wildwest450
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2007
- Messages
- 8,978
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I charged my cordless drill last night in anticipation of my 12 gallon Steam beer brew today. I awake at 7:00am and excitedly stumbled into the garage. Measure out strike water and get it on the burner. Grab the grains and dump them into the barley crusher hopper, attach drill and squeeze the trigger.
Nothing, a few revolutions and she's dead. Oh crap, the charger must be bad. No problem I tell myself, I'll throw on the handle and hand crank it. Now let me tell you, 20 pounds of grain is not all that fun to hand crank. But im off to the races once again.
I throw the grains into my cooler and dough in. A tad high on temp so I stir out a few degrees. Perfect, right at 154, I slam the lid and set the timer. Fast forward 60 minutes. Sparge water is heating, it's time to drain the tun. A few drops slow to nothing, that's odd. Never happened to me before. I grab my mash paddle and start to dig in, something doesn't feel right. Oh sh#%, somehow my manifold has come apart!
I panic, how in the hell am I going to fix this!? I start grabbing anything closely resembling a clean bucket, or container. Now mind you this is a double batch so my 52 quart cooler is topped out. I start scooping out mash with my 2 quart pyrex measuring cup. Get most of the mash out and re-attach the manifold. It has somehow come unglued from the spigot.
Dump the mash back in, and do the first sparge, no problems. Start the last sparge, and bingo, it comes off again. Time to pull it all out again and re-attach the stupid manifold once again. Whew, finally ready to boil.
Fast forward to end of cooling. I'm using a 15.5 sanke keg for the first time for fermenting, time to transfer. Oh crap, I can't lift a 20 gallon brew pot up high enough to drain into keg. Back story- half of this batch is for a friend, who was supposed to come and help, he never showed. So now I have to transfer some other way.
So, I sanitize my 3 gallon bucket I use for transferring wort from mlt to boiler. Sanitize my auto siphon, and start transferring. Crap, what do I do with the siphon hose while dumping the bucket? By this point im 8 hours into a brewday that should take 5 hours tops. My back was wrenched from dumping mlt twice and I just didn't care. So I pull out siphon hose and lay it on the brew kettle lid next to me, knowing full well im risking infection.
I repeat the process 3 more times, each time cringing as I lay the hose on the kettle lid. I pitch a massive starter and drop in the stopper and airlock. My "friend" shows up 5 minutes later and helps me hoist this spawn of satan into the freezer. I just know deep down this thing is full of blight and disease. It starts bubbling away 4 hours later! Maybe this will be the best batch I ever brewed, or a complete fail. Time will tell.
Nothing, a few revolutions and she's dead. Oh crap, the charger must be bad. No problem I tell myself, I'll throw on the handle and hand crank it. Now let me tell you, 20 pounds of grain is not all that fun to hand crank. But im off to the races once again.
I throw the grains into my cooler and dough in. A tad high on temp so I stir out a few degrees. Perfect, right at 154, I slam the lid and set the timer. Fast forward 60 minutes. Sparge water is heating, it's time to drain the tun. A few drops slow to nothing, that's odd. Never happened to me before. I grab my mash paddle and start to dig in, something doesn't feel right. Oh sh#%, somehow my manifold has come apart!
I panic, how in the hell am I going to fix this!? I start grabbing anything closely resembling a clean bucket, or container. Now mind you this is a double batch so my 52 quart cooler is topped out. I start scooping out mash with my 2 quart pyrex measuring cup. Get most of the mash out and re-attach the manifold. It has somehow come unglued from the spigot.
Dump the mash back in, and do the first sparge, no problems. Start the last sparge, and bingo, it comes off again. Time to pull it all out again and re-attach the stupid manifold once again. Whew, finally ready to boil.
Fast forward to end of cooling. I'm using a 15.5 sanke keg for the first time for fermenting, time to transfer. Oh crap, I can't lift a 20 gallon brew pot up high enough to drain into keg. Back story- half of this batch is for a friend, who was supposed to come and help, he never showed. So now I have to transfer some other way.
So, I sanitize my 3 gallon bucket I use for transferring wort from mlt to boiler. Sanitize my auto siphon, and start transferring. Crap, what do I do with the siphon hose while dumping the bucket? By this point im 8 hours into a brewday that should take 5 hours tops. My back was wrenched from dumping mlt twice and I just didn't care. So I pull out siphon hose and lay it on the brew kettle lid next to me, knowing full well im risking infection.
I repeat the process 3 more times, each time cringing as I lay the hose on the kettle lid. I pitch a massive starter and drop in the stopper and airlock. My "friend" shows up 5 minutes later and helps me hoist this spawn of satan into the freezer. I just know deep down this thing is full of blight and disease. It starts bubbling away 4 hours later! Maybe this will be the best batch I ever brewed, or a complete fail. Time will tell.