Just wanted to share the fruits of my own stupidity so that others can avoid them.
I have have two Grainfather conical fermenters and have had great results from them for a while. On my second to last brew, my newer fermenter was proving difficult to dispense from when it came to kegging the brew, and the older one pretty much came to a halt at my last batch - nothing was coming out of the tap at all. I thought to myself, my goodness, has the trub built up to such an extent that it's blocked the valve liquid inlet? I did some ill-advised fishing around with a sanitised arm in my beer, and found the valve to be totally clear. I ended up having to siphon the beer out of the top of the fermenter into the corny keg.
When I was cleaning the equipment I discovered the problem: the tap was entirely choked with stray grains, hop bits and all sorts of junk that I'd washed down there while cleaning the fermenter after having taken the valve out. I'd washed it out, taken off the tap, given that a superficial rinse and not realised that I'd been washing all the crusted debris from the top of the fermenter down there first. Very glad all my beers have survived that ghastly gauntlet of gunk so far!
Every day's a school day.
I have have two Grainfather conical fermenters and have had great results from them for a while. On my second to last brew, my newer fermenter was proving difficult to dispense from when it came to kegging the brew, and the older one pretty much came to a halt at my last batch - nothing was coming out of the tap at all. I thought to myself, my goodness, has the trub built up to such an extent that it's blocked the valve liquid inlet? I did some ill-advised fishing around with a sanitised arm in my beer, and found the valve to be totally clear. I ended up having to siphon the beer out of the top of the fermenter into the corny keg.
When I was cleaning the equipment I discovered the problem: the tap was entirely choked with stray grains, hop bits and all sorts of junk that I'd washed down there while cleaning the fermenter after having taken the valve out. I'd washed it out, taken off the tap, given that a superficial rinse and not realised that I'd been washing all the crusted debris from the top of the fermenter down there first. Very glad all my beers have survived that ghastly gauntlet of gunk so far!
Every day's a school day.
