Ill begin by saying I am no professional writer nor will I take too much time editing my own drivel for fear of offending some literary scholar. I am a cellar-man at a small craft brewery and brewpub in Michigan. I love my job and it appears to love me, no matter how I try to fuck it up.
What a day to begin a blog on cellaring. After almost a year in the cellar having "caught on" quite rapidly and becoming pretty damn competent at my job. Today I fuck up royally while prepping for a canning day. (If your a brewer or a cellar you understand the terminology, if not just do your best to try to figure it out.) The day begins with taking a simple carb level with our trusty Zom meter. Although before I do I automatically assume that the beer needs a bump of carb for some damn reason. So I blast away for a few minutes, mind you, the head brewer took a reading the previous night and actually had MARKED on the tank (Carb level 2.60 ya dig?) I obviously didnt dig. After a few minutes of OVER carbing the beer I take a reading, "2.62!" I exclaim loudly. So the wheels are set in motion on my word. The mobile canning guys hook up, for the next couple of hours we crank out low pour after low pour. at a rate that would make any beer lover sick. especially the beer lover who is paying the bills for this monumental fuck up. Not until we later decide to double check the carb level do we discover that the ACTUAL reading was WAY above optimal canning levels therefor causing the low pour dilenma. Not the "2.62" I had so proudly announced earlier that day...SMH.
Now I understand that while I made a bad reading and was MOSTLY at fault for the loss of money there was blame to share. WE didnt have to continue to beat our head on the wall for as long as we did, somebody else could have also taken a carb reading for redundancy ect ect.. If anything good come of this is that I can learn from this mistake as an individual and WE can learn from it as an organization. But more importantly, it reminded me of how cathartic and therapeutic it is to write about issues in my life and created this blog so maybe at least someone else can learn from this as well!
From the cellar to you...
