# Worst Brewing Disaster. Ever!



## SJW (16/3/04)

I have only been brewing since christmas so have only had the chance for one brewing disaster. It's an oldy but goody. It was my first Lager bottled at 1018.
It was not all bad in the end but the disaster was after being bottled for one week i decided to knock the tops of em all and re cap. I lined them all up on the kitchen bench and proceeded to knock the tops off, rapied fire style. I did them all and looked back at them all to see 29 long necked gushers. I had beer all over the kitchen and am surprised the Mrs let me brew again after that.
Anyway fellas i'm sure you have some clasic Homebrew Disasters you would like to share.


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## Gough (16/3/04)

That's pretty impressive SJW. Can't really compete with that :lol: :lol: Worst I've done so far (fingers crossed) is the old 'leave the tap on the secondary open, beer all over the floor when racking' trick that most of us have managed at least once. Was a 'learning experience'...

Shawn.


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## Justin (16/3/04)

Yep, I've left the tap open before, both on a fermenter and on the boil kettle while sparging. I caught both in time but you do feel like a right idiot. I'm sure everyone has pushed a rubber grommet into the fermenter when inserting the airlock too. This usually happens on your first brew, after this you never forget because it's such a tramatic experience and your worried you infected your first brew. I've done it once and I'll never do it again.

I broke my immersion heater (fish tank one, thermostatically controlled 18-30oC, very sad  ) one night at 1am in the morning by dropping it into the sink. I had just bottled a brew to free up the fermenter for the next days brew. This was the night before my first all-grain brew that I was brewing with 5 other guys. First time on my system, first all-grain, and then brewing in a different enviroment (ie. not at home) so I had to make sure I took absolutely everything with me. Anyway, I was being particularly careful not to drop it in the sink while washing it. And I did. Bugger.

No bottle bombs though. I never even get a brew near a bottle inside 2 weeks. I don't need to produce beer at that rapid a pace so the extra days in the fermenter don't hurt. Other than that my brewing has been relatively event free, touch wood. No doubt there will be more to come.

I have read some great stories on some other forums though. Dangerous stuff this homebrewing.

Cheers, JD


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## Gout (16/3/04)

I have knocked the tap off the fermenter on the door while walking with a fermenter full of beer and it all spewed out 

also droped a full 22Lt of AG ale once i had cooled it at abour 1:30am when i finally finished for all of it to go to waste on the grass
GRRRRRRR, better than the floor though


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## kook (16/3/04)

http://members.iinet.net.au/~wobsmum1/000_0176.JPG

I've had three bottle explosions. Two were tooheys old stubbies, and one was a 2 litre overprimed coke bottle. The photo is of my brew room ceiling, after the coke bottle explosion. I had to mop the ceiling with bleach!

They were all very early brews though (over a year ago now), and my technique for priming back then had many flaws  Infact my brewing technique had many flaws!


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## SJW (16/3/04)

Nice Kook, real nice.


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## Batz (16/3/04)

I've also left the tap open while racking

And the first Wyeast I did , when ready to pitch I gave it an almighty shake up , wanted to airate it !
Then opened the bottle , Wyeast from " bum hole till breakfast time " !


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## Wreck (16/3/04)

Once I was rehydrating my yeast whilst preparing everything else. After getting everything into the fermenter, I reached over to get the cup which the yeast was sitting in, and knocked it over, spilling everything over the bench. 

Didn't have any other packets of yeast, so I quickly ran down to Big W, bought another coopers kit, ripped the yeast out of that and pitched it. 

All worked out ok in the end.


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## pioneergangsta (16/3/04)

Well, one nite not too long ago,,,was relaxing on the lounge when...smash bang crash!
Result seen below - bottle tree fell over, it was ontop of a fridge. Lucky i only lost like 3 longnecks, so not too bad in that i didnt lose a brew!


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## Jazman (16/3/04)

well in lucky had a faulty cooper fermenter and lost 10 litres of black ipa also had a few gushers and bottle bombs when i couldn not what to drink them

when i fist started brewing 7 years ago i got a cider kit for the misses and she like stuff sweet and he said put 1/2 a tab of sugarine tab in the bottle when u prime and guess what in the spare room bombs were going off and every night around 2 in the morning bang a bomb would go of and scarer the shit out of us so after that i poured it over the lawn never done a cider since anyway i hate the shit


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## wee stu (16/3/04)

I sometimes dream of the day a brew goes right! 

My worst brewing disaster, though, happened in the safety of the home brew shop. 

