Table Flipper Blonde Ale

[str1p3s]

I just built a counter flow chiller. I didn't have a pump the first time I used it, so it was gravity fed. I put cinder blocks up on a small picnic table to put the burner on in order to get it high enough to go through the chiller and into the fermenter. This worked pretty well the first time I used it.

I bought a chugger pump for my next brew. I started with the burner up on the cinder blocks and picnic table again just so I could be sure I wouldn't have trouble priming the pump. After heating the strike water and doughing in and placing the MT on the other end of the picnic table, I decided that the burner didn't need to be all the way up on the table. So while I was waiting for the mash, I put the burner on the ground and started moving the cinder blocks.

I didn't realize the cinder blocks were now weighing down that end of the picnic table and when I picked up the last one, the table flipped up like a sea-saw when the fat kid that was weighing down the other end thought it would be funny to jump off and sent the MT rolling across my garage floor.

I yelled a four letter word or so, hurdled the table and ran over to the MT, expecting to find the lid popped off and water and grains all over the floor. Luckily the lid stayed on and only a little bit leaked out. I picked it up and placed it back on the table IN THE CENTER for a hair more balance and finished out my brew day.

That's how my Table Flipper Blonde Ale got its name.

 

[bajaedition]

killer story

you have to have a sense of humor in this hobby

One of mine is Singed Fur Flying Blind Dog Ale

My boxer was about 14 and 3/4 blind, I was brewing and she came up behind me . being blind at that time she wanted to get right next to you and lay down. I picked off the lid of the brew pot and turned around tried to take a step and went heads over heels. She freaked out and went flying the opposite way and when I settled her down I noticed a smell of singed dog fur. Guess she got to close to the burner. I threw her in the truck and took her to the vet. On the way I realized the burner was still on so I called the house and asked my wife to turn off the burner. Having never brewed before, only having watched me, she went out and turned it off, and did not put the lid on it. When I got home I had no clue how long the thing had boiled, it was an IPA so it had a lot of hops and I had no way to calculate hops utilization, So I went with it and just boiled another 45 minutes.
It turned out to be one of the best IPAs I ever made, and I never have been able to figure out how to duplicate it as was it the extra boil? the long cold break in the middle of the boil? the double boil? @ hours without a lid on on the screened in porch? Or just what. but that had a great hops profile