Anyone Ever Have Something Crazy Happen That Disrupted a Brewday?

[zgardener]

About a week ago I was chilling my Pennybacker Pale Ale when my smoke alarm went off. I wasn't sure what exactly why, I didn't see or smell any smoke. I went into the bathroom where it just smelled like the heater kicked on. I continued to explore and realized that my dryer was still running after 3 hours.

I turned off the machine and opened the door to unload and was greeted with a plume of white smoke, my clothes were on fire!

I pulled out everything onto the floor and started to fill up my HLT to pour water on the pile. By the time i got back into the laundry room it was so filled with smoke I ended up totally missing the pile of burning clothes and dumped 4 gallons of water all over the floor. I felt around, gathered the pile and threw them in the shower. Disaster avoided, but the Fire Dept. was called as a precautionary measure. When they saw my homebrew set up there seemed quite puzzled as to what I was up with. When I explained they suggested I should rename this beer Dryer Fire Pale Ale.

3 hours after cooling began, I finally racked to primary and pitched.

Has anyone else had anything crazy disrupt a brew?

 

[android]

damn, the only time i stopped brewing (during strike water heating) was when i decided i didn't want to finish at 1am. that's quite a story.

 

[chapa]

That's crazy! Did you not empty out your lint trap? Pretty funny they suggeted a name for the brew. What did they think about you homebrewing?

 

[GodsStepBrother]

zgardener, I would of taken a 12 pack of that beer to the fire deparment so they can have a taste!


I was not brewing at the time, but I had some friends over trying to polish off 10 gallons of a blonde ale I had made for them (BMC drinkers). Well before we realized it was 3:30 or so in the morning and we were still in the back yard being loud, cracking jokes. So naturally the cops got called over to my house (which my neighbors never do) I think it might have been because it was Tuesday. I go to the side of the house to drain the main vein, and as I’m pulling the pump out, I see a flash light right on it! I’m seriously inebriated at this point, so I react really slow and a police officer immediately starts to apologize as I get myself together. He is checking out two of my hop plants out asking what they were? He thought they were marijuana, and I explained. Long story short he got my email and has since started brewing, extract batches.

I apologized to my neighbors the next day and took them some home grown tomatoes and squash.

 

[zgardener]

That's crazy! Did you not empty out your lint trap? Pretty funny they suggeted a name for the brew. What did they think about you homebrewing?

Yeah, I'm obsessive about cleaning the lint trap, ever since we used lint for fire starters in the Boy Scouts I've always made a point to clean it out.

When they first saw the equipment they seemed a bit weary until one of them mentioned that it was a homebrew set up (I put away the propane and burner before I called them )

 

[zgardener]

zgardener, I would of taken a 12 pack of that beer to the fire deparment so they can have a taste!

I may! I need to find out what station they're out of, since there are 3 that report in my area. I offered them a few bottles of what I had on hand, but they said they could get in some major trouble for taking it while on duty and transporting it in the truck.

 

[Teromous]

I saw a bunch of smoke outside after brewing and told my wife...she handed me a notice that they put on the door "smoke testing sewers this weekend, non-hazardous vapors..." I about lost it...but fortunately most of it was only in my house and in the street so my back yard was pretty safe. I covered everything up for good measure and the beer ended up fine. It didn't quite stop my brewday but it sure did disrupt it until those guys got out of my neighborhood.