My first brew was a sierra nevada pale ale clone. It came out well, no big issues.
My second brew (hefeweizen) cost me over 8 hours of cleanup time on 2 consecutive nights. This is a story of what not to do, even when it is advice giving to you by someone who seems experienced.
After the first night of fermentation of my second brew in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, my wife called me at work saying that beer had spilled everywhere in the basement and it had gotten all over one of her boxes containing her childhood/teenager memory stuff. No problem, I said. I've read about this. I told her I would head home to clean up but would first stop by the brewing supply store and buy a blowoff hose and drain it into a bucket with sanitizer liquid. No big deal.
I got home and saw the airlock had been pushed out and beer had foamed out. I lost about maybe 2 quarts of beer. I cleaned up (about 2 hours of cleanup and reboxing things) and apologized to my wife. Dried hops are damn hard to clean off.
On my way home, before I had cleaned up, I stopped by the brew supply store and the lady working it suggested I use the blow off hose I was purchasing to drain into another glass carboy. I wasn't thinking it through, and thought: Great idea! I have cats so I rather do that instead of using an open bucket so they can't drink the sanitizer liquid.
After I cleaned the mess, I filled the empty glass carboy with some sanitizer liquid and inserted the hose into both carboys, making sure the draining side had the hose below the water level. I had to push that blowoff hose about 18 inches into the carboy to get it under the sanitizer water level. I saw bubbles start coming out of that side and went to bed.
I had been sleeping for about 4 hours and at 6 am, my wife woke up to go shower. She came back upstairs and tells me beer is EVERYWHERE in the basement now. My tired and groggy reaction, after a frustrating night of cleaning and having the wife mad at me was: "WTFFBBQ I did everything they told me to do and its still doing it!"
My wife was super pissed of now. The whole house smelled like malt and hops, and not in a good way. I walked into the basement and saw hops and beer everywhere on the floor and on cardboard boxes in a 10 feet radius of the fermenter. There was about a whole gallon less of beer in the fermenter.
The blowoff hose was no longer attached to the fermenter. Apparently when it popped off it flung a ton of beer out of it.
I then realized my mistake and I felt like a *******. The blowoff hose is an airtight seal when inserted into the neck of a carboy. When I inserted into the fermenter and the second carboy it was essentially inserting more and more gases into the second carboy with no way to escape. It pushed air into the second carboy until the whole thing couldn't withstand the pressure anymore and forced the hose out of the fermenter.
Thankfully I had only inserted the blowoff hose about 1.5 inches into the fermenter and it was able to push the hose out to remove the pressure. I have a feeling that if I had inserted it far enough, the carboys could explode rather than be able to push the hose out.
It took me 5 hours to clean up that mess, reboxing lots of stuff, and lots of apologizing to the wife. I'm just happy that an exploding carboy didn't send glass shards and 4 1/2 gallons of beer all over the basement.
I still haven't called the brew supply store to tell the lady her advice was quite explosive. I'm trying to cool off a little longer so I don't cuss her out at the same time.
Those 3 1/2 gallons are now bottled. Hopefully they aren't infected.
TL;DR; Nearly destroyed my basement with an carboy time-bomb. It turned out okay.
My second brew (hefeweizen) cost me over 8 hours of cleanup time on 2 consecutive nights. This is a story of what not to do, even when it is advice giving to you by someone who seems experienced.
After the first night of fermentation of my second brew in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, my wife called me at work saying that beer had spilled everywhere in the basement and it had gotten all over one of her boxes containing her childhood/teenager memory stuff. No problem, I said. I've read about this. I told her I would head home to clean up but would first stop by the brewing supply store and buy a blowoff hose and drain it into a bucket with sanitizer liquid. No big deal.
I got home and saw the airlock had been pushed out and beer had foamed out. I lost about maybe 2 quarts of beer. I cleaned up (about 2 hours of cleanup and reboxing things) and apologized to my wife. Dried hops are damn hard to clean off.
On my way home, before I had cleaned up, I stopped by the brew supply store and the lady working it suggested I use the blow off hose I was purchasing to drain into another glass carboy. I wasn't thinking it through, and thought: Great idea! I have cats so I rather do that instead of using an open bucket so they can't drink the sanitizer liquid.
After I cleaned the mess, I filled the empty glass carboy with some sanitizer liquid and inserted the hose into both carboys, making sure the draining side had the hose below the water level. I had to push that blowoff hose about 18 inches into the carboy to get it under the sanitizer water level. I saw bubbles start coming out of that side and went to bed.
I had been sleeping for about 4 hours and at 6 am, my wife woke up to go shower. She came back upstairs and tells me beer is EVERYWHERE in the basement now. My tired and groggy reaction, after a frustrating night of cleaning and having the wife mad at me was: "WTFFBBQ I did everything they told me to do and its still doing it!"
My wife was super pissed of now. The whole house smelled like malt and hops, and not in a good way. I walked into the basement and saw hops and beer everywhere on the floor and on cardboard boxes in a 10 feet radius of the fermenter. There was about a whole gallon less of beer in the fermenter.
The blowoff hose was no longer attached to the fermenter. Apparently when it popped off it flung a ton of beer out of it.
I then realized my mistake and I felt like a *******. The blowoff hose is an airtight seal when inserted into the neck of a carboy. When I inserted into the fermenter and the second carboy it was essentially inserting more and more gases into the second carboy with no way to escape. It pushed air into the second carboy until the whole thing couldn't withstand the pressure anymore and forced the hose out of the fermenter.
Thankfully I had only inserted the blowoff hose about 1.5 inches into the fermenter and it was able to push the hose out to remove the pressure. I have a feeling that if I had inserted it far enough, the carboys could explode rather than be able to push the hose out.
It took me 5 hours to clean up that mess, reboxing lots of stuff, and lots of apologizing to the wife. I'm just happy that an exploding carboy didn't send glass shards and 4 1/2 gallons of beer all over the basement.
I still haven't called the brew supply store to tell the lady her advice was quite explosive. I'm trying to cool off a little longer so I don't cuss her out at the same time.
Those 3 1/2 gallons are now bottled. Hopefully they aren't infected.
TL;DR; Nearly destroyed my basement with an carboy time-bomb. It turned out okay.
