Long ass day....

Jeebus, I'll probably take forever to digest all the shit that went wrong today but I think once and for all I've proven that I am not smarter than the people that have taken the time to write brewing software.  I haven't calculated it yet, but my results are going to be terrible, like maybe 50% efficiency.  I have a few ideas of what went wrong, I know there where several mistakes on my part that made the day more stressful for sure, but I'm not positive what I did wrong.  I started the say with nearly 27lbs of grain and ended the day with just at 5 gallons of beer that was 1.0985 OG.  How I boiled 4 gallons off in a 90 minute boil is a little beyond me why I only had 9 gallons in the pot is a little mystery of shit math and poor planning.  I should not have brewed today.  I intended to brew tomorrow, but my wife wanted to go day tripping tomorrow so I compressed my day of planning and supply gathering and ended up screwing up.

Mistakes I made.  I had 25lbs of grist to work with my 5 gallon painters bags are not big enough to handle that.  They really cannot handle 13lbs very well but it is doable.  I only had 1 of 5 gallon painters bags.  I should not have pressed on at this point.  I should have stopped and rationally dealt with it.  I did not.  I ended up going and buying more bags anyway, but I not before over filling one and dunking it into the water.  This was an absolute fuck up.  I ended up with grain floating around in the pot that I took to boil and consequently in the finished wort that I tried to transfer to my fermenter.  The free floating grain was a major headache and I violated so many cold side rules that have kept my beer from getting infected with outside contaminates that I am not sure if there is any hope of it coming out ok.  I am at this point praying that brewers yeast can out compete and kill any potential infections but at this point I have mentally readied myself for throwing it out.

Reading that sentence turns my stomach, but I think it needs to be open as an option if I sample this and its infected.  I need to be ready for it.  The only thing that gives me a good deal of hope is the steady bubble of the airlock next to me, and the taste of the "failed" Mac & Jack's I'm drinking.  This beer needs to be my mascot for the night.  I missed on this beer in terms of the style and flavor I envisioned when I brewed it as my first "sour" beer (pro-tip it isn't a sour beer and that's why I failed) but it is a nice beer in its own way.  Little on the low gravity side with only 4.6% but still a nice beer when you want a light body amber.  When I bottled it I swore up and down that I was going to have to pitch it but the beer is fine.  Not the best I've ever done, but fine.  I'll tear apart the day tomorrow, but I started the brewing at noon and finished washing everything and putting my garage back together at 11pm.  I'm tired and feeling a little beat down.

As a sick the universe warned me, my horoscope told me not to spend my financial windfall, and as it would not turn out as I hoped.  Well fuck you horoscope, and superstition in general.