FiddlersGreen87
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- Joined
- Jun 9, 2014
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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....
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....