My brew day from hell.

So, i've been brewing for a while now, and have pieced together a 3 tier all grain system over the last year or so. I started using a stainless keggle doing ebiab, but love my 3 tier system.

So here goes. I began the brew day like any other, with a nice class of homebrew (oatmeal chocolate stout) and went around gathering my equipment.

I started to heat my strike and sparge water and everything seemed fine. Crushed my grain, got my mash tun ready and BOOM i doughed in.

Hour later, started my fly sparge and went back to enjoy that delicious stout. Little did I know what was coming for me in the next little while.

So i've finished my sparge and grab my boil kettle and move it up to my brewing rack and start to notice my weldless fitting is leaking a little (it's done this before). In the past, i'd just wiggle it a little and it would stop, but let me assure you, this was not what happened. I gave it a little nudge and BOOM my precious wort starts gushing down the side of my keggle onto the kitchen floor.

I acted quickly, grabbed the nearest buckets and strategically placed them underneath to salvage and wort I can. I decide to act quickly and as my adrenalie starts pumping i grab my kettle (has 7 gallons of hot wort in it) and move it on its side. Clearly i didnt think straight as I did not have any tools to tighten the fitting.. So i yell for SWMBO to come hold my kettle.

I run off, grab a few tools and come back. I look into my kettle and find that my oring has been SHEERED! I'm not sure at this point what to do!

Quick on my feel, i grab my mash HLT and start to empty the contents of my keggle. I got all of the precious wort from the kettle, and finally I could relax and figure out what to do. I had to take apart my MLT and salvage parts from it so that I could piece together my dip tub and get a new oring in it.

I got that all back and the leak stopped. I started my boil, and everything seemed to be going fine. Everything was wet and sticky, so I started to clean while my boil was going. I emptied out my MLT and started to rinse out the stuck grains on the bottom. Grabbed the sink catcher to go throw the grains into the trash and wouldn't ya know it i slipped on some wort that made its way to the floor and bashed my knee on the doorframe (same knee I hurt just a few days earlier) and grains flew into the air and went everywhere.

At this point, just below my kneecap had a bump about 1-1.5 inches high and i just wanted to dump the wort and call it a day, but what kind of brewer would I be if i did that?

I cleaned up a little more, grabbed another brew, put my knee on ice and waited for the boil to finish.

All in all, the wort tasted great, I hit all my numbers, and I will have a great Raspberry Wheat for SWMBO in a few weeks.

Cheers

 

excellent recovery! adapt and overcome... and have another well deserved home brew

 

At least the brew survived!

 

Damn that sucks man. This is a good example of what we're willing to go through to make our wives happy! I'm confident it will taste great!

The worst brew days I've ever had involved me drinking while brewing. Besides the typical "missed a step", some piece of equipment always seemed to fail me. I can't explain it. These days I've resigned to having a "pitch party" with a glass or three of beer after other yeast is pitched.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems. I am glad that you persevered though it to finish the beer.

But, it is not for not. After reading your story I am going to check all of my weldless fittings and make sure that I have a couple of extra o rings.

 

Good idea to "put a beer on it" after the reinjury. Always seems to make me feel better. The rough brew days are there to keep you humble, but on the plus side you saved the wort. All in all not a total loss. Cheers!

 

Catastrophe stout was born that day. Nice recovery.

 

Ouch - quite the rough day. Glad you finished up though. Way to "keep calm and brew on!"