The IPA was down from OG1070 to about G1011 in 6 days (2nd April) and I dropped the temperature in the beer fridge to help the yeast settle out. It's finished up between 10 and 11 - to spec for a traditional IPA. They were well attenuated brews. At the same time Simonds bitter, which I was having fermentation trouble with was still busy fermenting at G1013. I didn't want that to go much lower so I thought I'd retard the fermentation by dropping the fridge to 5c and encourage the yeast to settle out.
Being unusually busy, I'd left the blow off setup in place on the IPA, and I thought that the reduction in gas pressure in the FV as the temp dropped might draw some water from the jug up the tube some way back towards the FV, but with over 2' head there would be no problems......
...wrong!
Here's the Darwin Award for brewing!!! Tonight when I went to get the FV out for kegging - I saw that all the skanky trub and yeast laden exposed to the air plain tap water that had been sitting in the blow off jug in the beer fridge since 27th March had all been siphoned back into the FV - about 1.5 litres.....oh holy crap!
Once the despair subsided, I decided to keg it anyway and see what happens. If any beer can fight off a potential infection, it's a traditional IPA. So, 1oz/30g of dry hops in a bag weighed down with a stainless steel weight into the cornie in preparation for racking. At the same time attempt to change the poppet valve on the gas post because it was leaking on the last brew (March Beers 1061), only to find (after a struggle to get it out) that the replacements I've got with the yellow bit are different to the valve incumbent. Arse! I re-seated the original valve and it's sealing ok now. Maybe a bit of crud got stuck there, who knows.
Partly owing to the unwanted increase in brewlength and because there was originally 23L of the stuff anyway I decided to bottle some out of the fermenter as well. Go to prepare priming syrup, and the microwave packs up...someone up there doesn't like me.
resort to boiling it in a pan on the stove.Anyway, I had a beer and primed a couple of quart bottles, kegged a cornie full, and the bottles, and looked at the 3 or so litres remaining in the FV, quickly starsan'd another quart bottle and filled it....forgetting to prime it first....I'll do it later.
Anyway, ordinarily I'd tip the rest away, but this is not ordinary beer. It's fairly clear-ish, and tastes really nice albeit very bitter - there's a big orangey (goldings) hop flavour that's very moreish and the high bitterness is not unpleasant, as a result of bittering with low alpha hops... so, I decanted the rest into pint glasses and am chugging my way through as we speak - and at 7.8% abv I'm fairly arseholed - I can't feel my finges on the kwmputer keys.
If it does go off, at least I had some of it.
What's saddening is that if it does go bad, it contains most of my 2007 hop harvest We shall see....
I'll have to brew another one soon in case this one doesn't work out
Matra Dea! " And so; To Bed " too, by the sounds of that one!
anyway I was talking about James. Doh! Hope the beer's a belter anyway