First great brew-mergency of 2012

It was almost a year ago that I tried my hand at my first high gravity ale: a Foreign Extra Stout from Jamil's book. I switched things up a bit for my system by using two packets of Wyeast 1028 London Ale, away from my typical dry yeast. I can't remember what the OG was, but I woke up the following morning and found my bottling bucket (you'll laugh about this in a minute), with a clogged airlock, a seriously domed lid, and a hint of impending explosion. It was three hours before the brew store opened and I didn't own a blowoff hose. To pass the time I went in every fifteen minutes to clear out the airlock, 'fart' the fermenter, soak up the excess foam, clean what I could and get it back together again. Right before the shop opened I drove to the store to get some distilled water for the blowoff tub, and to see if the fermenter would survive my absence. I made it to the brew store, got the hose, got some lip from Ricardo, and solved my problem. The stout turned out pretty good.

[NOTE: When you're fermenting, more air is going out than coming in, so it's not common that this exposure would have an adverse effect on the final product.]

Almost a year later and I hadn't had any serious beer-mergencies. Yesterday I go to brew up a Berliner Weiße (The "You're Bein Mean to Me", for my lovely wife), and everything goes well until the propane runs out with 5 minutes left in the single decoction stage. This wasn't too terrible, it was already boiling, there was around 2 gallons of volume, I ran upstairs and finished it on the stove. And since I wasn't boiling the wort (see my next post), I was pretty much done save for the 3 gallons of sparge water. 170°F is not too difficult to reach.

I lautered directly into my bottling bucket. You know, the same one that handled the near-explosion from the Stout with style. The liquor coming out of the tun was 150°F, and it sat in there, and then the sparge runnings on top of that, until there was 5.5 gallons collected. I think what happened was that the heat of the wort caused the rubber washer around the spigot to become malleable, and created give between the plastic wall of the tub and the hard plastic of the shank. But there was pressure behind it, 5.5 gallons of hot, sugary liquid. I cooled the wort, transferred it vigorously into my 10 gallon brew kettle and back to oxygenate, and noticed nothing amiss as I sealed it and stuck in the airlock.

A few hours later I went down to check on it, and noticed a thin ring of liquid around the base on the floor. I decided that maybe the spigot wasn't as tight as I'd thought, went to twist it expecting a struggle, and was horrified when it turned easily. And then the liquid started streaming out.

I ran upstairs with my second glass carboy, no time to sanitize, rinsed it out and then back downstairs. No time to sanitize the rubber hose. I picked up the bottling bucket and set it on a higher surface. I tried to hook up the hose and the pressure on the spigot caused it to widen the gap and liquid was now pouring out on the ground. Still I managed the hose, got the other end in the carboy and opened up the spigot. It took me a second to realize that I could pull the spigot against the wall of the bucket, recreating the seal, and then twist and the friction would allow it to tighten. This worked, and there was a seal again, but now I had maybe a quarter gallon on the ground and a full gallon in the carboy.

What the hell, I thought. I'm not trusting this damn bucket ever again.

So I finished draining into the carboy. I say finish, except I was running out of room and I needed to collect the yeast that had settled on the bottom of the bucket. So I siphoned off half a gallon into an empty milk jug, drained the yeast into the carboy, then poured as much as I felt comfortable back in.

Berliner Weiße, fermenting, possibly weird crap in the krausen, actually probably just break material

I went from an experiment in natural lactobacillus cultures to a complete SNAFU. I have no idea what to expect. I was so pumped on adrenaline and nihilism that I decided "screw it, I'll leave the rest of this in the milk jug with no airlock to see what the hell happens." I checked this morning and things looked normal. A thin head of krausen in the carboy, not much in the milk jug. When I got home, things looked a bit different. My experiment turned into another unexpected experiment that I'll never be able to recreate, and I'm kinda excited to see how it all turns out.

Berliner Weiße, left to ferment open and wild, probably going to be disgusting in a few weeks

Free from the tyranny of bottles

Well not really.

But sure. I got a dual keg setup from Midwest Supply (this one, to be exact), and I've just kegged up my first batch - the Double Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Of course, you're all invited to come over and enjoy it with me.

(The 'Double' is from the half pound of Theo's Chocolates roasted cocoa nibs I added to the fermenter. More on that maybe later.)

The kegs came in better than expected shape, based on the reviews from the store's site. I went to Central Welding Supply in Lynnwood and got the 5# CO2 canister replaced with a full one for < $14. I was amused that I finally had to buy something that had a hazmat charge associated with it.

I'm still using B-Brite for my sanitization. I'm probably going to replace it with a no-rinse solution, like Star-San. But for right now this will do. I checked for leaks in my dual regulator and keg, rinsed it after pressurization with the B-Brite, and then filled it up. It's currently sitting in my garage at just under 30 psi waiting for the stout to absorb enough CO2 for it to be fun. I tasted the stout that I pulled for the hydrometer reading for FG, and it was a nice roasted dark chocolate flavor to it. Will probably overrule some of the oatmeal flavor, but I'll still get that nice mouthfeel.

Hopefully by midweek everything will be ready to consume. I'll still keep bottles around for beers that will benefit from bottle conditioning, such as sours and old ales (which I will be making once a year, a Berliner weisse and an English Old Ale for the wife and youngest daughter, respectively). But the upside is I'm switching to 100% 22oz Bombers for those brews. Maybe the title should be changed to 'Free from the tyranny of 12oz bottles' instead.

I'll be dropping The Shorty into the second keg in a few weeks - maybe 5-6 more, since it needs to lager longer.