doodlebug
Well-Known Member
It's been a kind of rough beginning this year, lots of new equipment getting thrown into the mix and lots of other activities going on in a whirlwind. My focus has been on far too many things, and one thing I've always loved about brewing is that it becomes a very Zen experience for me, allowing me to focus on my process completely. These last two batches, NOT SO MUCH.
First, allow me to describe what I've got going on equipment wise. I'm currrently on month probably 10 or 14 of slowly buying everything for a Brutus 10. The stand is welded, one of the two pumps was purchased/mounted. So I'm accordingly working with keggles in various states of conversion, and for these two brews I used a KAB6 burner on the ground.
To summarize: First beer - IPA with a portion of the 2 row toasted. Stayed up way too late the night before, Didn't toast the grain, started extremely late (6PM), had to hand grind 45 lbs of grain at the LHBS (got both grainbills), LHBS didn't have the Simcoe's I wanted in so changed recipe to Zeus on the fly, horrible run with the new equipment (couldn't keep a prime on the pump, all QD's not standardized) so it was just a clusterf*ck. Got done cleaning equipment at 3:30AM. I still hit my numbers and it looks good at this point, though. This batch is affected by other factors, more to come....
Second beer - Hefeweizen, fixed a lot of the issues from the previous brew and the brew itself was actually very enjoyable. Did it on Father's Day with my Pop. Also was out of primary space so this batch I fermented in a 15 gallon poly container I rigged up with an airlock, a practice I think I may continue if it turns out well. HOWEVER, there is another factor here....a few days ago I was going through my parts bin looking for a few things and I noticed the silocone gaskets that came with my SS camlocks .... yeah. The not-meant-for-brewing non-sanitary non-high-temp gaskets didn't get changed out. And from what I understand they can definitely affect the flavor of the beer, as well as god knows what they contain chemically...on the plus side, I didn't use the pump for every step, but I did use it to pump hot water to the mash.
I guess what I'm looking for is an opinion about that situation - if a reasonable person would think - hell it's 2 little gaskets that only partially touched the beer and it's 22 gallons of beer, if I can't taste it I don't care. Or if a person would be crazy to knowingly consume it. I can pretty much guess what 9 out of 10 are going to say here, given the audience, but I'm looking for 10 out of 10 to ease my mind I guess.
Unfortunately this is not my only confession.
I've been finishing my basement and in what will be a large rec room there is nothing currently except insulation, framing, and my keezer. The ol keezer was sittin on top of the only patch of carpet that hadn't yet been removed, and I was feeling like I needed to get something done down there last night so I thought this would be easier if I removed a few things first. Open lid queue horror. Apparently when my buddy and I were framing two weeks ago, we unplugged the keezer and it never got plugged in again. I didn't notice because the only thing in there is a 5 gallon batch of Graff that turned out like **** (hops in cider just don't do it for me, maybe) and so I hadn't been drinking it, but the problem is that the 3 cornies in there as well as all of my lines are covered in mold. Loving how one little project always turns into ten more, I grabbed some bleach and bombed the hell out of the keezer, resolving to deal with the cornies later on today.
And so my question here is...would you: Dump the Graff? Clean exterior and keep it around? Would you replace all gas lines, even knowing that the inside of the lines are probably fine? I know we tend to overreact in terms of sanitization for a reason, but I'm wondering where that line is I guess. I'm not in love with unnecessary spending. The Graff isn't up to my standards but it's by no means undrinkable. It is a full 5 gallon cornie of stuff I made after all, and so still hurts to think about pitching it.
That is all. I feel better for getting these brewing confessions off of my chest already.
First, allow me to describe what I've got going on equipment wise. I'm currrently on month probably 10 or 14 of slowly buying everything for a Brutus 10. The stand is welded, one of the two pumps was purchased/mounted. So I'm accordingly working with keggles in various states of conversion, and for these two brews I used a KAB6 burner on the ground.
To summarize: First beer - IPA with a portion of the 2 row toasted. Stayed up way too late the night before, Didn't toast the grain, started extremely late (6PM), had to hand grind 45 lbs of grain at the LHBS (got both grainbills), LHBS didn't have the Simcoe's I wanted in so changed recipe to Zeus on the fly, horrible run with the new equipment (couldn't keep a prime on the pump, all QD's not standardized) so it was just a clusterf*ck. Got done cleaning equipment at 3:30AM. I still hit my numbers and it looks good at this point, though. This batch is affected by other factors, more to come....
Second beer - Hefeweizen, fixed a lot of the issues from the previous brew and the brew itself was actually very enjoyable. Did it on Father's Day with my Pop. Also was out of primary space so this batch I fermented in a 15 gallon poly container I rigged up with an airlock, a practice I think I may continue if it turns out well. HOWEVER, there is another factor here....a few days ago I was going through my parts bin looking for a few things and I noticed the silocone gaskets that came with my SS camlocks .... yeah. The not-meant-for-brewing non-sanitary non-high-temp gaskets didn't get changed out. And from what I understand they can definitely affect the flavor of the beer, as well as god knows what they contain chemically...on the plus side, I didn't use the pump for every step, but I did use it to pump hot water to the mash.
I guess what I'm looking for is an opinion about that situation - if a reasonable person would think - hell it's 2 little gaskets that only partially touched the beer and it's 22 gallons of beer, if I can't taste it I don't care. Or if a person would be crazy to knowingly consume it. I can pretty much guess what 9 out of 10 are going to say here, given the audience, but I'm looking for 10 out of 10 to ease my mind I guess.
Unfortunately this is not my only confession.
I've been finishing my basement and in what will be a large rec room there is nothing currently except insulation, framing, and my keezer. The ol keezer was sittin on top of the only patch of carpet that hadn't yet been removed, and I was feeling like I needed to get something done down there last night so I thought this would be easier if I removed a few things first. Open lid queue horror. Apparently when my buddy and I were framing two weeks ago, we unplugged the keezer and it never got plugged in again. I didn't notice because the only thing in there is a 5 gallon batch of Graff that turned out like **** (hops in cider just don't do it for me, maybe) and so I hadn't been drinking it, but the problem is that the 3 cornies in there as well as all of my lines are covered in mold. Loving how one little project always turns into ten more, I grabbed some bleach and bombed the hell out of the keezer, resolving to deal with the cornies later on today.
And so my question here is...would you: Dump the Graff? Clean exterior and keep it around? Would you replace all gas lines, even knowing that the inside of the lines are probably fine? I know we tend to overreact in terms of sanitization for a reason, but I'm wondering where that line is I guess. I'm not in love with unnecessary spending. The Graff isn't up to my standards but it's by no means undrinkable. It is a full 5 gallon cornie of stuff I made after all, and so still hurts to think about pitching it.
That is all. I feel better for getting these brewing confessions off of my chest already.
