mb-squared
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Here's a thread to share those stories that let us all laugh with you -- we'd never laugh at you! This is my story..
My day started off well enough, but in retrospect I guess I was a little too ambitious and/or confident. I set off to harvest some yeast before I had had my coffee, then spent the rest of my day cleaning up the mess I made. It all started last night when I racked my golden ale into my serving kegs. I didn't have enough time to harvest the yeast last night (I ferment under pressure in a 50L sankey keg), so, since it is sealed up all nice and tight, I set it aside for today. This morning, in my pre-coffee wobble, I hooked up my corny keg (which is full of starsan) to my sankey (which was empty except for some 1st generation yeast that I was keen to harvest). The idea was to add a LITTLE starsan to the yeast bed so I could swish it around and then push it into my sterilized container. The problems started immediately upon depressing the coupler on my sankey. Instead of the starsan flowing from the corny into my sankey, I saw the yeast flowing backwards into my fastidiously sterile starsan corny. "How dare you mess up my starsan corny" I muttered and decided to reverse flow by upping the pressure on my corny. The hope was to increase the pressure in the corny to a psi that exceeded the pressure in the sankey so that I could get a LITTLE starsan in there and save whatever yeast was left. Now, if I had taken the time to stop and brew a cup of coffee, I might have realized that this would be a good time to let a little pressure off the sankey. But I was too intent on getting this little job done early so that I could get onto what I really needed to do today. So I didn't stop and brew a cup of coffee. I didn't take the time to think things through. I pressed on. I continued to increase the pressure on my corny and, sure enough, I saw the (yeasty) starsan start to flow into my sankey. Ah, good. But by then I was up to a ridiculously high psi, for me at least (~30psi), and my jumper line jumped right off the beer-out nipple on my sankey coupler. Oh ****. I had the most magnificent and powerful yeast geyser that has ever been witnessed on my hands, literally plastering my ceiling with my beautiful, fresh-smelling, first-generation yeast. It seemed like ages before I realized what was happening and managed to disengage the coupler on the sankey, but it was probably only a few seconds. Once the geyser stopped its great roaring spew, I breathed a quick sigh of relief, but then noticed with dismay that my jumper line was dancing round and about, shooting a powerful stream of yeasty starsan everywhere it turned. Oh ****! I lunged to de-couple that menace and finally the room was quite. Except for the steady drip sound that beautiful, fresh, first-generation yeast makes as it falls off your ceiling and onto your floor. I looked up to see a literal crater, albeit inverted, of yeast on my ceiling. At it's thickest part, it was ~3cms. Oh ****. Oh well, I can clean that up easily enough. But as I looked down, I saw the walls were plastered; I saw my kegerator was plastered; I saw my brewrig was plastered; I saw my fermentors were plastered. Nothing had been spared. I had yeast EVERYWHERE. It was cartoonish, it was so bad. Like my whole brewery had been slimed by agent WLP001.
Needless to say, I wasn't too happy. I left and went and had some coffee. My six year old son laughed so hard he wet himself. My wife expressed condolences, with a grin. Definitely my biggest brewery &@%!up.
Moral of the story? Always de-pressurize your target keg before pushing a liquid into it.
My day started off well enough, but in retrospect I guess I was a little too ambitious and/or confident. I set off to harvest some yeast before I had had my coffee, then spent the rest of my day cleaning up the mess I made. It all started last night when I racked my golden ale into my serving kegs. I didn't have enough time to harvest the yeast last night (I ferment under pressure in a 50L sankey keg), so, since it is sealed up all nice and tight, I set it aside for today. This morning, in my pre-coffee wobble, I hooked up my corny keg (which is full of starsan) to my sankey (which was empty except for some 1st generation yeast that I was keen to harvest). The idea was to add a LITTLE starsan to the yeast bed so I could swish it around and then push it into my sterilized container. The problems started immediately upon depressing the coupler on my sankey. Instead of the starsan flowing from the corny into my sankey, I saw the yeast flowing backwards into my fastidiously sterile starsan corny. "How dare you mess up my starsan corny" I muttered and decided to reverse flow by upping the pressure on my corny. The hope was to increase the pressure in the corny to a psi that exceeded the pressure in the sankey so that I could get a LITTLE starsan in there and save whatever yeast was left. Now, if I had taken the time to stop and brew a cup of coffee, I might have realized that this would be a good time to let a little pressure off the sankey. But I was too intent on getting this little job done early so that I could get onto what I really needed to do today. So I didn't stop and brew a cup of coffee. I didn't take the time to think things through. I pressed on. I continued to increase the pressure on my corny and, sure enough, I saw the (yeasty) starsan start to flow into my sankey. Ah, good. But by then I was up to a ridiculously high psi, for me at least (~30psi), and my jumper line jumped right off the beer-out nipple on my sankey coupler. Oh ****. I had the most magnificent and powerful yeast geyser that has ever been witnessed on my hands, literally plastering my ceiling with my beautiful, fresh-smelling, first-generation yeast. It seemed like ages before I realized what was happening and managed to disengage the coupler on the sankey, but it was probably only a few seconds. Once the geyser stopped its great roaring spew, I breathed a quick sigh of relief, but then noticed with dismay that my jumper line was dancing round and about, shooting a powerful stream of yeasty starsan everywhere it turned. Oh ****! I lunged to de-couple that menace and finally the room was quite. Except for the steady drip sound that beautiful, fresh, first-generation yeast makes as it falls off your ceiling and onto your floor. I looked up to see a literal crater, albeit inverted, of yeast on my ceiling. At it's thickest part, it was ~3cms. Oh ****. Oh well, I can clean that up easily enough. But as I looked down, I saw the walls were plastered; I saw my kegerator was plastered; I saw my brewrig was plastered; I saw my fermentors were plastered. Nothing had been spared. I had yeast EVERYWHERE. It was cartoonish, it was so bad. Like my whole brewery had been slimed by agent WLP001.
Needless to say, I wasn't too happy. I left and went and had some coffee. My six year old son laughed so hard he wet himself. My wife expressed condolences, with a grin. Definitely my biggest brewery &@%!up.
Moral of the story? Always de-pressurize your target keg before pushing a liquid into it.
