Murphy's Law

Saturday's brewing session proved to us that brewing beer takes some experience, some trial and error, and some problem-solving skills.  Or, it proves that Casey is a necessary and key component to our little group.

With Casey entertaining family, Dan and I descended upon his kitchen with two goals.  We were going to brew the amber ale known as After School Special and we were going to bottle Slow Brains.  No problem.  This is our 6th brew together, so we have the whole thing down to a science.

Our biggest issues surrounded the bottling of Slow Brains.  This was version 2.2 of Brains, the one aging in an oak barrel for a couple of weeks.  Bottling is usually pretty easy.  We timed it so the other brew was going on while we could bottle, usually a nice 45 minute window.

Issue #1: we wanted to bottle in 750ml bottles.  We tested the bottle capper on one of the bottles and...oops.  It's stuck.  Really, really stuck.  Turns out we can't use any bottles that used to have corks.  I proceed to break through the neck of the bottle with a screwdriver to release the capper.

Issue #2: The spigot on the barrel is bigger than the hose we use to transfer to the other bucket.  We use the other bucket to mix the beer with sugar, so we can bottle ferment the beer.  I have to sit and hold the bucket so the beer doesn't spill on the floor.

Issue #3: There's still small wood chips and other crap inside the barrel that needs to be filtered out.  Dan wraps cheesecloth around the spigot as a filter.

Issue #4: Something gets stuck inside the spigot of the barrel (maybe more wood chips?).  There's still about a gallon of beer stuck in there!  Well, so much for our carefully designed filtration method.  I turn the barrel over and dump the final gallon out of the bung hole up top.

Issue #5: We run low on bottles (since we couldn't use about 10 of them) and rush to try to find other bottles to use.  We end up throwing away about 4 bottles worth of beer since we can't bottle them and need to attend to the other brew.

Besides that? No problem!

The actual brewing went fine.  Our original gravity was a bit high, but it seems to have come out well.

Then...

Oh boy.  THEN!  Then I went home, barrel in hand, ready to test the gravity of our lager.  I mean, it had been a couple of days.  I wanted to see how it was coming along.  I carefully take it out of the chest freezer and pop it up on the table.  I turn the spigot down to take the reading and the spigot comes loose from the inside of the fermenter.  Beer starts leaking from the spigot onto the floor.  I uttered a few choice expletives and ran it over to the sink.  I prepped for my surgery by scrubbing my arm with dish soap, rinsed off, and proceeded to stick my entire arm into the fermenter to tighten the spigot.  Just great.  We discussed changing the name from Tongue to Arm or Elbow.  I kind of like Elbow Grease Pilsner.  I hope my arm was not too diseased that it will ruin the beer.  Once again, only time will tell.