Frustrating brew day.

[Wables]

Today‘s issues started Sunday. I came home from Texas and wife and youngest had COVID. I quarantined in my basement and my house ale keg was draining fast. Threw an ounce of cascades in the house ale that was in the secondary. Keg ran dry Thursday, so I racked the secondary into it. There was still a lot of hops floating, but I racked it anyway. Into the fridge it went. Forced carbed Friday evening. Got everything prepped for a Saturday morning brew, including weighing and crushing grains and sanitizing new fermzillas. Saturday morning woke up feeling like total crap. Threw on a pot of coffee and set my system up, started heating water, and got a cup of coffee. Couldn’t taste the coffee. Not good, but not going to let COVID spoil a brew day.

So brew day was going as planned, scheduled a COVID test for the afternoon, and spent the day stressing about it. Then realized I should have given myself more time to finish brewing before I had to be at the clinic and started hustling. While cooling with my immersion chiller things started slowing down at about 140 degrees. Feeling like crap and mind elsewhere I couldn’t figure out what was wrong…in my haste I forgot to switch my hose from hot to cold. Got through the day, beer is hanging out and ready to kick off. Even though I can’t taste I decide to draw a pint off the new keg to see how it is doing. Got an ounce of beer and flow stopped. Long story short, I had to remove and clean my dip tube and ball lock fitting 11 times before I could draw a pint. 11. I haven’t plugged a dip tube in 20 years. Rant off.

 

[madscientist451]

Ugh, that's a bummer. Hope you're feeling better soon.

 

[doug293cz]

Wishing you and your family speedy recoveries.

Brew on

 

[Wables]

Thanks! I think the youngest brought it home, all of the rest of us have been vaccinated. It’s been like a bad cold so far.

 

[hundel]

That sounds like one of the worst brew days on record. I hate to laugh at the misfortune of others but the idea of going in for a taste of your latest batch to see how its progressing on the same day you realize you have no sense of taste and smell due to a worldwide pandemic is the stuff dark comedy movies are made of. Thanks for posting! Hope you regain your sense of taste and everyone is back to normal soon!

 

[eric19312]

dang sorry to hear that story and hope you and the family are feeling better soon.

floating dip tube with a hop screen might be good thing to have on hand next time you end up transfering dry hop bits into serving keg. I've got the Clear Beer version, I use it in my kombucha kegs now that I have inline filter for my beer transfers, the Morebeer version looks good too for the price.

Not to make light of your potentially serious medical condition, but when I first read your post a light bulb went off and I was momentarily jealous. I could of used that malady to help with a recent batch I made that tasted like a$$. Oh well that batch off with a friend to feed to his still. Will see if anything drinkable comes out of it, if not can always make some hand sanitizer.