Sooooooo....
Lots of family drama over the last several months. Didn't have time or energy to consider touching my blessed brew equipment or putting anything together. Made a lovely brown ale that (with its own issues in kegging) which still turned out awesome back in *November*. Enjoying a glass of it now.
Things have settled, so decided - on the fly - to brew this AG batch a few weeks ago. Was aiming for an Imperial Stout brewed with some chocolate and peanut butter powder (the Midwest Brewing kit 'Chocolate Covered BEAVR Nutz').
Note I said on... the ... fly. Mistake 1. Normally I pull all my equipment together the day / night before for take-off. I didn't. Attempted to pull it all together the day of and felt off kilter just from that. I did manage to pull my yeast out and smack the pack the day before, so at least it was ready to go.
Mistake 2. Managed - twice - to miscalculate both my mash and sparge water. By a LOT.
D'oh! D'oh!!!!
Mistake 3. After mashing and sparging, realized I had about 8.5 gallons of wort. WTF??? Are you ****ing kidding me??? How did I manage to do THIS??? uh.... slight panic. I need more fermentables!!!! uh.... let's see... I have some DME, and I have some leftover light Belgian candi sugar (turned out to be just less than a pound each). Mixed it in, boiled. Added extra hops than called for as I had ... uh... ended up with 8.5 gallons of starting wort.
Ok, so far, I have managed to eff up the water. And now, effed up the recipe, by adding two fermentables not called for. aigiiiiggghhhhhh
And now I'll eff it up further by thinking 'oh, I'll make a shortcut, and not take the keggle off the brewstand while I cool it with my really awesome wort chiller!!!' So.... left the keggle on the brewstand, tossed the cooler in, and watched water began to spray EVERYWHERE, including into the keggle. WTF???? Now what???? Jeezus Krist. Took me a minute to realize that I had burned holes in the cold water tubing - it had melted against the brewstand. Indeed. As I watched the cold water spray into the wort and all over my work area a small scream exited my mouth.
However, a cool head took over and prevailed... I got a screwdriver, unscrewed the hose clamp attaching the damaged tubing to the wort chiller, cut of the damaged piece, clamped it back on, while managed to gouge a piece of my ring finger out on the wort chiller intake (hey, it's a sharp little piece of metal), which began to bleed into both the wort and all over the wort chiller and brewstand.
****. ****!!! Mistake 4.
I then realized after looking at the temperature that the wort wasn't chilling very fast. Huh???? Really???? Come ON!!! The hose pushing cold water through wasn't holding much pressure - it's super old - took several minutes to figure out what was up with THAT (figured I had screwed up my quick repair to the wort chiller... this was not the case). The hose was so old that while it was not leaking it was certainly not able to hold enough pressure to push the water through. Hooked it up with a different hose and it began to cool quickly. Mistake 5. It took close to 45 minutes to chill it down below 80 degrees at this point.
Put about 4.5 gallons of the wort into one carboy, the remaining amount into the other. Huh. I have yeast... for a 5 gallon batch. Double ****. Thank goodness I had some dry English Ale yeast on hand. Tossed the Wyeast smack pack into the 4.5 gallon side, and the remainder got most of the packet of the dry yeast sprinkled on top. The dry yeast actually took off before the smack pack did... ended earlier too (I know the English dry tends to ferment fast, which it indeed did). Both were happily bubbling about.
The one take-away? With the addition of my fermentables I was only .02 off the OG. The ONE take-away. :fro:
And now, below... I give up. I'll look further at them in the morning and decide if A) they're acetic - tossing. B) Sour - I'll fool around with them. *sigh* I doomed myself from the start. Pellicle pellicle, how do ya do??? Let's see, could be the blood... could be the cold water getting into the wort... could be the fact that it took 45 minutes to cool it down... uh....
In the meantime, I'll enjoy my brown ale, which is just dandy. :rockin: RDWHAHB, right??? sheesh.
