Home Brew Forum

After a good number of successful brews without any major hitches today's brew day was going as planned.

Mash went well, sparge was all good, boil passed without incident. Onto the cooling. Everything connected, fermenter sanitised and ready to take chilled wort. Pump on and away we go.

It was at this point that the tap fairies must have got in and opened the tap in the fermenter full throttle.

I'm stood feeling smug about the days brew. Efficiency well up, smell of the wort was lovely.

Little did I realise beer was starting to pool around my feet. By the time I realised there was a good couple of litres on the floor.

The next few words I uttered are non repeatable in a public forum.

So there you have it, they always say that everybody leaves a tap open at some point. Not me, it was the blinkin' tap fairies.

Yep - been there

With you all the way here.

On Sunday the tap fairies hit me hard. In my case it was their annoying cousins, the pipe fairies.

The mash went well. Temperature fine, no dough balls, all looking good. Then it was the end of the mash.

Having securely connected the silicone tubing to my sparging gear with the chugger pump on, all seemed good. Sparging good, clear wort flowing from the tun. What to do but nip to the beer shed and pour a pint.

Ooops. Came back a couple of minutes later to find the evil fairies had pulled the pipe from the sparger and several litres of hot sparge water were on the worktop, under the tun, on the floor and, by now, under my feet.

Not being one to panic I said 'oh, fiddlesticks' (yeah, right!) and cleared the mess up.

One day I'll have a brewday with no problems. Oh, nirvana, and probably unattainable.

Guy