It was early days, and I wanted to start bulk priming and racking. So, I popped off to Grumpy's to get a second fermenter. Twas a busy Saturday arvo and everyone was working in the bar/cafe - nobody to help me in the brewshop. Couldn't find any fermenters for a while, until I looked up and spotted a nice stack of thirty or so, on their nice round sides, on a shelf above head height. 

I reached up and grabbed the first one ...... and then the rest of them started to roll ......  Thirty fermenters start to roll very slowly, but they gather a good head of speed as they start to crash down, one by one, on a careless customer's head.  In the end I was about the only thing left standing in a pile of fermenters. Luckily nothing suffered lasting damage, except perhaps my pride  . The Grumpys even felt so sorry I scored a free pint of pale ale to help in the recovery process.  :chug: 

Was a while before I was willing to show my face in the store again, though h34r:


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## Gough (16/3/04)

Top darts Wee Stu. Don't know that anyone can top that one. :lol: :lol: Gave me a good laugh anyway. With you of course, not at you  Sounds like something I could easily have done...

Shawn.


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## Barry (17/3/04)

Good Day
Yes, most of those mentioned above.
All the best, Barry.


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## popsy (17/3/04)

Went to bottle one day, moved the fermenter outside to sit on the deck and was cleaning 2nd fermenter to bulk prime. SWMBO began hollering then dragged me out shopping for a few hours. Did not think to move fermented beer.

Returned home eager to finish the chore of bottling, only to find my two dogs had chewed the tap enough for the beer to be slowly leaking out, and were also helping themselves to the said leaking liquid.

Poor bastards, they only got through about 22.5 litres of the stuff. Even if heaps fell on the ground, they still managed to get a pretty good session in.

Needless to say it was an interesting evening dealing with the results of their indulgence.


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## Boots (17/3/04)

ROFLMAO :lol: 

Popsy - that's the funniest thing i've read in ages. Absolute gold.


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## johnno (17/3/04)

popsy, are they keen, come bottling day now. :lol: :lol:


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## Hopeye (17/3/04)

Yup, Yup, and Yup,

3 Bottle bombs (different batches). Happend twice at parties and once when I gave a couple of stubbies to a mate to try.... He wasn't too impressed trying to explain the shaving nicks on his forehead...

2 Open Taps. Once on the floor in the shed and once in the sink. Caught them pretty quickly though.

2 Boil over's on SWMBO's cooker (same batch), sh*t what a mess. 

1 fish head brew. I ferment in my shed (read garage). After one summer's party we had, the missus left a bag of prawn heads and shells in the shed (by mistake she says). After three days of 30+ temps, the shed stunk like sh*t. The bitter that was fermenting in the shed (in an esky with water and ice bottles) somehow acquired the aroma and flavour of the smell. The one and only brew I've had to toss. :chug:


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## johnno (17/3/04)

This isnt really related to homebrew but it is about beer.
I know a lot of people wont aknowledge this as a disaster and will say it was a good thing that happened but here goes.
Back in 87-88 I worked at the CUB plant in abbotsford for about 15 months.
My job there was what they call a "pumpman". There was always 2 people doing this job together.
Basically when the beer is ready to move from the conditioning tanks to be filtered through the "jets" then on to packiging. You got a call from the "jet" operator instructing you which tanks in which cellar you had to connect via the main "pumps" room. This room you stepped dpwn onto it via 4 or 5 steps from ground level Once you had them connected you just sat back and didnt do much really as the volumes wee so high.
Anyway I cant remember for sure now if it was fortnightly or weekly that the lines had to be cleaned with a couple of different solutions one being good old caustic soda.
On this particular Saturday my partner was away sick and I was left alone to clean the lines.
I went ahead and started cleaning lines by making some connections in the pumps room then moving on to another cellar to make some more connections.
Half an hour later on my way back to the pumps room I noticed a shitload of beer pissing out of the pumps room onto the outside ground of thr plant. Making my way there I realized I had left a connection open. I swear I had to swim through the beer to get there and close this thing off. I knew I was a goner. Finally closed it and went and reported to the foreman. He was ok about it. Later we estimated that about 40 to 50,000 litres had been lost.
But thats not all folks.
Next monday they discovered that I had left a holding tank open that was approximately half full. These were the new 4000 kilolitre tanks. I had run the caustic soda into this tank. Yes I screwd up a lot of beer.
I got taken up to the "big" bosses office and was told that this was not a warning. Any more screwups and I was outa there mega quickly.
I later found out that they tried to get rid of me but couldnt as they had left me alone on a job that 2 people were supposed to be doing.
Anyway thats one disaster.

cheers


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## THE DRUNK ARAB (17/3/04)

johnno said:


> This isnt really related to homebrew but it is about beer.
> I know a lot of people wont aknowledge this as a disaster and will say it was a good thing that happened but here goes.
> Back in 87-88 I worked at the CUB plant in abbotsford for about 15 months.
> My job there was what they call a "pumpman". There was always 2 people doing this job together.
> ...


