Homebrew mistakes you've gotten away with...

[JackoNZ]

OK some Friday fun. There must be heaps out there to share amongst the community. I'll start:

1) After adding my yeast to the fermenter of a new batch of ESB I noticed the tap was slightly leaking and wouldn't seem to stop. I panicked that I hadn't actually tightened it up properly so lathered up the arm in star san solution and went in elbow deep, only to find the tap was tightened right up!

2) Whilst adding my grains to the pot (BIAB) I put 4 clothes pegs on the rim to stop the voile slipping down. I was almost done with the grain when I clipped one of the pegs and it went straight into the mash and sunk, had 5 minutes of trying to find the bugger only to give up. I was a bit worried I might be leaching plastic into the mash but this was my WnBC winning stout, so obviously not!

C'mon there must be some crackers out there....

[Mark]

i love it when people tell you that "homebrewing will save you money"

[James P]

Im speechless studio1..... I have not been allowed in the house since brewing on the stove days with my wife being pregnant. She vomited and I was sent outside, end of story.... I didn't get a second chance!

[Mark Kessell]

well i ended up brewing a IIPA that accidentally turned into a barleywine...

[JoKing]

I have had my share of fuck ups throughout the years.

My first All Grain brew was an Aventinus clone thaat I'd been working on for ages. Finally plucked the courage to brew it. I used the bucket in a bucket lautering system with 2mm holes drilled into the bottom of the first bucket. The mash went allright in my chillybin - the transfer to lauter was OK. The lauter was a joke. All the wheat kernels went side on to block the holes. In the end I had to take it all out of the LT and into a muslin bag. Missed the SG by a bit - but the brew was OKish.

Another one was after having thrown out the Double Bucket system - I had a plastic outlet valve in an MLT that got a bit loose. Wort and Mash pissed all over the place. I ended up sitting next to the MLT for half an hour pushing the valve in place - and stayed there throughout the entire sparge.

In another brew - I pretty much did the same as above... can't remember what it was. I might have dislodged the false bottom. Anyway - the net result was me trying to put it back in place with my arm in 66 degree mash.

I have had COUNTLESS stuck sparges. Fixing those is allways a real panic!

I had a brew that I was putting into the fermenter - and a fruit fly ended up getting mixed into the transfer.

When I got a new carboy I figured that the bung hole hole was the same size as my other one. I pushed a dirty old airlock that was firmly attached to the bung into a high gravity brew. It floated there for weeks as the ferment was taking place. Beer was OK - but had a month of worry with that one. I use tin foil over the top of them now.

I've dropped heaps of plastic utensils into the kettle. Like the thing that you put onto the scale - ened up deforming it.

A real doozy was when I used to mash in my electric kettle. I figured I could do a step mash by turning the element on. Anyone tasted a beer that someone put a cigarette out in? Thats what 20 Liters of this Weizenbock tasted like.

I could go on - but I don;t think you guys have enough time in the day! Most of the results for me - I didn't get away with! Maybe a few... but the majority ended up in horrible beer.

Like - I pitched one of those little bottles that I got from Dunedin Malt House into 20 Liters of 1.080 Belgian Strong. I think after 5 days it STARTED fermenting... after a month it finished... after a YEAR I managed to palm of HALF of the batch to unsuspecting "friends".

I made a Hoegaarden clone from recultured (from the bottle) Hoegaarden. The net result was as though I had brewed a beer and fermented it with Champange yeast... hold on a minute... looks like I did!

I think about 90% of my fuckups was before I had discovered this forum. I had worked out a pretty good system / routine that prettymuch eliminated the chances of me fucking up by that time, which pissed me off a bit. So to all newbies / lurkers - don't be scared by taking advise from these forums... it has worked for many - I just wish I was one of the lucky ones who discovered this forum BEFORE I started brewing!

[MrC]

Nice one Jo.

I made a Hoegaarden clone from recultured (from the bottle) Hoegaarden. The net result was as though I had brewed a beer and fermented it with Champange yeast... hold on a minute... looks like I did!
I have the equivalent sitting in a keg at the moment after harvesting yeast from a couple of La Trappe bottles. I'll be tipping it out as soon as I need the keg.

[MrC]

lol, I've done exactly that also. Rubber gloves make submerged manifold reassembly a lot less painful.

[MrC]

Here's an interesting little cock-up I had with my latest Pale Ale (B-Sharp).

I was chilling my wort in my usual manner by floating my two 19L pots in the bath half filled with cold water. NOTE: The pots are covered, about 70% full and slowly float around the bath allowing the cold water to access the side and bottom of the pots. After about 10min the bath water had warmed substantially and it was time to change the water so I removed the plug and started draining the bath water. I have done this many, many times without issue.

As the water level in the bath dropped, a small whirlpool appeared over the drain and the pots continued to float around the bath. I stood back and admired the beautiful site of two pots of homebrewed wort floating and chilling in a bath of cold water.

Then, suddenly, yet in slow motion, one of the pots drifted over the drain and was sucked downwards onto the drain completely submerging the pot with approximately 2cm of water above the top of the pot. FAAARK!!!! I said as I quickly, yet in slow motion, ran over to the bath and pulled the pot off the bottom of the bath.

As it turned out, I think there was some kind of suction seal on the pot from the cooling wort and it appeared that no/minimal bath water had entered the wort. The beer was great with no apparent side effects from a potentially disastrous bath chilling incident.

Phew!

[Mike Neilson]

Speaking of chilling, I have 2 hoses one with a non return on it for some reason it ended up on the hot side of the chiller, turn the water on, after about 30 sec no drop in temp I start searching for the problem than BANG!!!!!!!!! (hose blew off the chiller) Garage full of steam and 70 deg water pouring everywhere but the boiled wort maybee a few splashes. Anway beer turned out good garage dried out and smashed the non return valve apon cooling wort. Since this has happend I have wonder why the fuck they ever invented them? like if you were rich you would have and end for your hose to water the garden with but when your poor you only have a non return valve at the end of your hose it make's fucken hard work trying to water the garden with the end of one of those!!

[Chris Banks]

Lol I bet you dont have non return valves on your hoses any more!

Sparging 500g steeped grains into the kettle through a plastic handled sieve CRACK handle snapped clean
off seive and all its contents straight in the kettle 1/2 an hour later I had retrived most of it from the near boiling wort thankfully beer turned out fine!

Couple of brews before that I went down to the garage to do a gravity check only to find my pale ale pooling on the floor under the fermenter around the tap and you guessed it the more I tightened the tap the worse it leaked ended up racking it into flagons no sterilizing nothing but dry hopped the hell out of it!
Turned out to be the best batch I have done of that recipe to date!

[Stu McKinlay]

I had this same problem as Mike on my last brew day but it caused the hose to fly off the tap at the outside wall. Plenty of cold water flowing everywhere but through my immersion chiller. Ditched non-return valve!