So, for most of the day, my lap had either a toddler, and infant, a cat, or a computer occupying it. Not a bad day, in other words.
In lieu of brewing, I managed to get some racking done, about 20 gallons worth. The two batches of cider from the cider pressing are now put up to age for a while. The cider from the buy wasn't so lucky -- I appear to have some preservative-laden stuff in those batches. The maple cider, which I was most excited about, hasn't started fermenting even after 3 doses of yeast. The other one, which I was planning to spike with brown sugar and raisins, managed to ferment somehow, so I'll be keeping that a straight cider rather than pushing it by adding more sugar. Just for giggles, though, I racked it to a keg with a few toasted oak cubes.
While planning this racking session, I noticed that my Raspberry pseudo-Lambic had developed a few spots of mold on its pellicle. Time to rack that (and consign some tubing etc. to the "funky squad" -- Lambics have some nasty, tenacious bugs). That racking was the highlight of the night.
First, I had to deal with the clogging. Between the raspberries and the pellicle, there was enough solid matter to clog the siphon. Since I was siphoning directly to a keg through the liquid disconnect, I tried taking the shutoff valve and "poppet" assemblies out, to see if that freed things up. It worked -- it seems that the disconnect's shutoff assembly is most prone to blocking, rather than the actual keg post. Handy for getting the stuff in, if not out...
Then came the clean-up, probably the most disgusting one I've ever done (and not just brewing related -- I'm hard pressed to find a nastier clean-up I've ever done, and yes this includes diaper blowouts, vomits, fuzzy leftovers, etc.). Between the very thick, rugged pellicle, the slimy sediment, and the spent raspberry fragments, the texture was reminiscent of fish guts and/or roughly chopped animal lungs (Mmmm... Haggis). Of course it still smelled of vinegar and pickle juice which made it all the more disturbing (although, of course, preferable to the smell of fish guts). I was glad to finally get that all worked down the drain. Whew.
And to think, not two months ago, I had stuck a turkey baster into this, drawn out a sample, and actually ingested this stuff (it tasted ... good?). Perfect Steve, don't eat it moment, if you ask me....