PITA PORTER

Last Monday I planned on making a simple medium gravity porter to kick off the start of the 2003 brewing season. Everything was in place. Water drawn and mineralized, yeast starter at high krausen, grist milled, yeast weighed, pumps and plumbing assembled, and cooler cleaned. Everything looked ready for an interesting and fairly quick 4-5 hour brewing adventure. Well, it was an adventure. I understand that equipment wears and stuff happens but why is it always in multiples of three? I would have sworn I was working at a commercial brewery!! The actual brewing process went flawlessly. Hop additions were on time with the help of two timers. Strike water temperature exact. Mashing sparging collecting and original gravity all hit their targets. Things were going so well that I decided to have a beer. Well, I was in a brewery and it was a large glass. Here starts the interesting part. After knockout, I recirculated the bitter wort through pump and counterflow cooler to ensure sanitization. I opened the cooling water throttle valve and adjusted the flow. Started collecting cool wort in a carboy and everything seemed fine. Wondered why the lift pump (used to pump drain water to the laundry room) hadn't kicked on. I stopped wondering when my feet started getting wet. I read a posted article about what a professional brewer should do if faced with a power interruption or major calamity during brewing. His answer was to dump the stuff and start on the next batch as soon as possible. With his words clearly in mind, I decided I could salvage the beer, clean up the mess, and let the beer stand for a few more moments. Out to the garage for a spare garden hose to drain away the cooling water. I brought one hose down to the basement and connected it to the counterflow cooler. Routed it to the laundry sink and started the water. Guess why it was in the garage? Yep, it had a nice hole. Now I had two wet messes to mop up. Hose number two installed and functioning correctly - whew. Back to cooling bitter wort and making beer. Remember those messes? They hadn't gone anywhere yet so as the wort cooled, it was time to start mopping or at least get the mop and industrial mop bucket. Got the bucket and mop and dropped it in the deepest puddle. Something seemed to work. Put the mop between the rollers and started to wring it out. That's right - mop fell apart from corrosion. By now the beer was almost done cooling so I did the next logical thing. Waited for the beer to finish cooling, shut down the beer pump, and had another cold one. After the event, I threw all my rags on the floor. Who says you can't clean up a big mess with little rags? Anyhow, the beer is fermenting. The Ringwood yeast appears happy. The floor is dry and I need to go shopping for a new and improved sump pump. Understand the name PITA PORTER? Have a great day and hope to see you at the beer festival tomorrow. The MHBA will be serving up a selection of various brewing waters from around the area. Come by and have a sample or two. Rick Oftel VP MHBA