Another Brew Day from Hell

<editor's note>
a post by Drew Avis - from the HomeBrew Digest
</editor's note>

Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 10:37:30 -0500
From: "Drew Avis" 
Subject: CAP Report

It was the best of times, it was the wort of times.  Let this brew session
cheer you up next time you think you're having a bad day.
Thought it would be fun to finally brew a CAP, mostly because I want to tell
guests "I'm gonna bust a CAP in your a**," then serve them a yummy brew.
Was considering brewing a CCCA (sometimes mistakenly called a CACA by
American's who forget who actually invented the cream ale), but had a fresh
20 gram pack of Saflager 34/70 which I was eager to try out.  The second
beer was going to be a porter of some description, made with some Ringwood
yeast.
Woke up late.  Still had to mill the grain.  Checked the starter.  DOA.
Crap.  At least I had some S-04 kicking around as a backup.  First time
doing a cereal mash - mixed 2 lbs of milled grain and 3 lbs of Unico
cornmeal / polenta, added the water, and put it on to cook while the main
mash rested at 140F.  It was like porridge, and I discovered a lesson: if
you don't stir the cereal mash, that burnt smokey smell is the corn porridge
burning on the bottom.  Crap.  Stir stir stir, maybe it will be a RauchCAP.
Add the cereal mash to the main mash, rest, start the recirculation.  Stuck
like a pig.  Crap.  Dump the mash into a bucket, clean the phloating false
bottom (I'm taking that thing on my next sailing trip instead of a life
jacket), replace, put mash back in tun.  Recirculation is _very_ slow.
Manage to clear the runnings, take a first few liters to boil down (trying
to get a nice caramel flavour in the porter), start to collect the CAP.  Go
to the basement to mill the specialty grains for the porter.  Hear large
explosion sound from upstairs.  Run upstairs expecting to see something bad.
Large bird has hit the back window and shattered it.  Unrelated to brewing,
but still, crap.  Start RauchCAP boiling, add specialty grains to mash for
porter, re-circ, sparge.  Boil.  Treat CAP pot with a few drops of
"anti-foam", and it proceeds to boil over.  Crap.  Maybe it needs a few more
drops?  Add several drops to the porter, which then boils over.  Crap.
Wonder - did I get "extra-foam" solution instead? Smokey CAP smell now
completely covered by smokey burnt malt smell coming from under the
elements.  Chill, collecting chiller water in spare carboys to use in
laundry.  Start racking chilled wort to fermentor.  Notice that I'm racking
to uncleaned, unsterilized spare carboy instead of clean, sterilized carboy.
Crap.  Recollect that spare carboy has been stored uncovered next to cat box
in the basement lo these many months.  Swear uncontrollably.  SWMBO suggests
I take up meditation instead of brewing.  I suggest she take her suggestion
and do something unspeakable with it.  Relationship teeters on edge of abyss
until I suggest she walk the dog & promise kitchen will be sparkling clean
when I'm done.
At least the worts tasted ok, and I hit the gravities - CAP not as burnt as
I expected.  Pitched yeasts. Embark on epic kitchen cleanup, which ends with
extreme mopping session.  Come back from bathroom to discover dog standing
in the middle of wet floor.  The next morning everything is bubbling,
including the DOA starter.

This hobby is supposed to be relaxing and fun?

Drew Avis ~ http://www.strangebrew.ca
We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them
personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.

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