Brewed a smoked porter. I brew inside on the kitchen range and during the boil the ceiling usually gets wet. It went well except - two days later the kitchen still smelled like a campfire. Like smoke damage.
Had to wipe down all the surfaces. It looked odd using a mop on the ceiling.
Disaster #2
Same smoked porter. I made a starter, pitched it, and 4 days later there was no fermentation. Instead, there were tiny islands of mold floating in the wort. My guess is the yeast was old and not viable - I had it for a while - and the starter was just cloudy from the original yeast.
I re-boiled the wort for a few minutes to kill the few floaties, made another batch of starter with fresh yeast, and re-pitched. It is now bubbling nicely.
Disaster #3
Same damn batch. With all that going on I forgot about the wet bag and grain in a bucket in the garage. Dumped the grain out and of course the bag was moldy in spots. OK, so I will just rinse it off. Nope. That stuff was stringy and clung together like black cat fur on white pants. I used a scrub brush to loosen and roll it into pill and wads and then pick it off. Blech.
That batch is evil, It looks black as a nightmare and smells smokey as a doorway to the underworld. I think I'll call it Old Scratch.
