Training complete?

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ZapperMike

Zap’s BrewHouse
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 6, 2022
Messages
44
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Location
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
I have been brewing for years now and I think I may have finally completed my training. I was fine tuning my new kettle setup and then it happened……I turned my back for 1 second and had my first boil over. Ya that’s something to learn from! Is there some kind of special home brewer’s badge or patch that I should be sewing on my brewing apron? Maybe a secret handshake I need to learn? Yes I also should have got the 10 gallon kettle. Valuable lesson learned!
 
Little things like this happen from time to time to keep you humble, on your toes, and remind you that you are dealing with some combo of fire, hot liquid, fluid under pressure, and cleaning chemicals.

Last brew day, after hooking up my immersion chiller with the outflow going into a utility sink drain, I turned on the water full blast not realizing the outflow hose had moved. I got doused with a half gallon or more of super hot water before I could react. Fortunately, it didnt hit my face. My chest and neck looked sun-burned for a few weeks. That was thru a t-shirt and apron. And no, I hadn’t been drinking during the brew day 😎. I will now clamp down the hose.
 
Murphy's law of brewing:
A watched kettle never boils.
An unwatched kettle boils over.
HBT is not your personal erotica site. ;)


the hell it ain't! "post a picture of your pint"?, "what are you drinking now"? if i had the bandwidth for them, i'd be streaming all day, with "music match" playing as the HBT sound track to the eye candy....

and i'd pour wheat germ oil over myself butt naked, for my next batch...and rub up against the MT to keep the temp/mood up in the kitchen, while i was cooking up a batch!

(but seriously, i do brew barefoot and in shorts, without a shirt in the summer...)
 
Standing around a brew kettle in an AZ summer probably necessitates that.


i don't mind 80-85f indoor temps....but when it hits 95f indoors with 10 gallons boiling on the stove, i have to hit the A/C...
 
Wow this thread took a turn I’m just not sure if it’s for better or for worse! Lol!
Back to your "training", we are all learning as we go down the road as brewers. Boil overs and other messy things happen all the time. No badges or patches, just experience and lessons learned - hopefully learning. Not long ago I had a keg of beer in the cooler that I had tapped earlier. Well I forgot the check if the hose connection was tight, which it wasn't. The next morning I had a river of beer, fridge all soaked and several choice words. Luckily my wife didn't spot it . . .
 
How about this one, I was brewing in sandals on day. Using my pump to push boiling wort thru my counter flow chiller, the un clamped hose came lose and sprayed hot wort over the top of my bare foot. Third degree burns. lesson learned and I keep a picture of my blistered foot on the wall to remind me to not being stupid and to wear shoes while brewing
 
How about this one, I was brewing in sandals on day. Using my pump to push boiling wort thru my counter flow chiller, the un clamped hose came lose and sprayed hot wort over the top of my bare foot. Third degree burns. lesson learned and I keep a picture of my blistered foot on the wall to remind me to not being stupid and to wear shoes while brewing
Sounds like you got your brewery name. Blistered Foot Brewing.
 
Back to your "training", we are all learning as we go down the road as brewers. Boil overs and other messy things happen all the time. No badges or patches, just experience and lessons learned - hopefully learning. Not long ago I had a keg of beer in the cooler that I had tapped earlier. Well I forgot the check if the hose connection was tight, which it wasn't. The next morning I had a river of beer, fridge all soaked and several choice words. Luckily my wife didn't spot it . . .
Yes each brew session has a lesson learned. I was making some blueberry mead when I first started out and found that an uncrushed blueberry is the exact size to plug up an airlock. The tile ceiling above my bar was changed before my wife could see the purple stains.
 
A freind of mine was brewing with his brew partner and a hose came loose and filled his brew partners shoe while he was wearing it, from what I understood, he was hopping around trying to get to the water hose and trying to get the shoe off. I thought it was funny since it didn't happen to me.

Regardless of the temperature, I wear jeans and shoes and a t-shirt, sometimes with a hoodie if it is cold. I realize that I am around a hot burner, hot/boiling water/wort and do my best to stay safe. If I start drinking before I get 100% done, cleaned up and everything put up, it seem like something happens and I get hurt. One time, I had a few beers as I was finishing up, and was at the last step, rolling up the garden hose that was used for chilling, I was bent over turning the reel and as it got close to the end, the hose was moving faster and as it got to the end, the end of the hose with the fitting spun around and hit me above the eye, broke the skin and left a knot. After that, never until everything was done.
 
OP, welcome to the Order of the Sticky Mess.

You may present yourself with the coveted Stainless Steel Stirring Paddle.
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I don't know, the more that I get into this, the more I realize there is to learn. It's working out well for me, as I'm making beer I want to drink. And yeah, it's better than anything I can buy in the style..

Plenty of opportunities to know more, brewing different beers, or going for best results with limited ingredients & infrastructure.

Not to mention getting more confident and efficient, shorter and lower stress brew days.
 
I usually brew outdoors on the porch, and on the couple of occasions that the boil-over-monster got me it took just a quick hose down to clean it up. One time however, I turned my back for four or five minutes as I was no where near boil temp yet, and when I returned I was greeted by a dead chipmunk bobbing around in the wort. Not the protein break i was expecting!
 
I usually brew outdoors on the porch, and on the couple of occasions that the boil-over-monster got me it took just a quick hose down to clean it up. One time however, I turned my back for four or five minutes as I was no where near boil temp yet, and when I returned I was greeted by a dead chipmunk bobbing around in the wort. Not the protein break i was expecting!


Did you dump the batch or just scoop out said chipmunk and proceed forward?
 
Sounds like OP has a pretty cool idea for HBT. They could come up with some special badges or stickers that get rewarded to certain posts for special criteria following a vote from other members. Could be fun.
 
Sounds like OP has a pretty cool idea for HBT. They could come up with some special badges or stickers that get rewarded to certain posts for special criteria following a vote from other members. Could be fun.

i think in kung-fu class, you dye your own belt?

Well it still had to boil didn't it? I'm sure it was sterile enough . . . . :bigmug:

yeah, they boil crabs and lobster alive...but i don't think they drink the water? :barf:
 
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