Confession Time

I rarely ck FG anymore. My pipeline is such that it's ready when I need it....which is usually a cpl weeks after the airlock has died.

 

I squeeze my toothpaste tube in the middle. When I'm a guest in someone's home, if their toilet paper hangs off the back, I will flip the roll.

 

Unacceptable.

Pull out enough to wipe comfortably, but do not tear it from the roll.

When you're done, roll it back up, taking care not to get anything on your hands.

That'll teach them.

 

A few years ago I lost my ability to smell.. Anything . I could have lived in a sewage plant and never smelled a thing. Had a cold and got nerve damage the doc said and it's common apparently. It was so bad I stopped home brewing cuz it all tasted bad . Fast forward 5 years and I have 80-85 of my ability to smell back.. Now I don't like hops .. Almost at all . The aroma is fine but almost all beers I taste are way way way to bitter . Anything over 15 IBUs is too much
And I can no longer appreciate deep rich dopplebocks etc like I used too. I lived in Germany for 3 years and they were my faves. Now.. Sigh... I like low hopped.
Blonde ales. Cream ales with corn notes. Etc etc . I feel like a turncoat to the spirit of home brewing , brewing these "commercial" beers that are all I can like now. IMO they are far superior but still. I feel a bit like a outcast faker. I know it's stupid but there it is.

 

This is probably the realest confession here.

I feel for you, man.

 

I use Dawn to clean all my equipment. The sad thing is, I have an unopened tub of PBW sitting right out in the open in the brewery.

 

How does Dawn feel about being used?

 

MOTHER OF GOD! This actually exists? Costco, you've gone too far

 

That sucks for your total beer enjoyment but makes homebrewing cheap.

Unrelated to beer but related to your aliment, I can no longer fly airplanes due a particular strain of influenza I probably had in my teens (almost 30 years ago). On my last tour in Iraq (as a contractor) I woke up with the room spinning and barely made it to bathroom, crawling, to vomit repeatedly. I proceeded to walk the block and half to my office by clinging to everything along the route (no phone in my housing unit). I made it and went immediately to the bathroom to vomit more. Once a coworker got in they took me to the clinic.

Rounds of test and IV fluids including an antinausea. Doc's (all Russian) could not place it but I got better the next day and stayed on an antinausea oral for week.

Second attack was in the US at work and it was just severe, debilitating vertigo. Doc's in the US knew exactly what it was. It is a lesion on an auditor nerve that will never go away and flare up when the immune system is compromised after fighting a cold or similar. The lesion was cause by a flu virus in the 80's and has afflicted a lot of people over the years.

Each attack is less severe. The last one I was driving and had time to pull over and find a safe place to park before the vertigo was bad...it passed completely by the next morning and the only negative was I had to get a ride to my car.

 

I'm afraid I'm too new to the brewing game for some of the subtle jokes in this to make sense, though I did appreciate a few. I....must confess.... that I failed to take hydrometer readings post-boil for my first two brews. Mostly because I forgot to take the sample before pitching the yeast and was afraid to contaminate the batch

 

My hydrometer has long brunette hair. It usually only takes three if it finished to around 1012. After five or six I can tell if it was high gravity pretty easily. I have had her for over twenty years and have not dropped or broken her yet. She is very reliable.

 

Ha ha ha...Me too!!! I am sitting here on the computer reading HBT instead of kegging my beer that I cold crashed. This Thursday will be three weeks that it's sitting at 32* and I just haven't kegged it yet. Maybe tomorrow.

 

Think of all the calories you burned off in that process.

 

The smell thing happened to my old man. Oh, the fun times my siblings and I had crop dusting the old man....

 

I stopped to pick up an empty bottle off the street that was half buried in slush and full if frozen I don't-know-what.

It will get washed and added to the rotation.

 

This is a relief. I think you know why.

 

My hydrometer is a blond. It doesn't give readings on anything hoppy though. I should get an additional hydrometer. Or a whole set.

 

sorry, double posted accidentally

 

i hear they have more fun.

 

I have brown hair (few grays now), and I have a ton more fun than her...

 

After reading this thread I have to confess that I am very hydrometer dependent. Not knowing the OG or FG would drive me crazy.

I've had my share of lapses but the one thing I do on purpose sometimes is pitch a little high when the wort chiller is taking too long. There. I said it. Pitch in the mid-70s, chill down to the mid-60s, then let it rise again.

 

I sometimes forget to kiss my wife goodnight but I never forget to kiss my dog. P.S. I never make starters.

 

I made a yeast starter yesterday and today I poured a vile's worth and then added about a teaspoon of DME back into the flask. No adding water or boiling, just straight into the flask. Brewing tomorrow and hope this adds a bit more sugars to the yeast.

 

When I buy liquid yeast....I make a starter, then double up on that starter, then harvest it all back into flasks in the fridge. Now I have 3-4 flasks of liquid yeast. Before the actual brew day, I make a starter. Risky? Yeah, it might be. But luck has been on my side and so far, so good.

 

When I buy liquid yeast....I make a starter, then double up on that starter, then harvest it all back into flasks in the fridge. Now I have 3-4 flasks of liquid yeast. Before the actual brew day, I make a starter. Risky? Yeah, it might be. But luck has been on my side and so far, so good.

 

That just sounds like good practice to me. I think I'm doing that next time I buy liquid yeast. What flasks are you using? The regular while lab vials or something else?

 

I wonder if that wasn't the point of his confession. Most of the confessions on this thread are about how little care is given about different aspects of brewing ("and I still make amazing beers, not that I have ever put anything up for judging, but all my friends tell me it's great, so I must be doing it right!"), and now, to confess that you actually do something that shows more care to the process is ironic.

That said, I find the thread refreshing in that so many of us really do just "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" vs. "OH MY GOD you can't possibly be making good beer if you're not doing xyz!" Beauty truly is in the eye of the beerholder.

 

Yes, I'm using the White labs vials. I've kept all of my vial from the last 2 years and have quite a number of them laying around. My practice of doing this started with an instance of me having to reschedule brew days repeatedly. In the end, I decided to cold crash my starter and save the yeast for later. I was delighted when I realized that I just produced about $20 worth of yeast. Been doing it ever since.

 

I have a confession:

I trusted a fart once....once

 

I've made 90 batches of beer and have never once measured my efficiency. I'm not sure how.

 

My wife is the only person I can let brew with me. Everyone else gets in my way and I become angry then make mistakes...then I get even madder!

 

I watch tv or play video games during most of my brew day. Yay for indoor breweries.

 

I've been glued to this site all day and last night (after several commercial beers). Am obsessed with the beer I made last weekend. SWMBO is not pleased.

 

I literally tucked a carboy in for the night last week. That and the video I made of peak fermentation have my wife very concerned.

 

Last night, I ran out of home brew.

 

That's HILARIOUS! I actually put beer into a clear fermenter and not a bucket just because I love to watch the beer ferment. Its awesome to watch it bubble around.

 

Yessir. Sea Monkeys that make beer.

 

Ok, ok, ... I need to confess something here. Up until a few minutes ago I still believed "identical cousins" we're a real thing because of reruns I watched of The Patty Duke Show in the 80's. Thank god for google to put idiotic beliefs to rest...

 

That's why I started using carboys too!

 

You obviously haven't seen the $600 a bottle Kirkland brand 50 year old single malt...