Feeling like one lucky SOB

[Woodchip]

So, last Saturday I started my first ever brew (from a concentrate kit). Boiled the 4 litres of water, warmed up the concentrate, mixed it all together, added the sugar, blah blah blah. Lovely. Filled up the remaining 18ish litres of water and saw my tap was leaking on my FV. Not so lovely!!! So, without further ado, I sprayed my arm with sanitiser and took the plunge (in hindsight probably not the best of things to do). Tightened up the nut on the back and stuck it in the cupboard to work its magic.

Monday there are some pretty funky smells coming from the cupboard, but as it doesn't smell like a rotting corpse I assume it must be normal.

Moving on to Wednesday, which was a bitterly cold day here in Christchurch, NZ, and I check the temperature and it's down at 15-16c. Bugger!!! So I turn the heat pump up to 24 for the night and it lifts it to by Friday morning (I hate to think what that cost in electric). The 5-7 days comes and goes and the gravity is about 1012 (aiming for 1004 according to the kit). Last night I checked and it's gravity is down at 1004. Checked again today and still at 1004 so took a little taste. It tastes exactly like warm slightly flat lager.

Morale of the story, when it all seems to be going wrong the brew is pretty resilient (and I am damn lucky to get away with stuffing my arm in the brew).

[orlando]

Surgeons wash the hell out of there arms and, admittedly with gloves as well, they plunge them in your body. You can look at sanitising your arm as spraying with a sanitiser. I've done the same thing and I too got away with it, brew was lovely.

Of course infections do aoocur in hospitals so it is to be avoided but rather that than losing a brew.