 Ladies, Gentleman and bald headed kids, we have a WINNER!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## BarneyG (17/3/04)

Jonno, that's the best story ever :lol: :lol: Maybe its karma for CUB putting out some terrible beer.


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## SJW (17/3/04)

Congrats JOHNO, i see why u only work with 23 litres at a time now.


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## Justin (17/3/04)

I wonder if it tasted better with Caustic? Could have been a new seasonal beer, kill the taste buds then drink CUB to your hearts content.

Top work Johnno, and don't feel bad think of how many tastebuds you were saving from that beer.

Cheers, Justin


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## Doc (17/3/04)

I'm crying.
Crying because it is funny not that CUB lost 40000 litres of beer  

Doc


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## Murray (17/3/04)

That is a terrible disaster! I would be traumatised for years after having to swim through CUB beer.


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## GMK (17/3/04)

Johnno

I think you deserve a prize for that..........

What say you all!


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## Gough (17/3/04)

Johnno definitely deserves a prize! :lol: 

On another note, we all now know why VB tastes like it does and gives such bad hangovers... Caustic!

Shawn.


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## Batz (17/3/04)

Gotta agree with everyone else Johnno

You win !!! :lol: :lol:


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## Green Iguana (17/3/04)

Give Jonno the prize...best beer story ever..


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## Hopeye (17/3/04)

Definite winner. But, I'm not sure I would call it a brewing disaster...... More of a success as that was 40,000 litres less that CUB could unleash on the public.......

:chug:


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## Murray (17/3/04)

Hopeye said:


> Definite winner. But, I'm not sure I would call it a brewing disaster...... More of a success as that was 40,000 litres less that CUB could unleash on the public.......
> 
> :chug:


 Don't forget what was in the half-full 4,000,000L tank!


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## Hopeye (17/3/04)

Murray said:


> Don't forget what was in the half-full 4,000,000L tank!


 Yeah, I guess there's the environmental damage to be considered. That much poison being dumped and all.........



:chug:


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## wee stu (17/3/04)

Murray said:


> Hopeye said:
> 
> 
> > Definite winner. But, I'm not sure I would call it a brewing disaster...... More of a success as that was 40,000 litres less that CUB could unleash on the public.......
> ...


 Reckon they closed the new living national treasures list too early. Johnno should be on - for services to brewmanity!


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## Doc (17/3/04)

I managed to succeed in spraying the majority of the kitchen this morning.
I was using my counter pressure bottle filler to fill some bottles for the Bathurst comp and on the first bottle I had the gas pressure a little too high.
All of a sudden there is a fountain of beer all over me, the kitchen roof, the floor, up the windows, all throughout my keg fridge.
So I'm standing there muttering under my breath trying to see through my glasses when the wife comes in. 
Takes one look at the floor the windows and me and says my god my kitchen smells like a brewery. Phew, that was close. Thanks thats a compliment I said.
The following 4 bottles all filled fine.
Think I have the knack of using the CPBF now  
Not too good at washing floors though  

Beers,
Doc


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## Guest Lurker (17/3/04)

Wow Johnno

40,000 l lost in the first lot.
Half a 4000 kL tank in the second lot = 2,000,000l

Total 2,040,000 l

At a retail value of say $3/l, YOU ARE the six million dollar man!

Prizeworthy indeed.


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## johnno (17/3/04)

johnno said:


> Later we estimated that about 40 to 50,000 litres had been lost.
> But thats not all folks.
> Next monday they discovered that I had left a holding tank open that was approximately half full. These were the new 4000 kilolitre tanks. I had run the caustic soda into this tank. Yes I screwd up a lot of beer.


 oops better rectify that. they were the new 400 kilolitre tanks. About 5-6 storeys high.
Its been a while now.

cheers


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## Murray (17/3/04)

Ah, only 240,000 total litres of poison lost.


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## Hoops (17/3/04)

Johnno that is awesome!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 

I have kicked the tap of a fermenter just before bottling - beer ran from the laundry into the carpeted family room,
have steeped grain in a pot, moved the pot, burned hands and dropped the pot - beer throughout the kitchen,
and Doc I feel for you, I borrowed a CPBF, filled the bottle but forgot to release the pressure in the bottle. When I whipped off the rubber bung I had one hell of a gusher. Fountain of beer in the rumpus room - luckily it was tiled.

