende]

Wow... not to the OP, the deer story. Just... wow.

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Both the beer and deer stories were great reads.

 

[Chupidacabra]

That was amazing. Best thing I've read in a while.


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[catdaddy66]

Thank you for that! And to the OP, we've been there bud!


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[JINKS]

And now the rest of the story: from snopes.com

I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the Co-Op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like hell. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling, "What happened?"

I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions as criminal. I swear... not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response. I told him "I was attacked by a deer". I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own. He did. Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me. It was obviously rabid or insane or something.

EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the Co-Op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders. I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I have to see these people every day and as an outsider — a "city folk". I have enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and whispering, "There is the ******* that tried to rope the deer!"

 

[Rjppunk]

Oh the cherry on top

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

Wow... well I guess you've one up'd me to a large degree... guess my day wasn't quite so bad after all. I don't even feel that bad about the spilled beer now.

 

[Chupidacabra]

Is it weird that I want to try roping the deer that always hangs out in my backyard now?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[b-boy]

This hobby has the ability to make you just hang your head and laugh at your own stupidity. Thankfully I don't keep count of how many times this has happened because the number would be daunting. I recently had one of my biggest bonehead moments. Please learn from my mistake. If you don't feel like reading the article of failure below, see the bold for the sources of my boneheaded mistakes.

I made a 10 gallon batch of a Porter. I split both it into two carboys with the intent of 5 gals going into a keg and 5 gallons getting coconut and vanilla added.

Well I haven't added quantity markers to my 6 gal carboys yet, and corny kegs hold 5 gallons. You can already see where this is going. I sanitized the keg with StarSan, pouring out the excess liquid and leaving the foam. I put my auto-siphon in and started it like usual keeping an eye on the siphon to keep from sticking it into the trub at the bottom. Well the foam started coming out like a 4th of July charcoal snake, which is fine, I just let it billow out and wipe it away later.

Here's where my expectation did not meet with reality. I thought as long as the foam doesn't start turning brown meaning I was at the bottom of the foam that had mixed with a little bit of Porter, I was good, and I'd stop the siphon once I saw the brown. Well I did stop when I saw the porter... because it came out like a wall of water coming over a dam. Fortunately my corny keg has handles, and cuts in the rubber where the poppits are like all other cornies. This helped to disperse the direction of the beer in 3 different directions all over my garage floor.

But wait... there's more! So I cleaned up the excess spill on the top of the keg, hit it with my spray bottle of StarSan, and left the rest of the mess for after I was done. I capped off the keg, hooked up the Co2 and made sure there weren't any leaks. Lesson learned. Don't over fill your kegs. After ensuring no leaks were present, I went to bleed off the Oxygen, and allow the Co2 to fill the keg. I typically do this inside my keggerator because that's where my Co2 and other kegs are. Well pulling the pressure release valve created a great spray cone pattern of porter in my face, on the walls of my keggerator, and the keg next to it. Yet another mess to clean up.

Final lesson learned.

If you're going to add flavor additives to your beer, put them in the carboy first and rack the beer onto them. I did the opposite. I transferred the 2nd half of the 10gals into my clean carboy. I poured the few ounces of vodka/vanilla solution into the carboy. Then it was time to add my 5 POUNDS of coconut. Do you have any idea how long it takes to add 5lbs of coconut through the narrow neck of carboy? It took me over an hour to pack the coconut into the tank. I had hoped the eventual weight of the coconut would eventually cause it to sink, well coconut is buoyant as hell. Eventually I had to pour a little coconut, then pack it down in with a sanitized spoon, add a little more, pack it down, and repeat that process for pounds 3 through 5.

All in all, a process that should of taken me about an hour of work resulted in almost as much time as it requires to brew a full AG batch....

Usually, mistakes come in multiples. If you have one problem during a brew day, you can count on more. It's not just a stuck sparge, but a stuck sparge followed by an opened valve, which results in 200F wort running down your leg.

Murphy's Law. Murphy was a real @&*#$^$.

 

[b-boy]

And now the rest of the story:

I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the Co-Op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like hell. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling, "What happened?"

I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions as criminal. I swear... not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response. I told him "I was attacked by a deer". I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own. He did. Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me. It was obviously rabid or insane or something.

EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the Co-Op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders. I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I have to see these people every day and as an outsider — a "city folk". I have enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and whispering, "There is the ******* that tried to rope the deer!"

I see a new thread in your future - 'When Animals Attack People Who Make questionable Decisions'. I think you should start it with this story. I bet you get some more interesting stories. I have a goose story that would fit right in there.

 

[Chupidacabra]

That definitely should happen. I've got a good dachshund/moose story for it


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[JINKS]

I see a new thread in your future - 'When Animals Attack People Who Make questionable Decisions'. I think you should start it with this story. I bet you get some more interesting stories. I have a goose story that would fit right in there.

ask and ye shall receive.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/wh...ke-questionable-decisions-497590/#post6457647

 

[troy2000]

I enjoyed (and identified with) the OP's story, and thought there was some good advice in it. Thanks for the post. But of course, the deer story is an internet classic - right up there with the one about a guy trying out the Taser he bought for his wife, by jabbing it into his own upper leg.

I know someone who once thought it was a good idea to bulldog a buck mule deer, off the passenger-side running board of his buddy's 4x4 pickup. Recreational beverages may have been involved...

It's a shame the two of them aren't more literarily inclined and I wasn't there to record the action, because even by their laconic account things got pretty dramatic. But eventually the emergency-room personnel decided to send the bulldogger home instead of admitting him, after sewing and splinting him back together - possibly because he didn't have insurance - and he only wound up with a few permanent scars.

 

[JINKS]

Wow... well I guess you've one up'd me to a large degree... guess my day wasn't quite so bad after all. I don't even feel that bad about the spilled beer now.

