jerrodm
Well-Known Member
What's the worst thing that's happened to your beer as a result of your kids? Maybe they pulled off an airlock or dropped something in your fermentation bucket? Well, I think I now have that one-upped. (By the way, I searched for something like this but didn't see anything--if someone knows of a pre-existing thread let me know and I'll repost there.)
So I was brewing a batch of AG stout this weekend, had my mash going in my round 10 gal. MLT cooler. Everything was going like clockwork, until I went to open the valve on the MLT to sparge. I opened it, and nothing came out. Stuck sparge I think (even though the MLT was full of wort at this point), so I stick my paddle in and stir up the grains really well. I had done a multi-step infusion, so there was plenty of water in there, probably 3.5 or four gallons, so there's no reason that it should be stuck. I open the ball valve again--nothing. I stir it around three or four more times, with no success, so now I'm thinking it's a problem with my filter--I use a rocket-type screen on the inside of my MLT underneath a false bottom--so I try to lift up the false bottom to see if I can clear away any debris that's clogging up the filter from the inside. Of course, with 12 lbs. of grain plus 4 gal of wort on top of it, the false bottom doesn't want to cooperate, and all I succeed in doing is basically getting a bunch of my grains down below the false bottom.
So now I'm a little pissed, since I'm thinking I'm going to have to either rack or pour this worth through a strainer in order to separate it from the malt--I know that HSA is not as big of a deal as it's often made out to be, but I still didn't want to go through the hassle. Finally, I decide to pull off the tube running from the MLT to the brew kettle--maybe a grain got stuck inside the ball valve somehow and I can knock it loose. I get a straightened coat hanger and stick it into the spigot, and out comes...a huge chunk of MUD!
Now, I had left my MLT and assorted components on the back porch last week when I brewed in order to let them dry before storing them in the garage. And apparently, my six year-old son thought the spigot on the ball valve would make a great tool to dig in the back yard with. He had the good sense to wipe the dirt off of the outside before he put it back, but he didn't think about the huge gob of mud that digging in the dirt had compacted on the inside of the spigot.
Anways, once I realized what the problem was, I used the hanger to scrape out the valve as much as possible, then took a bit of rag with some alcohol on it and rammed it in there a couple of times. I tossed the first 12 oz. or so of wort that I vorlaufed, but other than that I continued as normal, and the beer seemed to come out fine.
Needless to say, Junior got a stern talking-to about not touching Daddy's beer brewing equipt.
So, other brewing parents, what's the worst thing YOUR kids have ever done to your beer?
(And, just to be fair, my kids also grind my grains and carry stuff around for me on brew-day, so they're not all bad!)
So I was brewing a batch of AG stout this weekend, had my mash going in my round 10 gal. MLT cooler. Everything was going like clockwork, until I went to open the valve on the MLT to sparge. I opened it, and nothing came out. Stuck sparge I think (even though the MLT was full of wort at this point), so I stick my paddle in and stir up the grains really well. I had done a multi-step infusion, so there was plenty of water in there, probably 3.5 or four gallons, so there's no reason that it should be stuck. I open the ball valve again--nothing. I stir it around three or four more times, with no success, so now I'm thinking it's a problem with my filter--I use a rocket-type screen on the inside of my MLT underneath a false bottom--so I try to lift up the false bottom to see if I can clear away any debris that's clogging up the filter from the inside. Of course, with 12 lbs. of grain plus 4 gal of wort on top of it, the false bottom doesn't want to cooperate, and all I succeed in doing is basically getting a bunch of my grains down below the false bottom.
So now I'm a little pissed, since I'm thinking I'm going to have to either rack or pour this worth through a strainer in order to separate it from the malt--I know that HSA is not as big of a deal as it's often made out to be, but I still didn't want to go through the hassle. Finally, I decide to pull off the tube running from the MLT to the brew kettle--maybe a grain got stuck inside the ball valve somehow and I can knock it loose. I get a straightened coat hanger and stick it into the spigot, and out comes...a huge chunk of MUD!
Now, I had left my MLT and assorted components on the back porch last week when I brewed in order to let them dry before storing them in the garage. And apparently, my six year-old son thought the spigot on the ball valve would make a great tool to dig in the back yard with. He had the good sense to wipe the dirt off of the outside before he put it back, but he didn't think about the huge gob of mud that digging in the dirt had compacted on the inside of the spigot.
Anways, once I realized what the problem was, I used the hanger to scrape out the valve as much as possible, then took a bit of rag with some alcohol on it and rammed it in there a couple of times. I tossed the first 12 oz. or so of wort that I vorlaufed, but other than that I continued as normal, and the beer seemed to come out fine.
Needless to say, Junior got a stern talking-to about not touching Daddy's beer brewing equipt.
So, other brewing parents, what's the worst thing YOUR kids have ever done to your beer?
(And, just to be fair, my kids also grind my grains and carry stuff around for me on brew-day, so they're not all bad!)
