More Stupid Brewer Tricks
<editor's note> From a post to the Home Brew Digest by Dave Larsen </editor's note>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 19:36:10 +0000 From: "Dave Larsen" Subject: Relax and Have a Homebrew Relax and have a homebrew. I'm brewing two batches at the same time for a big party -- a beautiful amber and an oatmeal cream stout. In preparation, I upgrade my keg system to hold two kegs -- something I've been wanting to do for a while. I hook up one keg, full of the amber to force carbonate. The stout is still cold conditioning in a carboy in a small refrigerator. Several days later it is time to clean the other keg to put the stout into it. Now, I just purchased this keg -- a used one from the homebrew shop. So I put water into it, put some air into it, and shake it up real good. When I open it up, it reeks of hops and is all foamy, brown and reeks of hops. I am disgusted. They say they clean these things before they sell them. I do it again. Same thing again. What the hell! In fact every time I do it, it never gets any better. I spray it all out and look inside. Hmmm. It looks pretty clean. I don't get it. The only thing I can think of is the dip tube must be jammed full of gunk that is coming loose when I shake it up. So I try to take off the nozzle holding the dip tube on, to try and clean it. It won't budge. I try everything from wrenches to vice grips. It simply won't come off. Man, I may as well return the thing, if it is that dirty and I cant even clean the dip tube. The next day, I go back to the homebrew shop with the keg and tell them my plight. To demonstrate, I fill the keg up with water, put pressure on it, shake it up, open it up and it is totally clean. WHAT THE HELL! I exchange the keg anyway, take it home, put some water in it, put pressure on it, shake it up. CRAP! The new one is full of brown foamy water the reeks of hops again. That is when it dawns on me. IT IS SUCKING BEER OUT OF MY OTHER KEG THROUGH THE AIR HOSE WHEN I PRESSURIZE IT! The low pressure of the new empty keg was sucking my beautiful, high-pressure amber out of my other keg and through the red high-pressure hose, because I had connected up to the out port rather than the in port. CRAP. So I take all my new air hoses apart clean them all out and put them back together, clean everything, rack my stout into the new keg and everything is well and good. That night as I lay in bed, my mind wanders. I begin to wonder exactly how much of the amber I lost in all the times I hooked up empty kegs to the other side of the line. I wonder. Hmmmmmm. Should I look or leave well enough alone? Hmmmmm. The next morning, before work, I make up my mind. I'm going to open up the amber's keg and look. I do so and, holy cow, it is down about 6 inches or more. CRAP. Oh well, there it nothing I can do about it now. I go to put the lid back on and -- wait, where is the seal to the lid? The o-ring is totally gone. I look everywhere. It is gone, gone, gone! Oh my Gawd! It fell into the amber. IT FREAKING FELL INTO THE KEG. I look at the clock. I am about fifteen minutes late leaving for work. What do I do?!!! Quickly, I fill a bucket full of sanitizer, grab a long spoon, sanitize it, and start fishing around in the keg. Feel something in the bottom, but I can't grab it. CRAP! I grab the carboy that I siphoned the stout out of the night before, sanitize my racking cane, start a siphon. I look over at the clock. I AM REALLY LATE TO WORK! It is then I realize, CRAP, I DIDN'T SANITIZE THE CARBOY!!! I stop the siphon. Look at the carboy and there is about an inch of beer in it. I run it to the sink dump it out, rinse out the carboy and sanitize it, and start the siphon again. Finally, I siphon it down far enough to peer through the top of the keg and see the o-ring. I fish it out using the spoon, siphon the beer back into the keg. My nice clean white-collar-job work clothes are covered in sanitizer and beer. At this point I am not even in a hurry anymore because I am so late for work that I don't even care. I guess I need to start thinking of excuses. Somehow I don't think the beer story is going to cut it. Really, it's time to relax and have a homebrew. *** This really wasn't a major disaster or anything. In the end, all I did was loose a gallon of beer and was late to work. I'm not really looking for any advice from anyone. It is just something that happened this morning and I felt like telling the story. I'm sure people have much worse stories than this one. Anybody want to tell them? Anybody learn any lessons the hard way? - Dave