Conditioning Gromit

My mom always says, "knowledge is power"...



Exhibit A



Well I can honestly tell you, this whole thing has certainly been a learning experience.

For instance, you need to learn to adapt.  When we went to sanitize the carboy for the conditioning stage of our black cherry witbier (affectionately referred to as "Gromit", or less affectionately referred to as "Ornery Bastard"), the kitchen sink nozzle was stuck.  Wouldn't budge.  So, we went over to the bathroom sink and used that instead.

We also learned that when filling up the carboy, don't turn away for even ONE SECOND!  We did, and the plastic tubing magically lifted itself out of the glass container and proceeded to spray water E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E...

See exhibit A (above) 

Once my OCD tendencies were under control and we fully towel dried the bathroom floor (at least we know its clean now right?), we proceeded to transfer Gromit from the bucket to the glass carboy.  The picture above shows the foamy, yeasty layer that was on top.  It's a sight like this that makes you wonder, "is making beer at home is actually worth it?"

Um, of course it is!  Trick question!

Anyway, before we transferred the beer, we wanted to add the very essential black cherry concentrate to the carboy.  It smelled delicious!

Here's the set up mid-transfer.  Working auto-syphon?  Check

The leftovers, including a yeast-filled bucket and the black cherry concentrate

And that was it!  Gromit will sit there for another week or so and get happy...

Or not

See, when sugar and yeast are mixed together, it creates gas.  Gas needs to escape somewhere, which is what the airlock is for.  Apparently, the black cherry concentrate (although labeled "sugar free"), must have contained some dissolvable sugars (4% in fact after reading the label, we're SMRT).  So boys and girls, what does this mean exactly?  It means we had a reprise of what happened Sunday morning when the airlock blew and there was brown foam everywhere. 

Throughout the course of the night Gromit covered itself, the towels, the floor and even the walls in one case with brown foam because the sugars from the black cherry concentrate activated the yeast.  At times we were just sitting and watching TV and you'd hear the airlock blow with a "pop" sound.  We would just look at each other with a look of "Gromit's at it again."  It just became a lossing battle to constantly clean up, so we decided to just let it do it's thing...

Thankfully this only went on for a day or so until the fermentable sugars were processed and Gromit calmed itself down.

Finally, I know everyone reading this post is a totally loyal follower and understands every reference I make, BUT for those of you who are just joining us, above is a picture of the reason we are calling this latest beer "Gromit".  That little, round, black sucker fell in the bucket when we were attaching the airlock at the very last stage of the beer making process.  So that little guy has been sitting in the bottom of the fermenting bucket for the past week.  If this beer is as stellar as I hope it is, you can bet that I will be throwing it in to subsequent batches!

Next up on the homebrew calendar, we will be tasting the "Hot Toddie Ale" we bottled a little while ago.  Consdiering all of the errors we made, we're not too optimistic =/