Hoops


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## Goat (17/3/04)

Good work Johnno - but it begs the question; what did you do before you left ......?

did you torch the joint or something?


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## big d (17/3/04)

maybe johnno invented sterling.


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## johnno (17/3/04)

:lol: :lol: :lol: I've really had a lot of laughs to the responses. I wasnt sure if i wanted to come clean and confess but what the heck, I feel better for it.

Goat as you can imagine they really got on my back and gave me the crappiest job in the brewing dept after that. The shift work was driving me nuts as well so I left not long after.

cheers


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## Hoops (17/3/04)

I'd be surprised now days if they didn't try to sue the worker for something like that. Bloody lawyers.


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## Jazman (17/3/04)

well we should chip in and pay people to muck up the cub megaswill muck


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## Trev (18/3/04)

Johnno,

You realise of course that because of your cock-up the powers-to-be at CUB discovered that adding Caustic Soda to their swill actually improved the taste!

We now have it added to each and every batch. I further understand that they have found that Draino is a more cost-effective souce of flavour and are adding that to the brew!

Thanks a lot mate! <_<


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## Gout (28/3/04)

Well to prove to myself that i am still a knob, i did my best ever yet,

mash, set up new pump and stand, etc , all went well so i was pumping to the boiler, the misses turns up, Mum, bro etc every one runngin around so i finally got rid of them and on my return was thinking why is the boiler so low... yes there is 10Lt of first runnings down the drive way.!

This is going to be a very light brew! (i am so angry at the waste, yet happy i didn't smash anything in rage)

Over and out
Ben


drive will be sticky for some time


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## jgriffin (25/7/04)

I did another smart this yesterday.
My fridge is rather full atm, and during the week ikegged a beer i thought was ready. Unfortuantley it was still green, and as i couldn't fit another keg in there, i decided to put the beer back into a cube to age some more.

So i thought about it, and figured that if i put a line from the "out" post on the keg, and gently pumped it through with co2, i could get it back into the keg no problems.

Worked a dream, only problem was it was a bit slow, so i wound up the pressure a bit, but it still took a long time.
When it was 1/2 way through, walked away to quickly clean some gear, when i heard the keg emptying of the last drop. I ran back, but within a second or two my co2 was trying to carbonate the beer in the open cube.
Ever seen how much beer expands when you try to do this?

Oh well, another few litres lost.


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## Jethro (25/7/04)

Well I guess my biggest stuffup is not quite inthe brewing Dept but its alcohol related. I work in a Winery and on a busy nightshift in vintage I kinda opened the wrong valve on a earth filter and ran of to carry out another job and smuggled 13000 litres of water in 12000 litres of Margarete River sauv/Blanc. Boss not very 
Happy. Not quite in your league Jonno but I recon a beauty anyway 
Cheers
Jethro


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## dicko (25/7/04)

Probably not the worst disaster but these things are sent to try us!
Doing a brew today and since I have had the ful understanding of promash, I have been alternating between batch and fly sparging to see how the efficiency is working.
Anyway long story short, I had done the mash and the mash out and drained the wort into the kettle, then I start to fill the mash tun again for the second sparge and I am thinking - Gee the tun is not very full and I put in all the water (hot liquer), and then I see.  
I have left the tap open on the mash tun outlet and the pipe into the kettle. :angry: 
Well, some of the wort got into the kettle without being recirculated and cleared.
The rest of the brew went OK and I got half a litre more wort and one SG point under anticipated OG so I was pretty happy.  
I'll just wait to see how clear the beer turns out. I used half a tablet of wirlfloc.
Cheers :chug: :chug:


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## Kai (25/7/04)

I've been pretty lucky so far, closest I've had to a disaster was doing a Coopers Heritage Lager in summer; I didn't keep an eye on the temperature as I was filling and ended up with my wort at 26C. Sucker came out tasting like raisins.


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## Tallgum (25/7/04)

Kai said:


> I've been pretty lucky so far, closest I've had to a disaster was doing a Coopers Heritage Lager in summer; I didn't keep an eye on the temperature as I was filling and ended up with my wort at 26C. Sucker came out tasting like raisins.


 Yeah Kai, been there,done that. I mainly do Coopers heritage lager and L.M.E.
After being in the wine game many years I understand how important temp control is,but I didnt put 2+2 together and have thrown out about 4 brews made last summer up here in sunny Qld, will be a different story next summer, i am in the market for an old fridge big enough to take 2 fermenters that i will modify with a good thermostat. Will be looking at this forum for advice.


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## THE DRUNK ARAB (26/7/04)

I so didn't want to post under this thread  !

