Not everything goes as planned...

The beer pipeline is not as robust as it once was. A weekend spent with friends/family and a hearty supply of good beer can quickly deplete your supply.

So the other night I decided it was time to brew again. I had put it off for too long. I decided to try a recipe from Kal's Electric Brewery called Electric Pale Ale. However - and this is where things began to go off the rails - I didn't have all the necessary ingredients to make an exact clone. So like any good homebrewer, I improvised.

And because it's really nothing like Kal's intended recipe, it's tentatively "Electric Pale Ale - Unplugged". I know, doesn't sound like something thirst-quenching, does it?

The first step was to mill my grain. The belt on the motor that drives the mill was too loose, so instead of stopping everything and trying to tighten, I was determined to get through it as best I could. That entailed doing some milling by hand, in small amounts, adjusting some settings....

Fiddling around took as much or more time than it would have taken had I tried to fix it proper. Still, a process which should have taken 5 minutes ended up going on for over 20 minutes.

The heating of my water and mashing process went as it should. Hell, I was making pretty good time and was getting excited about the finished product.

Then it was time to use my pump. Without getting into details about why this makes the brewing process so much easier, my pump didn't work. Refused to work. I checked the power - nothing. Re-adjusted it several times, moved it higher, tilted it to the left, took it apart and cleaned it, tried different power sources - nothing.

It meant I had to rely on good ole' gravity, a process which is common for many brewers but foreign to me.

So before I could do this, I would have to move my already heavy brew kettles (converted kegs called keggles) to various heights to ensure I would get good flow.

At this point one would perhaps think about packing it all in and call it a failed attempt, but I decided that I would chalk this up to a learning experience, and heck, I'm making beer and therefore could not possibly screw up a finished product if I don't at least see this thing through.

So that's what I did. And it is fermenting. And that is a good thing. Some of the best brew stories (and best tasting beer) have come from mistakes and missteps that generally don't get repeated unless you log everything. We'll see if this has a happy ending or not.

Thanks for reading. Now, here's something for viewing. It's quite funny.