After reading Decojuicer brew day from hell I just had to throw my two cents in about my day on Sunday.
I had completely cleared the day to make beer in my man cave. I was going to make an Irish Ale mini mash that would be ready on St Patrick's Day and was looking forward to making beer and watching football and drinking a little of my Cream Ale that I had been carbonating for the last 5 days. The following sequence is what happened to me that day.
1. Day before brew day I made a yeast starter. Placed it on my stirplate and nothing happened. A wire had come lose inside my stirplate. No problem after tearing it apart I easily diagnosed the problem and rehooked up the wire and I was good to go.
2. Went to draw a Cream Ale. Switched my hose adapters around and when I went to draw a beer, nothing. Looked at my CO2 tank, empty. I had not seeded the gas line properly and drained my tank.
3. Drained my Conical fermentor and decided to harvest the yeast of the Belgium Ale that I had been sitting for three weeks. Drained the Yeast into a one gallon jar and proceeded to siphon into my 1/2 quart jars. After enjoying a mouth full of Yeast and sterilizing again I proceeded to pull the gallon jar of yeast over onto its side and onto the floor and breaking the jar. You think a boil over is messy you ought to see what a gallon of yeast looks like on the floor. Subsequently ****canned the yeast harvesting idea and moved on to grinding my grains.
4. Was sorting through my grains in my grain bin and noticed that the 1# of Munich malt that I swore I had was missing wasn't there. No time to run to my Home Brew shop for the Munich I needed so I substituted 1/2 pound of CaraVienna and CaraMunich. Not ideal but functional.
5. Time to grind my grains. Dumped all the grains in the hopper, Hooked up my electric drill and proceeded to strip the head of the bolt off the mill. Thus when I turned on the drill the drill just spun and wouldnt turn the mill. After tearing the mill apart three different times I finally got it back together, right and working properly. Grains were ground and ready to go. **** I forgot to heat up the water. Another hour lost
6. Everything went smoothly after that. Boiled the wort. Cooled it without incident, Aeration went fine. Dumped my yeast starter into the wort. Then realized I had forgot to retrieve my stirbar which was now sitting in the bottom of my fermentor. **** again. Sealed up my Conical fermentor and placed it on the shelf.
7. Its now Tuesday morning and still no activity in my airlock. Should I have expected anything less.
So that was my brewday on Sunday. As my commander told me in Iraq after a really ****** day. "Some days it just bees that way."
Sunday was one of them. My only question though is Who won the football games on Sunday?
TD
OBTW: Sunday night my wife knowing about all my struggles asked me if I was having fun yet? I looked at her and said "Yes I am"
I had completely cleared the day to make beer in my man cave. I was going to make an Irish Ale mini mash that would be ready on St Patrick's Day and was looking forward to making beer and watching football and drinking a little of my Cream Ale that I had been carbonating for the last 5 days. The following sequence is what happened to me that day.
1. Day before brew day I made a yeast starter. Placed it on my stirplate and nothing happened. A wire had come lose inside my stirplate. No problem after tearing it apart I easily diagnosed the problem and rehooked up the wire and I was good to go.
2. Went to draw a Cream Ale. Switched my hose adapters around and when I went to draw a beer, nothing. Looked at my CO2 tank, empty. I had not seeded the gas line properly and drained my tank.
3. Drained my Conical fermentor and decided to harvest the yeast of the Belgium Ale that I had been sitting for three weeks. Drained the Yeast into a one gallon jar and proceeded to siphon into my 1/2 quart jars. After enjoying a mouth full of Yeast and sterilizing again I proceeded to pull the gallon jar of yeast over onto its side and onto the floor and breaking the jar. You think a boil over is messy you ought to see what a gallon of yeast looks like on the floor. Subsequently ****canned the yeast harvesting idea and moved on to grinding my grains.
4. Was sorting through my grains in my grain bin and noticed that the 1# of Munich malt that I swore I had was missing wasn't there. No time to run to my Home Brew shop for the Munich I needed so I substituted 1/2 pound of CaraVienna and CaraMunich. Not ideal but functional.
5. Time to grind my grains. Dumped all the grains in the hopper, Hooked up my electric drill and proceeded to strip the head of the bolt off the mill. Thus when I turned on the drill the drill just spun and wouldnt turn the mill. After tearing the mill apart three different times I finally got it back together, right and working properly. Grains were ground and ready to go. **** I forgot to heat up the water. Another hour lost
6. Everything went smoothly after that. Boiled the wort. Cooled it without incident, Aeration went fine. Dumped my yeast starter into the wort. Then realized I had forgot to retrieve my stirbar which was now sitting in the bottom of my fermentor. **** again. Sealed up my Conical fermentor and placed it on the shelf.
7. Its now Tuesday morning and still no activity in my airlock. Should I have expected anything less.
So that was my brewday on Sunday. As my commander told me in Iraq after a really ****** day. "Some days it just bees that way."
Sunday was one of them. My only question though is Who won the football games on Sunday?
TD
OBTW: Sunday night my wife knowing about all my struggles asked me if I was having fun yet? I looked at her and said "Yes I am"
