Sigh.

[deebee]

Sunday. Nice day to cook up a brew I thought. Got the starter cranking a few days ago and all ingredients ready to go. Got the house to myself for a few hours. Done the chores this morning. Nothing to stop me.

So I put on the strike water, warm up the mash tun and mill the grains. Dough in. Hit 67* spot on. Check it after 30 minutes and its dropped to 66* and smelling gorgeous. Rarely does it go this smoothly for me. Hmm whats that tiny puddle of liquid on the bench? I lift insulating blanket away from the edge of the tun to investigate and notice that the tap is dripping where it joins the tun. Better try and tighten that just one tiny poofteenth of a turn and the fucken thing comes off in my hand. Wort spilling everywhere. Time enough to divert most of the flow down the sink but of course its all over the floor and under the washing machine. Smells gorgeous. Start walking through the house to get the mop and realise it is all over my shoes and now I have three rooms to mop not just one.

I know. Brewing disasters have been done to death on this forum. But here I am shattered on my free brewing Sunday with nothing to do but clean up the mess and I just had to share it with someone. At least there's beer in the frig.

:chug:

 

[jgriffin]

Bugger! Did the tap actually break off?

I've had my tap leak in the mash before, but i've always resisted the temptation to touch it until after i dump the first wort. After your little problem i'm glad i made that call.

 

[barfridge]

Sorry to hear that mate. At least you didnt do what me mate did...which was stick his thumb over the opening to try and plug it. He saved many litres of wort, but got a nicely burnt thumb in the process.

Relax, have a beer, and try not to worry about it

 

[Kai]

Now that's your mate putting his body on the line for the sake of his art, bar!

 

[MCWB]

Bugger! I know what you mean about the smell; actually I think the fact that it smells so nice makes it even worse! I had a minor catastrophe of a different (and thankfully easier to clean up kind) today, but more on that later, otherwise I'll forget to heat up the sparge water.

 

[Guest Lurker]

Was it one of those old Coopers taps with the backing nut? Had one of those on the bottling bucket for a while. As you say, tighten it a poofteenth too far, and bang, lets go, beer everywhere. And you just know, after 2 hours of mopping, shes still going to walk into the laundry, and ask: "What the f happened in here?"

 

[deebee]

Then later on realised I had chucked the thermometer with the wasted grains into the compost. Compost up to elbows, but I did manage to find it.

Yeah one of those plastic taps with backing nut, but what happened is the actual insert of the tap popped out onto floor and under the bench. So it was a huge gusher and emptied the tun in seconds.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmmm I do not use plastic in my mash tun (apart fromthe plastic the esky is made from) Brass nipple going through the draining hole, to the manifold, brass nuts, washers etc securing and leakproofing it and a nice brass ballvalve to control the outflow.

Going to brew the Traquair House Ale sometime this week (hopefully) Golden Promise malt in the shop and a smackpack of 1728 Scottish nicely swollen.

Jovial Monk

 

[jgriffin]

I'de prefer plastic over brass. No lead in plastic.

 

[Kai]

So long as it's food grade.

 

[bindi]

Big Sigh :unsure: Came home after five days at a music festival to find my brewing fridge [freezer] has $hit it self and the fermentation all done and sitting at 27.5c :unsure: was at 16.5c when I left, I was lucky only one was in primary, it tastes very fruity but not bad, the yeast is a mix of Nottingham and Burton on Trent, time to keg, chill and taste test it.
Bugger. <_<

 

[troydo]

had similar probs on saturday, poured the hot water into the mashtun (esky) and al of a sudden my feet hurt ... alot... the esky bottom was cracked and it pissed 80 degree water all over the ground... luckily it was just wasted water, i jury rigged up a fermenter as a mashtun with some camp mat and a sleepingbag and doona and it worked great...

 

[bonj]

I hate those plastic taps. You can read about my experience with those in Ye Olde Balls Ups Thread. At least it wasn't 80C.