The beer gods were angry at me yesterday

[Mischief_Brewing]

I decided to tap my HBT contest entry black IPA last night right before dinner. I had an untapped keg of my albino pale ale in the chest freezer carbing up that I decided to tap for a taste first. It was DELICIOUS! The black IPA on the other hand was awful. I'm guessing it's because of the cloudiness problem I've been having lately. My guess is it's a result of my crusher setting and laziness on using finings. The albino pale got a healthy dose of gelatin a week ago and had none of these issues.

So I decided to whip up a half cup of gelatin for the black IPA since there's still some time before I have to mail in the entry. After a nice dinner, I headed out to the garage with the measuring cup full of perfectly prepared gelatin and started to release the pressure on the keg. That's when I noticed the keg of albino pale looked askew. I tried to straighten it and realized it was floating. ARRRRRRGGGHHH!!! From what I can gather, the QD failed to make a proper seal and leaked all 5 delicious gallons into the chest freezer.

Now I'm not much of a crier, but damn, I was on the verge of tears.

I brew 10-gallon batches so luckily I have a second keg of the pale carbing now, but damn, that's a tough pill to swallow.

 

[MeatyPortion]

Ouch.

 

[Zen_Brew]

Ah my friend that is a sad tale you tell. Stuff like that never seems to happen to the "just OK" beers we brew. I lost a 3 gallon corny of bourbon oaked old ale that did real well in the local state fair competition that way last summer. My condolences.

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

The cause of death has been found. The out post gasket is missing. I'll be sending out the CSI team this evening to sift through the snow pile that the body was dumped in to see if the gasket turns up broken. I'm pretty diligent about cleaning and making sure the kegs are in working order when filling, so my hunch is that the gasket was broken when putting the QD on...

 

[Boodlemania]

that hurts.

 

[str8wire]

Ah my friend that is a sad tale you tell. Stuff like that never seems to happen to the "just OK" beers we brew. I lost a 3 gallon corny of bourbon oaked old ale that did real well in the local state fair competition that way last summer. My condolences.

It has happened to me before as well...I think it was the best beer I had ever brewed. Maybe it's a mental thing.

 

[dos_perros]

Oh man that sucks, at least you have another 5 gallons though.

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

Oh man that sucks, at least you have another 5 gallons though.

Exactly, although i'm a little bummed that i've lost a week on the carbonation timeline with it. I need to get all of my DIY projects going so I can have multiple beers carbing at the same time, and serving too!

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

Do you really need gelatin to clear everything up? I never use it and nearly all beers clear up fine.. Sorry to hear it

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

Do you really need gelatin to clear everything up? I never use it and nearly all beers clear up fine.. Sorry to hear it

I've only been having this issue with cloudiness/astringency since I built my pasta roller barley crusher. My efficiency jumped into the 80s but the beers weren't clearing, even after a ton of time in the kegs at serving temp. The brews that I've added gelatin to at kegging time have been mostly clear (they never seem to clear 100%) and have not had the consistent astringent off flavor. I just added whirlflock to an order I placed for one of my DIY builds and will see if that helps any. The irish moss didn't...