One Guy's Brewery is Up And Running...Again...I Hope

[Chuck N]

I just brewed my first batch since...I can't remember. Something like June. I'd been having a lot of trouble with my batches. They were and - as they come up the pipe-line for drinking - are coming out spoiled. A real nasty sour taste and my last two batches were gushers as well. I had switched out all of my Mr. Beer fermenters for five gallon buckets and the problem still persisted. Well, through the process of elimination I deduced that the problem had to be in either my bottling wand or the spigot for my bottling bucket. They were the only things I carried over from the old fermenters. My bottling wand I strip down and clean after each use and then sanitized before I use it again. So it couldn't be that. The spigot was one of the locking spigots that Mr. Beer now includes with their LBKs. This was one of the ones that Eric was giving away way back when and I had always been afraid to pull it apart for fear of breaking it. I had always scrubbed it good with a brush I have that came with a turkey baster and works great for cleaning tight spaces. But now I figured I didn't have anything to lose and pulled on it until the handle popped out of the body. That's when and where I found the problem (at least one of them - I hope). If you've never taken yours apart I urge you to do so. The handle is at the top of a tube that has a hole in it's side. This tube slips into the tube that makes up the body and when turned the hole lines up with the main part of the body and allows the beer to flow out through the tube. When these two parts are together properly there is a space between the two tubes where nasties can hide and grow and potentially ruin your beer. No amount of cleaning will get them out until you take the spigot apart.

I also learned that I've been pitching my yeast way too hot. I have two thermometers. One is battery powered and I like to use that when I'm mashing as it is quicker and I don't have to hold my hand in the heat so long. The other is an old fashioned tube-type thermometer that takes up to a minute to get a reading. Since I can drop that one into my sanitizing solution without worrying about shorting out any electronics I use that one to check my wort while I'm cooling to check for proper pitching temp. Today I got one of those stick-on temp strips from the LHBS and stuck it to the side of my fermenting bucket so I can better monitor my fermenting temps. Well, I dropped my temp to about 70 degrees according to my tube thermometer and poured the wort into the bucket. The temp went off the scale on the temp. strip. So I put some sanitizer in a cup and put the business end of the battery powered thermometer in it to sanitize it. When I checked my temp with the fancy thermometer it read EIGHTY-FIVE degrees. So I let the bucket sit in a ice bath and got the temp down to 75 ( it corresponded with the temp strip) and pitched my yeast.

Dam it! I HATE when I discover problems like this when I'm mid-way through the game.

[oly]

Yeah, it sucks having equipment issues. At least it sounds like you're getting them nailed down.

[haerbob3]

Glad you found the issues that were giving you grief!! I use a quick read dial thermometer that is used in the kitchen. The feature that I like is that you can calibrate them. I use ice and a bit of water & boiling water. There also a few that can be installed in kettles and/or mash tuns that are easily calibrated too. As you noted it is good to double check them against each other.