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Crazy brew day

Northern Brewer General
#1

I brewed 10 gallons of bohemian pilsner today A recipe I’ve brewed many times with some small minor adjustments in pursuit of the elusive bitter grainy pilsner flavor I love.

It seemed like such an easy brew day. I even said silently to myself as I began to pump chilled wort into the first bucket, “man this has been such an easy uneventful brew day…”

I had made a 2L “revitalizing starter” Tuesday night with about 600ml of yeast slurry from an October brew day in hopes of brewing yesterday but it was too windy. I made the starter in a gallon glass jug. So I just cold crashed it yesterday, decanted it today and poured half into each of two buckets. Then I put the jug in my laundry sink and ran hot water into it…

Once I got the temperature down to about 56F, the temp of my well water, I let it pump into the bucket and went inside to retrieve the glass jug trying to remember if I left the water running…when i stepped inside from my basement stairwell brew pit the basement smelled…to be blunt…like shite…

As I passed the brewcave/storage room on my way to the laundry room I realized there was water on the floor and it was coming from the septic ejector pump pit/cover… I peeked into the bathroom and there was water welling out around the base of the toilet and up into the tub…WT…

I checked the breaker box…nothing tripped…no idea what to do next…called my plumber buddy…he said to unplug the piggy back plugs…take the one furthest from the socket and plug it in solo and cross my fingers the pump comes on…it did…shite water immediately starts to recede…

That first bucket ended up at 64F somehow…got the second one tucked away at 56, both in 51F swamp coolers…it’ll be beer…probably good beer.

So when you think you’re having a rough brew day…if you’re not ankle deep in shizzle water then consider yourself lucky!

Newbs…RDWHAHB…it’s just beer

2 Likes
#2

If you had not been brewing how deep of a situation would you have been in.

#3

And no paddle either!

1 Like
#4

Wasn’t there some story similar to that at the end of the movie… My name is nobody? One of the trinity stories with Henry Fonda… Sneezles61

#5

We owned a house with a basement bath and a sewage ejector. I had to replace the pump twice. The first time it stuck on. That was an easy fix, just keep flushing soapy water until it’s full and plug it back in to clean it out first. Second time it just quit. Full of course. That is when I realized you buy the best/most expensive ejector pump you can get. I hope the current owners are still “enjoying” it.

That house was on well and septic. I made sure the septic got plenty of yeast.

So long story short @dannyboy58 I feel your pain. What a messy and unpleasant job that must have been. Fortunately there is homebrew to ease the pain.

#6

That’s a crappy story

3 Likes
#7

Well the pump is only required for baesment sewage and greywater output so probably would have discovered the problem next time we did laundry.

#8

I had my mash paddle nearby! ahahaha

#9

Plumber was shocked when I told him it’s the original pump from when we built the house. It’s worked fine for 21 years! Pump is still fine. Just the float switch not coming on. Of course he wants to replace the pump while the cover is off but I see no point in that. If it fials nex week I’ll listen to his “I told you so…” but whatever.

#10

Might not be able to even find a pump with the quality of the old one. There are some made in USA still though.

#11

Yea I was just looking online at them. You can get iron or thermoplastic body ones for about the same price. None of them are all that expensive really…couple hundred dollars…probably pay the plumber more to put it in…maybe I’ll do it myself. Looks simple enough. Just smelly.

#12

Put on yer nose plugs for swimming! Sneezles61

#13

Have you tried using briess 2 row?? I had a bad brew day not so long ago…overshot my gravity because I hadn’t brewed inside for 9 months and forgot my boil off was much less. I also forgot to add the volume of 1 lb of sugar at 10 minutes so my gravity was high and volume about 6.75 gal. About 1 inch below top of bucket. But I didnt use a bucket at first because I wanted to see if my lager yeast was alive and tried to put it in carboy. Well my new funnel for the carboy fell over as I started to pour and made a mess every where. Decided to put in bucket because of funnel issues and found out that it was 1 inch from top. To keep yeast from blowing out airlock I decided to put the bucket outside my house but inside steel doorway leading to the outside yard. I came back to find the spout on my bucket was bumped when I was placing it outside and the entire volume had drained out. 4 hrs of work for nothing. Worst brew day for me.

1 Like
#14

Ouch… But you haven’t given up… theres a good sign! Sneezles61

#15

Grainy AF:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: but it’s all I use since I learned Rahr randomly sprays their 2 row with lactic acid…no info on how this affects pH…I prefer consistency in my mash pH.

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#16

Where did you hear that?

#17

On this forum a few years ago…search for rahr, acid malt, those kind of topics

I think there was a blog on it too. Rahr produced slightly lower mash pH than briess over and over but it wasn’t consistent.

#18

Rahr seemed to be higher quality but my LHBS has stopped carrying it and instead is just getting briess and some new brand. He told me there was no difference in suppliers. “Its all 2 row”. I asked him if he brewed, he said he has just started extract brewing…

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#19

My brewing mentor always told me to taste grains. Briess always tasted better…cleaner and more natural to me.

The whole discussion about Rahr vs Briess and acid treatment was probably 3-4 years ago…about the time of the “grainy” comment…

#20

There’s mention of it in this thread…I know there are others. I believe there was info on the rahr website or a distributor’s site at the time. I thought it was common knowledge.

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