Stupid is as Stupid does…
Ok homebrewers, I know you have all done something completely and utterly stupid at least once begging the question “What am I friggin’ idiot!?!?!” I had my turn at it a couple days ago. So, as any good homebrewer should I was cleaning my taps and tap lines….
My process is to take apart the taps, let them soak in a bit of BLC (Beverage Line Cleaner), wipe them with a cloth and then let them air dry. Pretty easy and simple, but makes a huge difference in the flavor of the beer. I was also doing it because I had to bottle up a growler of Homebrew for a local Homebrewing contest. So with clean taps, clean lines, and a keg that barely has enough homebrew to meet the contest requirements, I hooked up the CO2 line to the corney of Belgian IPA, attached the clean ball lock connector to the tap line and then to the corney. As soon as I did that I heard beer spraying against my wall! “Oh shit” I screamed, I forgot to put the tap handle in the closed position. “Oh FUCK!!!!!!” I forgot to hook up the tap completely, beer was just spraying out the front of the fridge. After quickly disconnecting the tap line, screaming a tirade of obscenities for about 5 minutes, I spent the next 10 minutes cleaning up the 30 or 40 ounces of beer the sprayed across my office, on the floor, on the boxes of beer, everywhere it seemed.
Now that I’ve shared my idiocies with you, do you have a story to share with us?
Damn. This past Christmas, we were hosting friends for dinner on Christmas day. I was waiting to showcase my smoked porter to my guests. The night before, I just happened to check my CO2 tank. Empty. It was empty. I was pissed, and just downright depressed about it. Couldn’t get a refill either. My beer was flat. Didn’t serve it… did some poking around and one of my MFL fittings wasn’t screwed in tightly. Slow leak.
I’ve lost a tank of co2 to a bad factory clamb on a hose. So, I bought a backup tank and replaced all the factory fittings on both my kegorator and jocky box! Hopefully that will not happen to me when I really want to showcase a beer.
So, I was getting out of my car last year in the alley behind the store… I had a bottle of Westvleteren 12 in my hand. My coat snagged on the seatbelt… i dropped the bottle on the asphalt. Yes, I did end up “tasting” some of it…
Oh man, that would be aggravating. It is such a bad feeling to see wasted beer. Happened to me this past thursday. I open fermented the IronBrewer recipe…I did a 11 gallon batch to split with a buddy. I lost a gallon and a half to evaporation (the bummer of open fermentation) so I didn’t have any brew to spare. As I was trying to maneuver the heavy keg I felt something wet on my feet. I had accidentally kicked open the stainless valve. I lost about half a gallon. Next time I’ll lock the valve.
@Kevin, you are a true beer geek, sopping up westy12 off the ground!
@nate, That is a heavy bucket! Besides losing beer, gotta watch your back. I like those locking ball values. My HLT and Mash don’t have the locking ball values but my kettle does which is really nice.
Well just yesterday I spent about an hour trying to clean out a gummed-up picnic tap (soaking in PBW, forcing hot water down into the tap) only to realize that the entire assembly screws apart for easy cleaning. Had it clean in about five seconds.
Wow tough deal. Did you end up with enough left to enter the contest? Or did it put an end to those plans too?
I’ve had a kegerator for a number of years now… the mis-steps have been many 🙂 I’ve tapped a number of kegs when I’ve forgotten to shut off the newly cleaned and re-attatched faucet
perhaps the worst happened this spring when my CO2 tank tipped over, breaking the regulator’s gauges (and therefore the seal). Couldn’t find a commercial supply house in town with a C02 regulator (I did manage to find some welding gas regulators), so needless to say it was a long wait for the mailorder part – from Rapids Wholesale, who I recommend.
I once twisted the keg coupler too far, resulting in an Old Faithful-like gusher to the ceiling… that was also pretty salty (a, getting rightfully laughed at – and b, worrying I’d contaminated the keg w/ oxygen)