The day brewing beer went to hell and took the expressway should be the name of my batch. This was the first batch of beer I brewed as an all grain around two years ago and it came out fine great considering my lack of technique, experience, and equipment. Many batches later I have refined my techniques, have about 20 brew days experience, and definitely upgraded my equipment.
So how did it all fall apart? I am still trying to figure it out.
1. I call my brewery Wayniacs poolside brewery. Being in Florida this usually means some brewing on the deck, some consuming on the deck, and some jumping into the pool to cool off. Saturday was in the 40s so the chance to get halfway through the process inside sounded great.
2. I heated up the strike water on the stove and cleaned/sanitized the MLT. My SS water heater braid was on its second brew day. I already knew I was tired of keggles for MLT and planned on buying a 10 gallon drink cooler to mash in. I probably could have been a bit more gentler on the braid. Strike water hits the right beersmith temp, dough in, and Im 7 degrees below temp. WTF? Water on stove heating, water in hot water kettle heating, add heated water, shoot over by 3 degrees. Add a quart from the sink and down 4 degrees. ARGH! Finally get close and quit for an hour.
3. An hour is up. Drain to buckets as I am set up to boil out by the pool. The pound of rice hulls clearly failed to do their job. Nope. I am the idiot who stretched the braid and severely restricted the flow after getting most of the first runnings out. Just stab me as I am now short on wort and it is Florida freezing outside. Even though I had extra water from above trying to get the damn temperature balanced, I somehow end up short on wort. Sparge water heated and added but is also nowhere near enough to boil. I feel compelled to grab the sprayer from the sink and just spray the damn grains. Thankfully sprayer hose is not long enough. Add some room temperature water and manage sieve the grain to the garbage and pour, as in lift big cooler and pour, the liquid into a bucket.
4. Outside time. My arms and legs are covered, it is cold but I have a 13,500 gallon water tank ready to cool my wort when I am done brewing. I put the first three gallons of first runnings in the keggle and then the crap from step three happened. I started this on the flame so a bit back and forth but this initial wort was boiling or on the verge when I killed the flame due to the disaster going on inside. Im straining grains through a colander to get wort. This sucks.
5. Finally I get 6 gallons in the keggle to boil. Hops in and timer on. The next hour goes great! And then
6. 5 minutes to go! Pump is ready to priming, hose all connected to run wort through counterflow chiller and back to brew keggle to sanitize CFC. Damn pump sitting below the keggle will not prime. Finagle the hoses and for some stupid reason now the flow starts. I KNOW both ball valves were open.
7. Cold pool water = rapidly chilled beer! If only the bazooka screen did not get clogged with hops I would have not had to reach into the keggle (with clean and sanitized hands) to remove the screen. Open ball valve and fill fermenting bucket. 4.5 gallons of trub, break, and probably a few love bugs. A southern treat normally encountered around Mothers day and later in the fall. Since we spent most of December in the mid 80s, well above normal, these ******* insect are now all over my pool deck and my gear. I considered calling this batch love bug juice.
8. Dump my 2 day stir plate starter into who knows what is in that bucket and hope it comes out better than last time. 4 days on it gently ferments. Where did the violent, blow the top off the fermenter, go?
One of the worst brew days in a long time. Im certain the beer will taste great!!!!!!
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