Picbuddy
Active Member
My 7th batch of beer brought to life last night is:
Alaskan Smoked Porter Clone from AHS (Austin Home Brew)
+ 1# Plain sugar
+ 8 oz. Belgian Dark Candi
+ 8 oz. Organic Cane sugar
+ 4 oz. Texas honey
+ .365 oz. Mexican coffee extract
+ 10 serrano peppers during boil
Chilled to 75F in 13 minutes, poured into 7.9 gallon plastic bucket over half pound of medium roast oak chips in a hop bag (pressure cooked for sanity) and triple pitched yeast (1 vial White Labs British Ale, 2 dry packs with kit). Sealed.
And then ahh damn.... Looked on my make table and for the very first time ever I have left overs. I forgot to put the two capsules of Brewvist Yeast fuel in for the last 15 minutes of boil, AND the new ingredient that comes with every AHS kit now, 8 oz. "Body Builder" that you are supposed to add at burnout. So I tossed it all in, stirred and resealed. Apparently the late timing of the final two items isn't going to matter.
Woke up 5 hours later to a high pitched whining sound like the alarm in our fridge when the door is left open, yet it was steady, not a beep. Walked into the kitchen and should have taken a photo but this went down real fast. The plastic lid of the bucket was puffed up like a balloon (I did not know that was possible), the airlock was clogged with krausen and the airlock or lid was whining. All I did was touch the airlock and it blew off launching like a model rocket (spraying foam in my face".
Not having time to deal with it, I put the bucket minus airlock in the sink and went to work hoping not to find a disaster later. Returned home 5 hours later, sink full of foam and a huge mess. Ran to the Home Depot, got a 5/8" hose, used a 1 gallon spring water bottle from the night before, made the extra airlock an attachment, sanitized and plugged it in.
The brew that actually got out of my control is tamed, and fermenting more robustly than I ever imagined possible. It's like the sanitized water in the 1 gallon jug is on a loud and hard constant boil, almost blowing the water out. With a very loud burp about every ten minutes.
Problems - 1 forgetting to add brewvint yeast fuel at boil. Obviously doesn't matter, or maybe it's way more powerful after the wort has chilled.
2 - forgetting to add the body builder at burnout. No clue what issue that may or may not be.
3 - And open 1" hole for 5 hours. Well, it was pushing foam out so I don't think that short of a time is gonna completely destroy the beer, everything was clean and sanitary and this time could not be avoided.
Any comments are welcome but the intent of this story is to urge other home brewers to educate yourself on what a blow out tube is for, assemble one and have it ready when you need it. Even due to three small mistakes I ain't dumping my damn beer. I think it will be fine, but I wish I had payed attention to what people were saying about a blow off hose, before I needed one or knew why. Cheers.
Alaskan Smoked Porter Clone from AHS (Austin Home Brew)
+ 1# Plain sugar
+ 8 oz. Belgian Dark Candi
+ 8 oz. Organic Cane sugar
+ 4 oz. Texas honey
+ .365 oz. Mexican coffee extract
+ 10 serrano peppers during boil
Chilled to 75F in 13 minutes, poured into 7.9 gallon plastic bucket over half pound of medium roast oak chips in a hop bag (pressure cooked for sanity) and triple pitched yeast (1 vial White Labs British Ale, 2 dry packs with kit). Sealed.
And then ahh damn.... Looked on my make table and for the very first time ever I have left overs. I forgot to put the two capsules of Brewvist Yeast fuel in for the last 15 minutes of boil, AND the new ingredient that comes with every AHS kit now, 8 oz. "Body Builder" that you are supposed to add at burnout. So I tossed it all in, stirred and resealed. Apparently the late timing of the final two items isn't going to matter.
Woke up 5 hours later to a high pitched whining sound like the alarm in our fridge when the door is left open, yet it was steady, not a beep. Walked into the kitchen and should have taken a photo but this went down real fast. The plastic lid of the bucket was puffed up like a balloon (I did not know that was possible), the airlock was clogged with krausen and the airlock or lid was whining. All I did was touch the airlock and it blew off launching like a model rocket (spraying foam in my face".
Not having time to deal with it, I put the bucket minus airlock in the sink and went to work hoping not to find a disaster later. Returned home 5 hours later, sink full of foam and a huge mess. Ran to the Home Depot, got a 5/8" hose, used a 1 gallon spring water bottle from the night before, made the extra airlock an attachment, sanitized and plugged it in.
The brew that actually got out of my control is tamed, and fermenting more robustly than I ever imagined possible. It's like the sanitized water in the 1 gallon jug is on a loud and hard constant boil, almost blowing the water out. With a very loud burp about every ten minutes.
Problems - 1 forgetting to add brewvint yeast fuel at boil. Obviously doesn't matter, or maybe it's way more powerful after the wort has chilled.
2 - forgetting to add the body builder at burnout. No clue what issue that may or may not be.
3 - And open 1" hole for 5 hours. Well, it was pushing foam out so I don't think that short of a time is gonna completely destroy the beer, everything was clean and sanitary and this time could not be avoided.
Any comments are welcome but the intent of this story is to urge other home brewers to educate yourself on what a blow out tube is for, assemble one and have it ready when you need it. Even due to three small mistakes I ain't dumping my damn beer. I think it will be fine, but I wish I had payed attention to what people were saying about a blow off hose, before I needed one or knew why. Cheers.