Not my story but your humorous style reminded me of it. I hadn't read it in a couple of years, still brings tears to my eyes laughing.

Here is the taser story
http://www.snopes.com/humor/follies/taser.asp

 

[The_Bishop]

Sorry to say it, but thanks for a much needed laugh, Jinks. Had something similar happen while bow hunting a bunch of years back. Hit a deer broadside, tracked it for a hundred or so yards and found it lying down. Imagine my surprise when I got close to see if it was really down and getting kicked hard enough to send me ass over teakettle.

 

[heckler73]

a similar lesson (beer related):

when making your first IPA with 5 oz of dryhop, don't put the pellets in the carboy and then rack 5 gallons on top of it. Turns out hops expand when they get wet.

 

[troy2000]

I see a new thread in your future - 'When Animals Attack People Who Make questionable Decisions'. I think you should start it with this story. I bet you get some more interesting stories. I have a goose story that would fit right in there.

We kept Chinese geese for watchdogs when I was growing up. On top of being noisy, they were big and mean as ****. It's surprising I wasn't traumatized for life by one particular drake, who delighted in chasing innocent children. His bites left huge black-and-blue bruises, on top of the battering he could give with his wings.

 

[b-boy]

We kept Chinese geese for watchdogs when I was growing up. On top of being noisy, they were big and mean as ****. It's surprising I wasn't traumatized for life by one particular drake, who delighted in chasing innocent children. His bites left huge black-and-blue bruises, on top of the battering he could give with his wings.

My goose story has a similar ending...

 

[Barley_Bob]

You know, you could have just sat in the back of your truck with a rifle and popped all three deer from 5ft. Not to be a smart ass...

 

[JINKS]

A true story of mine:
As a new wine maker I'm in the learn as you go stage.
One of the steps before racking wine is to de-gas and remove as much carbon dioxide as possible. The instructions say to use the handle of long spoon stirring for 10 minutes 3 times in an hour or so.
Seems a little to easy. I bought a degassing rod that can be used for the same purpose.
Broke out the trusty drill and TaDah foam all over the floor.
On the upside though the wine had no suspended co2.
Fast forward to bottling day and I have these neat 500 ml square dark green bottles.
So dark in fact that you really can't see through them. Filled 4 of them and 25 standard bottles, kit makes 6 gallons.
Had a small bit of wine left in the bottling bucket and 1 final 500 ml square bottle.
I had been soaking the corks in starsan which makes them slip into the bottle really easy and this time was no different.
Cork went in without a problem and when I released the handle the cork came back out.
I thought to myself "Hmm been soaking the longest must be really slick from the starsan, it'll stay if I push it in farther" Up until this point I had been leaving about a 1/2 inch of the cork sticking out of the square bottles.
I pushed the cork into the bottle and just as it hit level, BOOM, my first bottle bomb.
Now hopefully none of you have been standing next to a 500 ml bottle when it explodes because it sounded like someone shot a pistol, and sprayed glass shards around the room and into my hand and foot. Nice thing is wine contains alcohol so the wounds, though minor, were instantly sanitized, along with all four walls the floor and the ceiling in the bathroom where I was using the counter to cork. Dark wine for a nice new spotted paint job which is starting to grow on me, kinda looks like a brown trout.

 

[watermelon83]

I never would have imagined reading anything that epic on this forum. Thank you sharing your pain!

 

[Barley_Bob]

It's a good thing you live in Kansas. I'm not sure you would have lasted in a place with things like traffic or stoplights or open water.

 

[troy2000]

a similar lesson (beer related):

when making your first IPA with 5 oz of dryhop, don't put the pellets in the carboy and then rack 5 gallons on top of it. Turns out hops expand when they get wet.

Thanks for the heads-up...

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Lol...

My system when kegging... I keg under CO2 pressure and push the beer into the keg through the "Out" post on the corny using a QD. So I can stop the flow very easily just by popping the QD off the post.

I have a similar issue with star san so I can't see the liquid level, and I've got foam coming out the top of the corny.

I dip my hands into the bucket of star san, getting them good and coated, rubbing them together, etc. Essentially my hands are as close to sanitized as I think is humanly possible.

I'll reach into the corny as I get towards the end of the fill, and find the "In" post with my finger. Once I feel the cold beer on my finger (i.e. it's a single finger-width from the bottom of the "In"), I stop the flow.

Works for me.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I'll reach into the corny as I get towards the end of the fill, and find the "In" post with my finger. Once I feel the cold beer on my finger (i.e. it's a single finger-width from the bottom of the "In"), I stop the flow.

Works for me.

Yea I plan to get a bigger Co2 tank and eventually move everything via Co2. That's a good idea though, next time I'm unsure the exact quantity I'll keep that in mind... feel kind of stupid for not thinking to do it myself... :cross:

 

[Rjppunk]

Hindsight is 20/20

 

[FuriousE]

Lol...

My system when kegging... I keg under CO2 pressure and push the beer into the keg through the "Out" post on the corny using a QD. So I can stop the flow very easily just by popping the QD off the post.

I have a similar issue with star san so I can't see the liquid level, and I've got foam coming out the top of the corny.

I dip my hands into the bucket of star san, getting them good and coated, rubbing them together, etc. Essentially my hands are as close to sanitized as I think is humanly possible.

I'll reach into the corny as I get towards the end of the fill, and find the "In" post with my finger. Once I feel the cold beer on my finger (i.e. it's a single finger-width from the bottom of the "In"), I stop the flow.

Works for me.

I do the same thing (push to the keg through the out post). I do it with the lid sealed, though, to avoid as much oxidation as possible. If you cold crash the beer first, you can actually see the beer level on the outside of the keg as you fill it by the condensation that will appear.