It's no use crying over spilt milk, but this is beer!

[Garry]

I did the kit brew demonstration this Saturday at the Franciscan Well Brew-it-yourself gig. Fair play to Shane from HBC for giving us a Copper's IPA kit with 1kg of DME.

All went well. I did the brew and answered questions. Everyone happy. I took the FV home that evening and put it in the garage with the temperature set to 20°C.

When I checked it Sunday morning it looked great. The temperature was spot on and there was a nice foamy krausen on top.

I'm going to wander off a bit now. I don't get to watch TV anymore these days. My TV has been taken over by Fireman Sam and the like. When the kids are in bed it's all Fair City, Coronation Street etc. Sunday night is the only night I get 2 hours in front of the thing to myself. For the last few weeks I've been following "For the Love of Cars" and "Fargo" on Channel 4. Two great shows back to back.

I'm watching my show's last night and I got a bit of a thirst during one of the breaks. So I ran out to the garage to grab a bottle. When I opened the door I could get the smell from the IPA straight away. I thought, "this one is flying it!" Then I noticed the floor covered in beer :X I had a look at the FV and I could see that I was after losing 2 litres. I couldn't see where it was leaking though. My first fear was that some furry f#cker got in and chewed a hole in the bucket! After a bit of examination I saw that the tap washer was squashed. I'd tightened the tap too much. Should've gone to specsavers! I was very pissed off at this stage and wasn't going to miss Fargo over it, so I went back inside and watched the show.

I was seriously contemplating  letting it drip away to f#ck! But my conscious got the better off me and I racked it into a fresh bucket afterwards. I got 17 litres into the new FV (I originally had 20l). I checked it again this morning and it appears to be doing OK. Fingers crossed, we'll get a few beers out of it yet.

Lesson learned. It wasn't the tap's fault I tightened it too much.

[johnrm]

I feel your pain.

As the washer is on the outside of the bucket, hold the tap solidly in place and tighten the nut on the inside.
Tightening the tap the washer may slip out.

[Garry]

I know that's the correct way to do it. It's just so much easier to tighten it from the outside. The tap is like a lever and you have more room too. I won't be doing it like that again though!

[beerfly]

almost did that myself last batch, just noticed at the last second the washer was squished out of place

[Ger Cork]

At least Garry all the milk / beer was not spilt!!!!!

Ger