Lots of family drama over the last several months. Didn't have time or energy to consider touching my blessed brew equipment or putting anything together. Made a lovely brown ale that (with its own issues in kegging) which still turned out awesome back in *November*. Enjoying a glass of it now.
Things have settled, so decided - on the fly - to brew this AG batch a few weeks ago. Was aiming for an Imperial Stout brewed with some chocolate and peanut butter powder (the Midwest Brewing kit 'Chocolate Covered BEAVR Nutz').
Note I said on... the ... fly. Mistake 1. Normally I pull all my equipment together the day / night before for take-off. I didn't. Attempted to pull it all together the day of and felt off kilter just from that. I did manage to pull my yeast out and smack the pack the day before, so at least it was ready to go.
Mistake 2. Managed - twice - to miscalculate both my mash and sparge water. By a LOT.
D'oh! D'oh!!!! Mistake 3. After mashing and sparging, realized I had about 8.5 gallons of wort. WTF??? Are you ****ing kidding me??? How did I manage to do THIS??? uh.... slight panic. I need more fermentables!!!! uh.... let's see... I have some DME, and I have some leftover light Belgian candi sugar (turned out to be just less than a pound each). Mixed it in, boiled. Added extra hops than called for as I had ... uh... ended up with 8.5 gallons of starting wort.
Ok, so far, I have managed to eff up the water. And now, effed up the recipe, by adding two fermentables not called for. aigiiiiggghhhhhh
And now I'll eff it up further by thinking 'oh, I'll make a shortcut, and not take the keggle off the brewstand while I cool it with my really awesome wort chiller!!!' So.... left the keggle on the brewstand, tossed the cooler in, and watched water began to spray EVERYWHERE, including into the keggle. WTF???? Now what???? Jeezus Krist. Took me a minute to realize that I had burned holes in the cold water tubing - it had melted against the brewstand.
Indeed. As I watched the cold water spray into the wort and all over my work area a small scream exited my mouth. However, a cool head took over and prevailed... I got a screwdriver, unscrewed the hose clamp attaching the damaged tubing to the wort chiller, cut of the damaged piece, clamped it back on, while managed to gouge a piece of my ring finger out on the wort chiller intake (hey, it's a sharp little piece of metal), which began to bleed into both the wort and all over the wort chiller and brewstand.
****. ****!!! Mistake 4. I then realized after looking at the temperature that the wort wasn't chilling very fast. Huh???? Really???? Come ON!!! The hose pushing cold water through wasn't holding much pressure - it's super old - took several minutes to figure out what was up with THAT (figured I had screwed up my quick repair to the wort chiller... this was not the case). The hose was so old that while it was not leaking it was certainly not able to hold enough pressure to push the water through. Hooked it up with a different hose and it began to cool quickly. Mistake 5. It took close to 45 minutes to chill it down below 80 degrees at this point.
Put about 4.5 gallons of the wort into one carboy, the remaining amount into the other. Huh. I have yeast... for a 5 gallon batch. Double ****. Thank goodness I had some dry English Ale yeast on hand. Tossed the Wyeast smack pack into the 4.5 gallon side, and the remainder got most of the packet of the dry yeast sprinkled on top. The dry yeast actually took off before the smack pack did... ended earlier too (I know the English dry tends to ferment fast, which it indeed did). Both were happily bubbling about.
The one take-away? With the addition of my fermentables I was only .02 off the OG. The ONE take-away. :fro:
And now, below... I give up. I'll look further at them in the morning and decide if A) they're acetic - tossing. B) Sour - I'll fool around with them. *sigh* I doomed myself from the start.
Pellicle pellicle, how do ya do??? Let's see, could be the blood... could be the cold water getting into the wort... could be the fact that it took 45 minutes to cool it down... uh.... In the meantime, I'll enjoy my brown ale, which is just dandy. :rockin: RDWHAHB, right??? sheesh.
