I am teh Beer Messiah

BrewHaHa, our informal Oktoberfest celebration of homebrews, is in six weeks. I've been putting off doing my brew entry and finally got off my ass on it today. Fermenting usually takes 4 weeks, aging in bottle 2 weeks. I was going to do it yesterday and slothed out of it. I absolutely HAD to do it today.

I picked up the ingredients last weekend, because I was going to brew then, but slothed. I at least thought of activating the yeast Friday. Today the pack was nice and plump. I'm doing an Oktoberfest ale recipe I hastily copied down from a book at the beer supply place. I dig out my equipment, which I haven't used in a while, because I've been using Mulk's.

And so I get started. I start the mash. I then realize I don't have the cooling system. It's over at Mulk's. I call him, he doesn't answer. I leave a message.

He calls me back right after I do the sparge, which is pouring water through the grains through a strainer into a kettle. He says he's got the cooling system. I say great, I'll be right there. I've got 30 minutes to get the cooling system and get back as this mash is standing at 148º. Actually, I just put it in the oven at the lowest setting, so I have no fucking idea what the temperature was.

I get to his house, and he's wearing some Hawaiian shirt. He drags out the cooling system. It's a copper coil with tubes. There's no connector. I tell him this. He looks puuzzled, then goes out to his shed, which is packed floor to ceiling with an old MG and all sorts of crap. He then remembers it's in a plastic bin in back of the shed. He pulls it out, and it's a connector clamped on to a piece of tubing that got sliced off. I asked him, how do I connect this to my faucet? How do I get this clamp off? He says I dunno, use a screwdriver or something. THat's why it got cut off. You didn't have any fucking idea, did you? I have to get back home so I take off.

I get back, stir the wort, and reset the oven temp to 170. Lowest setting possible. Wort stays in another half hour, then goes to boil. Every so often I add hops. While this is going on, I'm playing Dark Age of Camelot. An hour and a half later, the boil's done, so I log off and get the cooling system hooked up. I duct tape the connector to the colling system tube, then turn on my hose pipe.

Then the power goes out.

SHIT.

I have to cool the wort down ASAP, or it's crap. I have to add water to it to 5 gallons or it's sludge. The faucet doesn't work. I have to pour the wort in the fermenter after I cool it down or it's swampwater. I get the fermenter put together then discover that I've got the wrong type of spigot for it. SHIT!!!

But, all is not lost. Because I had the hose running for a while, water is still coming out and circulating through the cooling system. Because I live in Hurricane Country and know that the power can go out during the summer, I've already got three gallons of water in my fridge. Just the amount I needed. I dig a carbouy out of my closet, dust and all. I can't rinse it out because I have no water. As the old brewer saying goes, "It all comes out in the rack anyway." Brewers tend not to think of the nasty shit that can find its way into the primary fermenter.

As I'm outside in the 95º weather siphoning my wort into the carbouy, my neighbor asks me if my power's out. Apparently the whole neighborhood's on the fritz. But, I manage to get my carbouy filled and stop it off with an airlock, using the little bit of water I have remaining in my jug. I took the carbouy inside and set it on a table. Hopefully it's too heavy for Lita to knock over.

Actually, my best beers have been the results of disaster. There was one time when my fermenter almost exploded. The pressure caused both ends to bulge out, causing it rock back and forth as it whistled like a steam pipe getting ready to bust. But it was some damn good beer.

After everything's done, I call the power company, and grab a beer. Twenty minutes later, the power is back on, and I'm not going to do a goddamned thing the rest of today except soak up air conditioning freon.