I'm sure everyone starting out has had that crazy thing happen to them with a batch of beer. Well, mine is, "I stuck my arm in my bottling bucket..." Yep.
This just seemed like one of those things that would never happen. I'd had my bottling bucket along with tubing, etc. sitting overnight filled with a mixture of Star San. The morning I'm bottling I empty the Star San and begin filling my bucket with my beer. The bucket fills and the spigot is leaking - what? So I figure I'll turn it and voila the gasket slips and beer starts flowing onto the garage floor. My first thought was to grab it and run out of the garage. My second thought was to plug the hole and fix the spigot. I'd been up to elbows all morning in Star San sanitizing bottles, etc. SO I stuck my arm in the bucket removed the spigot and plugged the hole with my hand.
To make a long (and funny story) short, I was able to get the spigot back in and only lost about a gallon of beer. My next thought was, "I'm not letting this go to waste." I assumed in my mind I was sanitized and the beer was ~6% ABV so what did I have to loose. So I continued the bottling process while the aroma of my beer filled the garage. Now things are boxed and put away to age.
Right now I think my biggest risk is oxidation. That just means I'll have to drink it faster. I can hear the stories to my friends of how the spigot blew across the room....
