So I got the green light from my wife to brew up some beer. I busted down to the local brew shop and picked up everything I'd need for my first kit. I picked up a great looking IPA recipe with some specialty grains, Warrior bittering hops and two ounces of Citra finishing hops.
We set everything up and went to town. The wort seemed to turn out perfect! I cleaned and sanitized everything. We moved the wort to a tub with ice and used a wort chiller which worked great and cooled the wort to 80* in just over 10 minutes.
I then carefully poured the wort through my sanitized sieve into the primary fermenter, added about a half gallon of additional boiled water to top it off and grabbed my the new whisk I got at the shop. Everything was simply spot on at this point.
I proceed to whisk the hell out of the batch. It was great! I could see the bubbles getting whisked in. I pulled it out then said, "how much do you think I should whisk it?" So I whip it up a bit more and just as I'm pulling the whisk out the end literally fell off from the handle...
So the end falls into the primary fermenter and all over the top of the foam is a half spiral of what looks like sand, dust, fibers and plastic. The handle was apparently filled with this material for weight and fell into my once pristine batch of beer just one step from pitching the yeast and capping the lid. The handle was nearly empty and the end of the whisk was at the bottom of my fermenter. We quickly sanitized some tongs and the spoon again. I scraped off the sand from the foam and we pulled out the whisk end.
Problem is there is at least a tablespoon or two of this sandy crap sitting at the bottom of the fermenter and you can see some of those particulates in suspension throughout the liquid. We also had to use paper towels to wipe the inside of the once sanitized container, not to mention scraping most of the foam off the top. It was horrible. My wife literally almost started crying when she saw it happen.
Now the brew shop was awesome over the phone. They said they'll probably give me a new recipe and whisk, I was just wondering what your guys thoughts were on it. I also pulled a sample and decided to put the wine thief on the bottom of the fermenter when I pulled it, which it did indeed pull up a ridiculous amount of that same junk from the whisk.
I think I'm going to toss the batch, suck it up, and just brew another one tonight after the kids go to bed. I just can't imagine the batch will be ok after that. Even if it doesn't grow some mutant bacterial strain I'm going to be looking for small white plastic particles in every bottle of beer I drink from it...
We set everything up and went to town. The wort seemed to turn out perfect! I cleaned and sanitized everything. We moved the wort to a tub with ice and used a wort chiller which worked great and cooled the wort to 80* in just over 10 minutes.
I then carefully poured the wort through my sanitized sieve into the primary fermenter, added about a half gallon of additional boiled water to top it off and grabbed my the new whisk I got at the shop. Everything was simply spot on at this point.
I proceed to whisk the hell out of the batch. It was great! I could see the bubbles getting whisked in. I pulled it out then said, "how much do you think I should whisk it?" So I whip it up a bit more and just as I'm pulling the whisk out the end literally fell off from the handle...
So the end falls into the primary fermenter and all over the top of the foam is a half spiral of what looks like sand, dust, fibers and plastic. The handle was apparently filled with this material for weight and fell into my once pristine batch of beer just one step from pitching the yeast and capping the lid. The handle was nearly empty and the end of the whisk was at the bottom of my fermenter. We quickly sanitized some tongs and the spoon again. I scraped off the sand from the foam and we pulled out the whisk end.
Problem is there is at least a tablespoon or two of this sandy crap sitting at the bottom of the fermenter and you can see some of those particulates in suspension throughout the liquid. We also had to use paper towels to wipe the inside of the once sanitized container, not to mention scraping most of the foam off the top. It was horrible. My wife literally almost started crying when she saw it happen.
Now the brew shop was awesome over the phone. They said they'll probably give me a new recipe and whisk, I was just wondering what your guys thoughts were on it. I also pulled a sample and decided to put the wine thief on the bottom of the fermenter when I pulled it, which it did indeed pull up a ridiculous amount of that same junk from the whisk.
I think I'm going to toss the batch, suck it up, and just brew another one tonight after the kids go to bed. I just can't imagine the batch will be ok after that. Even if it doesn't grow some mutant bacterial strain I'm going to be looking for small white plastic particles in every bottle of beer I drink from it...
