A starter of Wyeast 3068 is apparently a monster… It was spewing out of my airlock this morning. Was quite a surprise I wasn’t ready for at 5:30 AM. At least it wasn’t all over the walls. Just the carboy lid. This brew has been plagued with more setbacks then I ever experienced in brewing. I was given the wrong extract (didn’t find out until after I sparged) so I had to get it replaced (wasn’t a huge deal, but delayed my boil for a long time), my tap water has decided it doesn’t want to come out cold for whatever reason now, so I could only get the wort down to 100F or so. My autosiphon decided to clog up on me when transferring the wort and then blow out onto the kitchen floor in my attempt to unclog it. I ended up cooling the wort by pouring it into the fermenter with near freezing water. It got the temp to 65 and I was happy. And now I am just rambling and have probaby gone way off topic, but I’ve been hitting my head against the wall at work for the past 8 hours because of people’s stupidity, and working on a project that people are trying to overly complicate.
Man, when one thing slips it can set off a whole chain reaction. I’ve had that brew day and its very hard to RDWHAHB when sh*t is going sideways on you! However, its just beer. So, Relax, dont worry…
When something like this happens and brewing becomes stressful, it’s time to change something in my process for the better or take a break. Last time this happened I decided to decrease my stress by getting the grains measured out and milled the night before I brew, as well as the water I need for mash and sparge. It’s greatly reduced the amount of stress I have on brew day.
+1
The brew day is much more pleasant if I can set up and prep the night before. With everything in place, all I need to do is strike a match, start the coffee and ease into a great day making great beer. The extra time not only reduces stress and likelyhood of error but it also give more time to really think about your recipe and perhaps make last minute tweaks or corrections.
Thanks for the reassurance!
I’m going to just wait it out and see what happens post-fermentation. I have another beer planned for Monday and will probably have everything ready to go on Sunday night. Getting up again at 5:30 AM but I am off from work, so it is going to be an early morning brew day.