(Got it all together, don't you, baby)Cheri - Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law, sure out to get you
(Got it all together, don't you, baby)
Murphy's Law, sure out to get you
Murphy's law was in full effect on this brew day.
It started with water and ended with a, "Big bada boom!"
After having a successful double brew day last week I thought I'd tempt fate and try to do it again.
I needed to get two simple things to get this brew day started. Water and invert sugar.
"Yo, homeboy! You must be kidding." - MC Hammer
Invert sugar. What diabolical bastard invented invert sugar! I looked everywhere. Three different grocery stores, foreign food aisles, asking little old ladies...nothing. 1 1/2 hours in my journey I gave up and decided to get plain old cane sugar syrup.
Ha!
I had even worse luck finding the cane syrup. Oh, I found it alright. It was $4.50 for 11 ounces of the stuff. Imported no less.I needed two pounds. I finally just called the Mrs and asked her to look up a recipe for cane syrup.
Finally, one last stop. Two five gallons jugs of water from the Glacier water machine. You might see where this one is going.
Yeap, it was out of order.
After traveling another five miles I found another water machine. Two hours (in what was supposed to be a 30 minute trip) I headed home.
Okay, It's only 1PM. I still might manage to salvage this day and get two brews in.
I make my way back into my brew storage room (the room formally known as our game room.) I started moving stuff around and noticed there was a good deal of glass on the bottom of one the shelves.
At this point I would like to say I, "Had a Coke and a smile." I can't say that. This is because most of my homemade cola had decided to go ballistic the night before. Glass was everywhere. Despite the cola being in an enclosed plastic container shreds of glass had rocketed to the other side of the room. The explosion even blew a half dollar size hole into the side of the container.
I cleaned up all the glass and gently move the plastic container where the rest of the cola bottles that didn't explode to the garage.
There were still about 8 cola bottles that had decided it was not their time to explode. I knew I had to relieve the pressure on the bottles. Since they didn't explode, I figured it would be reasonably safe to open the bottles with a bottle opener.
Note to self. Bottle bombs will always and forever be bottle bombs.
I popped the top of the first bottle. It was like a shotgun going off. Shards of glass and the bottle top zoomed by my head. I sat down for a couple of minutes. I could have have been killed by cola. The headline would have read, "Man killed by yeast, water and sugar. Film at 11."
I covered the top of the container and very gently moved the whole thing outdoors. I tried to detonate the cola over a distance by tossing it on the concrete, but all that did was create even more shrapnel. Over the course of the next hour the Mrs and I became a miniature bomb squad. We filled up a plastic tub with water and opened the bottles one by one in the tub. I used a metal pan as a shield over the tub just in case one the bottles got airborne. Since the Mrs had leather gloves she became the detonation expert.
I cleaned up the remaining mess and finally got on with the brew day.
I learned a few valuable lessons today:
- Sugar, water and yeast are dangerous when not used in the right proportion.
- Stick to plastic when making soda. I know it's not environmentally friendly, but in the end you'll live longer.
- Listen to your wife when she asks you to not make any more soda in glass bottles.
Beer Style: Southern English Brown Ale #2
Batch Size: 5.0 Gallons
Grains:
- 5.50 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
- 1.33 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
- 0.66 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)
- 0.40 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
- 0.84 lb Turbinado (10.0 SRM)
- 1.00 oz Fuggles [4.00 %] (60 min)
- 1 Pkgs London Ale (Wyeast Labs #1028)
- Single Infusion, Full Body
- 1.044 SG
Sounds like more excitement than anyone needs on brewday.
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