Pivovar_Koucky
Well-Known Member
So this is mostly just for me to blow off steam. I just had to dump a batch for the first time. I am very sad about this.
On Saturday I had a long day. I am a grad student and I have lab group meetings on Saturday mornings from 10-12. I had to present this Saturday, and naturally I waited until the last minute to finish my presentation. So I got up at 8 to finish my presentation and just barely finished it on time. Presentation went well, but the I discover that my adviser wants to have 1-on-1 meetings starting at 2. This is unfortunate because I had planned to start brewing around 1.
So I come back in around 2:15 figuring, correctly, that others will be in line in front of me in an attempt to salvage part of their Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, the way it works out I didn't get out of my meeting until 4:00. I think I should have put the ex-nay on the brew session right here, knowing that it couldn't possibly work out right.
Anyway, I pressed right on because I had already planned this brew day and had some friends coming over to assist. First problem, the grains I had received weren't cracked, so I spent about an hour cracking them in the blender (yes, you can do this its just a major pain in the you know where).
Ok, so one hour and one messy kitchen later I've got my grains "ready". I've got 6# of vienna and 3# of munich and I'm ready to do my single decoction don't have enough time for a proper lager altoberfest. The actual mash went pretty well until, you probably guessed it, the sparge. The sparge ran amazingly slowly, we eventually just started scraping the grains off of the screen so it would run faster. Finally, after about two hours (its about 8:30) of draining off the wort I've got six and a half gallons in the boiler. Everything else went well. I ended up with 91.5% effeciency, not terribly surprising considering the condition the grain was in.
I had planned to pitch onto my kolsch yeast cake and ferment at 60 in my lagering fridge until its time for oktoberfest. Unfortunately, my kolsch is still in the primary bucket and there's a dunkel in my lagering fridge. I had expected to be done earlier in the day and to be able to rack the kolsch and give the dunkel to my buddy who has an extra fridge just waiting for it. Anyway it was like 11 when I was done and I figured it could sit overnight in the bucket and I threw it in the fermenter and let it sit.
The next day I had planned to take care of the beer in the evening as I had some stuff to take care of during the day. I failed utterly to take care of anything beer related and the day got up to like 95 and the beer was not in a temperature controlled environment. When I racked the beer and had the kolsch yeast ready I went to get the altoberfest and of course it smelled like garbage. Like the smell of garbage on a hot day.
Maybe there are some of you who say you wouldn't have tossed it. "Oh, its just a lambic or a brett." To you I say that you didn't smell this awful beer. To say that it smelled bad is to say that the sun is warm. It smelled like someone threw up on a diaper full of roadkill.
On the bright side, I still have enough hallertau and time to brew another batch.
Anyway, sorry to rant. Moral of the story is that sometimes you drink the beer and sometimes the beer drinks you.
Anyone think that the bucket is salvagable? I cleaned it out with dishsoap and its sitting full of iodophor now. I was going to do a bleach soak and let it sit in the sun and then hit it with iodophor again before the next brew. Part of me thinks that this is a waste of time for a bucket, but $15 is a lot when you're a grad student.
On Saturday I had a long day. I am a grad student and I have lab group meetings on Saturday mornings from 10-12. I had to present this Saturday, and naturally I waited until the last minute to finish my presentation. So I got up at 8 to finish my presentation and just barely finished it on time. Presentation went well, but the I discover that my adviser wants to have 1-on-1 meetings starting at 2. This is unfortunate because I had planned to start brewing around 1.
So I come back in around 2:15 figuring, correctly, that others will be in line in front of me in an attempt to salvage part of their Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, the way it works out I didn't get out of my meeting until 4:00. I think I should have put the ex-nay on the brew session right here, knowing that it couldn't possibly work out right.
Anyway, I pressed right on because I had already planned this brew day and had some friends coming over to assist. First problem, the grains I had received weren't cracked, so I spent about an hour cracking them in the blender (yes, you can do this its just a major pain in the you know where).
Ok, so one hour and one messy kitchen later I've got my grains "ready". I've got 6# of vienna and 3# of munich and I'm ready to do my single decoction don't have enough time for a proper lager altoberfest. The actual mash went pretty well until, you probably guessed it, the sparge. The sparge ran amazingly slowly, we eventually just started scraping the grains off of the screen so it would run faster. Finally, after about two hours (its about 8:30) of draining off the wort I've got six and a half gallons in the boiler. Everything else went well. I ended up with 91.5% effeciency, not terribly surprising considering the condition the grain was in.
I had planned to pitch onto my kolsch yeast cake and ferment at 60 in my lagering fridge until its time for oktoberfest. Unfortunately, my kolsch is still in the primary bucket and there's a dunkel in my lagering fridge. I had expected to be done earlier in the day and to be able to rack the kolsch and give the dunkel to my buddy who has an extra fridge just waiting for it. Anyway it was like 11 when I was done and I figured it could sit overnight in the bucket and I threw it in the fermenter and let it sit.
The next day I had planned to take care of the beer in the evening as I had some stuff to take care of during the day. I failed utterly to take care of anything beer related and the day got up to like 95 and the beer was not in a temperature controlled environment. When I racked the beer and had the kolsch yeast ready I went to get the altoberfest and of course it smelled like garbage. Like the smell of garbage on a hot day.
Maybe there are some of you who say you wouldn't have tossed it. "Oh, its just a lambic or a brett." To you I say that you didn't smell this awful beer. To say that it smelled bad is to say that the sun is warm. It smelled like someone threw up on a diaper full of roadkill.
On the bright side, I still have enough hallertau and time to brew another batch.
Anyway, sorry to rant. Moral of the story is that sometimes you drink the beer and sometimes the beer drinks you.
Anyone think that the bucket is salvagable? I cleaned it out with dishsoap and its sitting full of iodophor now. I was going to do a bleach soak and let it sit in the sun and then hit it with iodophor again before the next brew. Part of me thinks that this is a waste of time for a bucket, but $15 is a lot when you're a grad student.
