that went well

today was the day for kegging of the SPA, the infamous scorched plastic ale, hapless victim of an insufficient amount of stirring during the steep phase of extract brewing. that's right: my grain bag scorched on the bottom of the brewpot, spilling grains into the brew and leaving a frightfully nerve-wracking scorch mark on the stainless.

now, as if that weren't enough, this beer -- brewed to a recipe that i've made at least 3 times before, with no changes at all from the last time i made it -- smelled different during fermentation. like rotten eggs, in fact. yum! that was my first rotten eggy beer and for the entire two weeks of fermentation i worried about it, ceaselessly nagging my homebrewing pals to get them to commit to something more than a "probably nothing."

the good news is: the beer is fine. no sulphur, no taste of burnt plastic. in fact, it tastes -- and especially smells -- great!

and that, dear reader, is good news, for i suspect i'll be smelling a lot of this beer.

as i siphoned the SPA into its keg, i neared the bottom of the fermenter, and called to 203. when she's around for siphoning, i have her handle the output end of the siphon tube as we approach the yeast bed. on my mark, she can redirect the flow into the sink so we don't get too much crud in the new vessel. also, when kegging, she can put some in a cup for me to try. that was the plan and we'd done it nicely before.

now, when i keg/bottle/brew or pretty much any time i use the kitchen, the floor is covered in liquid. tonight, the liquid of choice was sanitizer fluid. good stuff. i called 203 a second time, since she had made no response the first time, and the beer level was getting pretty low. i ended my call with a "now" to signify that if she was to help me, it would have to be... wait for it... "now". well, "then", at this point. but "now", then.

now then. the trouble, you see, is that we had an urgency mismatch. i thought i intoned the "now" with the sort of inflection that indicates "now, but if you can't make it, i'll manage, since i've done this before", or "now, but it's not really emergency now, because i didn't shout it in emergency voice," or even, "now, but you know, not like 'immediately' or 'right this microsecond' because i wouldn't leave it till then since i always call with time to spare". but there was beer in the air (amazingly, in light of what i am about to reveal, none in either of our systems -- the following events happened entirely soberly).

apparently, somewhere between the kitchen and the patio, there exists in my apartment an Urgency Amplifier, and someone had cranked it all the way up to 11. the "now, please" passed through the UA and came out the other end as "OMG NOW I'VE DROPPED A KNIFE THROUGH MY EYE SOCKET" or something of that nature. 203 came racing into the kitchen with a speed that would have been envied by Superman, but with, alas, a lack of traction that would have been envied by the Astroglide corporation.

i missed most of the action because i blinked, but it seemed her feet went right into the dishwasher, her arms flailed around and smacked into my all clad (read: stainless steel) sanitizing bucket, and lord knows what her head did.

a "holy crap" escaped me, i think, and as i moved to panic, 203 suggested, through both laughter and proto-tears, that i continue what i was doing. actually, i think she got right up and offered to help. she didn't seem to be in the right shape for it, and she certainly wasn't in the right frame of mind. i tried to figure out just what the hell was happening, and gave up. i got my cup of beer, but decided that that was enough and left perhaps a pint in the fermenter as i chased 203 out of the kitchen to see if she was actually all right.

not exactly. fortunately, it seems as of now (an hour later) she has no major injuries besides a large bruise and a split toenail.

once i'd decided that 203 was more or less okay, i went back to panicking about my beer. i'd shaken the fermenter at that point and dropped the siphon tube into the dirty sink, so there was no way to recover the last pint for a while. so i decided to seal the keg and get it into the kegerator.

i sealed the keg and got to work cleaning the beer line. that went uneventfully enough. i pumped some CO2 into the keg, released the pressure valve (to remove excess atmosphere) and pumped more CO2 into the keg.

the beer lines cleaned, i brought out the beer line quick disconnect.

(somewhere in there i got reprimanded with my very first "you're not my father!" when i suggested, eveidently in a fatherly tone, something along the lines of "dont do that again". perhaps i won't ;)

i attached the beer line quick disconnect. with the CO2 connected at pressure.

"i think we're learning something" i commented, anything but dryly, as fresh beer spewed forth at tremendous velocity from the pressurized keg all over my DVD collection.

(for thems of you that have never operated a cornelius keg system, word of advice: the beer line quick disconnect opens the beer-out valve and so if the CO2 valve is open and the keg is pressurized, beer comes out. quickly. with great velocity.)

i yanked off the QD and shut the CO2 off.

then we took out many dvds and dried them, all while 203 was limping around with an icky sore toe.

i released the pressure from the keg, kept the valve off, connected the QD, and attached the beer line to the disconnect.

"all righty," i probably said, as i then proceeded to turn the CO2 pressure back on, since, of course, i'd have to do it again soon anyhow, so why not now?

recall the above where i cleverly said "we're learning something!"

i was just joking!

the faucet was not attached to the beer line, it was still being sanitized. pressurized beer shot through the open beer line and straight out the beer tower at 203's head.

203, thinking fast, extended her finger and plugged the line. once we finished laughing, i again shut off CO2 and released the pressure valve. the faucet was assembled, attached, and closed.

beer everywhere.

lost at least 3 pints just putting the gorram thing in the keg.

and then i went and broke my siphon starter trying to get the tube off.

that went well!