Among the Living

Apologies for the lack of correspondence lately – once summer hit, the things to blog about gave way to relaxing nights and lack of motivation to write. Also, I’ve had a heck of a time finding time to write. These two things combine, and suddenly even weekly blogging becomes less likely.

Last week was pretty rad. Everyone in my house is finally starting to feel better, which is awesome. We’re finally able to actually enjoy summer, instead of suffering on sick beds. It’s nice to be back among the living. (Spreading the Disease, Among the Living…what’s going on here? I don’t listen to nearly enough Anthrax for all of these references).

Last Thursday night I got together with Ryan and Corey and did some brewing. We all hung out in Rhyno’s driveway with turkey burners, kettles, and beer recipes. It was a fantastic time.

I woke up the next day and, as I always do in these situations, I checked on my beer to see how it was coming. Nothing was going on with it, but I didn’t worry about it. I knew that it would start fermenting soon. I went to work.I got off at noon on Friday and went home to mow my lawn before the holiday weekend. I gasped, because the airlock on top of my beer had filled completely with beer and was oozing out onto the floor. I forced myself not to panic…in situations like this (according to books on the subject of brewing and the FAQ on http://www.midwestsupplies.com/, this is an ok occurrence, because the escaping CO2 is going up and bacteria isn’t usually getting into the beer in this situation. Luckily, I had another airlock. I sanitized it and replaced the other one with a fresh airlock.

Not fifteen minutes later, I heard the new airlock clatter to the floor as my vigorous fermentation blew it from the top of the glass carboy. Yikes.

I ended up rigging up a blowoff tube, which was something I’d never done. Thankfully my kit had the necessary tubing. It appears that all is well, although I’m worried that there’s been some contamination. I always worry about that, though. I really won’t be able to tell until I’m able to taste some of the beer when I bottle it. We’ll see.

Well, that’s enough of a blog for today, I’m thinkin’. I’ll recap the weekend’s travels sometime in the near future.