Never Give Up

by Graham Sanders

G'day all

Here’s a nice story showing that you should never give up on your brewing.

Years ago I used 25 litre plastic buckets as fermenters. I do my brewing outside, banished by the better half from the kitchen and inside the house in general. Well after spending the better part of the day making a wonderful porter, there it was sitting nicely in the fermenter. Pitched the yeast starter, all is wonderful in the world. "now where is the lid" one asks. "oh inside the house" I quickly reply. No problem, in and out I go. Upon my return wonderful ripples greet me.

A fearful look confirms a fly doing backstroke laps at a great rate of knots. After he does 3 laps in front of me, I panic. Got to get him out - "oh shit where is that spoon", as he turns for another lap. No spoon, so in goes my hand and out goes a rather annoyed fly who protests loudly "i'm in training, how dare you". 

Now the mind ticks over, "do I reboil" - no is the answer, got no yeast to pitch and cant get any in a hurry. "yes i'll just laddle off some of the liquid off the top, that will do". A dash into the kitchen and after howls of protect from she who must be obeyed, out I come with some kitchen utensils. My German Shepherd, Rumpold is always willing to help in these situations. A stern "sit" put him in his place.

Well he sees me setting up the kitchen utensils and being a smart dog works out what I am going to do. Now as I turn my back he thinks "yes - my tongue will do the job much better, let's please the master". Now I will testify the sounds of Rumpole skimming the top of my wort is not pleasant, but you cant get mad at him for helping.  Well I gave up. Put the lid on, into the refrigerator and wait. Well believe it or not, the beer came out fine despite all the problems. Maybe it was the porters ability to hide off flavours, or the big starters I use I dont know. But yes brewing can be all forgiving.

It amazes me that you can really stuff a brew up and it turns out all right, and yet other times breath the wrong way and its ruined. It’s a lesson for us all, follow the basic rules of brewing and you should have no problems. In my case, using a big starter probably saved my beer from serious infection.

One thing I did change though is my type of fermenter. Old "Rumps" can't drink out of them now, but as you can see by the attached photo, he still helps me every brew day, rain or shine.  And he does keep the odd fly away as well.

Shout

Graham Sanders