We had to dump our first batch today.  Bacterial contamination?  Recipe miscalculation?  Procedure error?  No. Ants.  America’s hottest new biological import: the South American Crazy Raspberry Ant to be exact.  Do a little research on these buggers.  The little bastards apparently love electrical currents and will stop at nothing to fry themselves on the contacts that make my brew house pump motors run. 

            Technically, I didn’t have to dump the batch; I only had to drain the runnings and waste a mash tun full of grain.  Still. 

            It wasn’t a total loss.  Brian got a crash course on how the electrical system of our platform is put together during the three investigational hours spent finding the root of our problem.  The ants had waged some strange insect jihad on our power switch.

            I have some good news, though.  During the waiting process of our morning ordeal, we calculated the recipe for our winter seasonal.  It looks to be a heavy foreign style stout (1.070, just short of an Imperial) with an interesting malt profile.  Hopefully test batches will begin next week.

            The brewery was abnormally quiet today, due to the SNAFU and not one disc was spun in the CD player today.