Bad Brew Day

[rothj617]

Ok, so I just thought I'd share my experience from last night. I have 2 young daughters (3 yrs old and 11 mos old) so brewing during the daytime is generally difficult. I've had the ingredients for Yooper's DFH 60 min IPA clone and have been itching to brew it for a while now.

This weekend was my birthday and father's day, so I figured good a time as any. Got started as soon as the kids were asleep (8:30-ish). Made a few changes in this batch - LHBS was out of simcoe, so at their suggestion I substituted falconer's flight. Recently bought a 15 gal boil kettle, so I had to scale recipie from 2.5 gal to full volume boil. Also, fitted the hand-me-down imersion chiller w/ vinyl hose and lawn hose adapters. Since I live in TX and tap water is 80 deg or more, I also bought a big steel tub for an ice bath.

Boil went smoothly, then all hell broke loose. Hose popped off chiller, running hose water into wort. While putting ice in tub, my leg brushed the propane burner frame giving me a 2nd deg burn. Couldn't get down below 100 deg after all the ice melted, so I racked it to fermenter, holding the siphon hose w/ a couple ice packs in my hands. Got it down to 80 this way. Pitched yeast around 3am this morning. Discovered wort was scortched as it took half an hour to scrub black s#!t off bottom of kettle. Put it in my newly constructed ferm chamber, only to discover that the peltier I used was way undersized, so now it's been fermenting at over 89 deg for about 10 hrs. I think this may qualify as my worst brew day...

 

[rothj617]

Sorry, that's 80 deg, not 89...

 

[unionrdr]

I guess it sucks to be you. Just kidding. Murphy & his dang laws strike again. I was just thinking,that if they made a "sweet" smoke flavoring, a little of that would turn burn to bad a$$.

 

[mrduna01]

Lol after all that, I'm sure the brew would be fine although I would definitely get the fermentor into a tub of water and drop in a couple ice packs each day. Works like a charm.

 

[theonetrueruss]

I feel your pain.. my brew nights run from about 9pm to 3am due to having a pair of 2 year olds.

 

[rothj617]

Lol after all that, I'm sure the brew would be fine although I would definitely get the fermentor into a tub of water and drop in a couple ice packs each day. Works like a charm.

Yeah, thankfully I bought that tub for cooling the boil kettle. Down to 78 now. Freezing some water bottles to get it down further. Live and learn, I guess...

 

[Sweetchuck]

A bad day brewing beats a good day at work, to steal a line.

 

[JetSmooth]

I know just how you feel.

Check out my thread on my Tornado Ale-y Calamity Pale.

But it's true the worst day brewing is better than the best day working.

My mishap beer has been fermenting a week now. Hit terminal gravity after three days and is sitting happily in my basement chilling out (figuratively). I took a sample today and it's not bad. Not terrific. But it's beer.

 

[rothj617]

I guess it sucks to be you. Just kidding. Murphy & his dang laws strike again. I was just thinking,that if they made a "sweet" smoke flavoring, a little of that would turn burn to bad a$$.

Yeah, I was wondering what the burning would do to the flavor of the beer. I've been wanting to try a smoked beer, but this is not quite what I had in mind...

 

[bluemoose]

Is that a Cajun beer?

 

[marcycaulkins]

With some practice, i have found a brew schedule that works with my 4 year old. I have Thursdays off, so I brew on Wednesday night. I crush my grains and measure my strike water on Tuesday. On Wednesday, when I get home, I turn on the stove and stick a thermometer in, then proceed to feed my daughter. I am usually ready to mash in shortly after dinner. Then, if all goes well, I go for mash out right about the time she is going to bed, so I am ready to start running off when I come back downstairs (sometimes I even start the sparge before then, depending on how my timeline is running). I'm usually pitched shortly after 10, cleaned up by 11.