Disaster Averted maybe.....

[uglygoat]

Brewed a stout last night, i posted the receipe in the dark stout thread. i did the mini mash and got a lovely chocalte brown/black, sweet wort, that had a hint of coffee from the dark roasted malt. hops went off without a hitch and no boil over... all was well, i had cooled the wort about 3.5 gallons in 1/2 hour.

transfered last weeks batch off the yeast cake and poured in about 1.5 gallons of water. siphoned my wort into the yeast and bingo it gets going pronto!

put the cork with air lock in, it was still a little slick from the rinse water. the airlock was not secured very well, sorta cocked off to the side.. you can see where this is going... so i adjust the airlock, but give it a little too much pressure and get a 'suck plop!' the cork is in the fermentor!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Tim you *******!!!!! nothing like rubber flavored beer! plus i only have one cork for the primary...

So i grab my five gallon pale that i use to soak/clean stuff, dump the solution out and rinse the pale as best i can as fast as i can...

now comes the fun... i pour the beer that is already starting to ferment into the pail... i tried to leave as much sediment from previous batches in the carboy. i was gonna cover the pale but the pour had kicked the fermentation into overdrive and the foam was near the top of the bucket by time it had been poured... W00t! i was getting excited now.

i run the carboy upstairs to the sink, get the gunk out and fish the cork out...

resanitize and run it back down the basement and rack the fermenting beer outta the pale into the carboy, leaving behind even more sediment and nasty looking gunk from previous batches in the pale...

the yeast doesn't know how to act now and is foaming and spitting and the airlock, which i affixed to the cork prior to the second sealing is hammering away like a machine gun!!!

only trouble is, now the beer is a little closer in color to a porter or brown ale than a stout...

think anything bad flavor wise will result from the mad scientist like transfering between vessels?

 

[Janx]

Nah...as long as you were sanitary about the whole thing, you're cool. And the enormous yeast pitch will help with any slipups that may have occured. I bet you're good. When beer starts fermenting that fast, it's tough for competitors to...compete

What you did in no way affected the color of the beer.

I'd pick up a handful of corks We've had that happen a number of times. If you have another cork, you can just leave the one in your fermenter until you rack. And of course, insert airlock into cork, THEN cork into carboy

Sounds like a good salvage operation to me under the circumstances. The thing that would concern me is pouring unboiled water onto your yeast, but I guess with city water that's OK? It's been a long time since I brewed with city water. I guess a lot of you guys bring the volume up with tap water with no problems?

 

[uglygoat]

yeah it's city water, and surprisingly drinkable out of the tap. i grew up in cleveland, and you'd let the faucet run for about ten minutes before you dared to put yer lips to it, but out here in indiana, the water is different, it comes mostly outta the st mary's and maumee rivers... prolly not enough steel factories dumping into the lakes/rivers around here to match c-towns lovely water...

i've used it without boiling to increase the volume on my previous batches, but will add that to my list of variables to change in the future!

that and more corks, definately need more corks...

 

[Janx]

i've used it without boiling to increase the volume on my previous batches, but will add that to my list of variables to change in the future!

There's probably no change necessary. I don't brew with sterile water, so it sets off alarms for me, but I think what you do is really very common.

 

[D-brewmeister]

T1, sounds like the process probably had the advantage of well aerating the wort, really getting it going strong. Hope everything turns out for the best.

With regards to water, I used to brew entirely with bottled distilled water (somtimes adding gypsum to bring up the hardness a bit), since I figured it would be the least likely to introduce nasties (our city water is both very hard and very chlorinated), but I now use brita filtered city water for the boil. I do still use bottled distilled water for when I need to up the volume of a batch, but that might still be overkill (I would just hate for a batch to go bad because I didn't sprink a buck or two for a gallon of water).

 

[rightwingnut]

T1--I had a similar event after I racked from kettle to primary bucket. I tried squeezing the airlock into the little rubber grommet...PLOP! Now, let me tell you, it's no fun fishing a tiny rubber grommet out of a plastic pail...I used the stainless spoon I use with the kettle...feeling around and trying to slowly drag it up the side. It was the only primary I had...and only grommet. I got it out pretty quickly...whew! I had wanted to just plunge my arm in and grab it, but thought wisely against that.
As far as chlorinated tap water...I wonder why it's safe enough (to kill bacteria) but safe enough (not to kill yeast)? Obviously, that's the way it is...but how?

 

[uglygoat]

i bottled this beer that got really well mixed last night.

it's been dishonorably dubbed 'ze dark and nasty brew; do not touch for a minimum six months' i don't know about this one, maybe some time in the bottles will help mellow it out, but gak it tasted like shite!!! when i racked it to the bottling bucket. i almost threw the whole five gallons out, but figured, i'd already cleaned all the bottles, lets see what happens... not holding out much hope though... it was the fourth batch i'd made on that particular yeast cake, and i know i had more than a few hoppy flavors in there from other beers... so maybe i found the ceiling for reusing yeast that has lotsa bunk from previous batches...

let you know in a month what it tastes like....

 

[homebrewer_99]

Funny story! I'm certain you did fine.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[uglygoat]

i had been sampling this beer, open a bottle after two weeks.. .shite after three... shite... last week...shite... just still too alive and vibrant but not in a good way....this sunday i open up a bottle and pour it a little more vigorously than you would normal, and bingo it pours a nice thick tan head, and i get a settling effect similar to guiness with the lovely swirl and the dark rich black liquor...

taste wise, well it was an earlier learning batch, very malty, very dark, but a tad bitter. i sorta like it cause i finished with a bit of saaz and you can really smell it when you are drinking it.

i luv the saaz

funny what a month and a few days will do, i bottled this nasty brew on the 7th of march, now on the 19 of april, it's begining to settle down.