I’ve been brewing for almost 15 years and have had a lot of mishaps and mess-ups, most of them due to my inattention. This kegging screw-up is no exception.
The problem actually started the day before I brewed, when I was sanitizing my 1-bbl unitank. I forgot to put the butterfly valve on the outside end of the racking arm and just put a TC end cap on the fitting. A month later, after fermentation, conditioning, extensive dry-hopping, cold crashing and carbonating the 31-gallon batch, harvest day arrived with high expectations for a delicious IPA.
When I loosened the TC clamp to remove the endcap and attach the hose with keg QD for pressure transfer to six kegs, the cap and gasket blew off and the unitank began rapidly emptying. 34° F beer was spraying everywhere as I tried to cover the outside end of the racking arm with my hand. The beer, which had been carbonating, was under 14 PSI head pressure, so it wasn’t just flowing out, it was spewing out with velocity. I was soaked, head to toe in ice-cold beer, and asking myself a couple of questions: 1. How did this happen? 2. How am I going to fix this and save the remaining beer? I was kegging alone, so there was no one to assist me.
While continuing to hold the palm of my hand over the opening, I was very fortunate to find the TC gasket in the lake on my garage floor, along with the end cap and TC clamp. Of course, I had to remove my hand, put the end cap WITH gasket in place and clamp it on; this meant more beer loss while switching from my hand to the cap. I then had to get the transfer hose in place, which meant I had to once again remove the end cap and quickly clamp on the transfer hose. Again, cold beer sprayed everywhere, but I was able to clamp the fitting in place without the silicone gasket blowing off. Problem solved.
A little over 16 gallons of IPA gushed from the fermentor to the garage floor, down my driveway and into the gutter (what a waste – talk about alcohol abuse!!). Of the remaining beer, 10 gallons went to my neighbor, as promised, for his Super Bowl party the next day. Two gallons went to my assistant brewer, and I ended up with about two gallons. Clean-up was a nightmare (beer on the ceiling, walls, equipment, etc.).
When this happened, it was not first time use of new equipment. I had that unitank for a couple of years and had run numerous batches through it with no problems. This was just pure dipshittery on my part, operating with HUA! This is my biggest brewing goof-up, BY FAR, to this very day, but I laugh about it now. I guess you know, I’ll never make that mistake again. Sláinte!