Planned a double brew day for yesterday, woke up with huge hangover partly due to lots of red wine drunk on Saturday evening and also partly due to beers drunk at Goliath's Brew Day.

First brew was a dopplebock, mashed in no worries and 90 minutes later went to run first runnings into the kettle after recirculating. Went inside to check sparge water and have some lunch, came back out 10 minutes later to a pool of wort running over the cement  !FARK!!!!! I had left the tap open on the boil kettle. Not happy Ahmed :angry: . I estimated I lost about 8 to 10 litres of first runnings. Anyway, after that debacle i carried on and that brew is now a Bock, 16 litres at OG 1068, instead of 22 litres at 1080. So I lost 6 litres of first runnings.

My second brew, an Oktoberfest, went smoothly  

I won't be making that mistake again :unsure: !

C&B
TDA


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## jayse (26/7/04)

I'll admit to one of my worst brewdays so far also.
It was over a year ago when doing two batches with some friends. The first batch went well but after finishing a full keg between us in just a few hours the next batch ended up all over the shed floor.
First thing that went wrong was i had not tightend up a hose clamp on my pump properly and while i was off inside piss farting around with something a mate comes inside and says a hose has come of. So i bolt out and turn of the pump to find all the mash liquior has pumped out onto the floor instead of through the herms coil.
Anyway i decide i might aswell save what is left. So begin to sparge into the kettle.
By this time i was so drank i could hardly stand up so while it is boiling i passed out on a couch in the shed for awhile.
When i woke up 1 hour later i find my mates have lit a fire just outside my shed.
I ask where did you get the wood from? and they point to my shed door and i see it is in million pieces and ash from the fire is covering the whole shed including the boiling wort.
I was too drunk to care so just sat down and continued to empty another keg sitting around the fire.
Time comes to cool down the second batch or what was left of it. Anyway the fermenter tap was still open and i didn't discover this untill almost all of the wort had run out onto the shed floor.
I close the tap and collect a whole 2 litres of wort. Then get down on my knees pissed as a fart and start licking up the rest straight of the shed floor. :unsure:  .

Iam sure this won't be my last brew disaster. But i sure hope it will remain my worst.


Jayse


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## warrenlw63 (26/7/04)

Very good Jayse! :blink: 

'tis exactly the reason that I do my brews in the early A.M. these days. Sampling + brewing = bigproblemo  

Worst thing I ever did was brew 25 litres of porter (with about 25 litres of another brew in my gullet). Have a hop plug block the tap restricting the runoff to the fermenter to zilch.

What does stupid/very drunk :chug: /very lazy and tired yours truly do??? Yep dumped it all down the sink when I could have siphoned the wort to the fermenter or sanitized a stirrer or somesuch and clear the blockage. :unsure: 

Pissed at 3am very much clouded with my reasoning. Let's not get started on the amount of times I've fallen asleep whilst cooling the wort too <_< 

Warren -


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## PMyers (26/7/04)

Not so much a brewing disaster, but brew related.

Early in my tenure at The Country Brewer I was busy filling some pails with malt from a 300 litre malt tub to be shipped to our other stores for their stocks. A customer walks in, I walk away to serve, ten minutes later ...

Imagine the difficulty I had removing 100+ kilos' of liquid malt from the floor of the shop.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:


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## warrenlw63 (26/7/04)

Would have been some very happy ants that day!  

Warren -


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## Goat (26/7/04)

LOL - nice work Jayse !


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## ant (12/10/04)

I feel I have to confess that last night, Lady Logic left me alone for a wee while, and I have something to contribute not in the realms of Johnno for pure volume, nor Jayse for drunken floor licking depravity, but fess up I will.

The spirit of goodwill residing in me, I offered to do a quick extract&steep brew for a mate, who was showing interest in the noble art of craftbrewing. Brew went down fine, secondary/CC with possibly a LEEETLE too much dry hopping (shade grassy for my tastes at this point in time), but the push was on to bottle it for him, firstly cos I needed the jerry for the next brew in the production line, and secondly, cos he wanted to drink it.

So he came round last night to have a quiet one, and do the deed. Heres where I checked my brain in at the garage door. Now, I thought, he wants to minimise the time the beer has in the bottle, so what options do we have for carbonation?.

Bottle priming out. Too likely I d under/overprime and hed end up with flats or gushers. Plus a couple of weeks lag time.
Bulk priming possible. Consistent carbonation, but still a couple of weeks in the bottle.
Force carbonation winner. Plus we can dispense to bottles with a CPBF.

It so happened that one keg only had a few litres left, so a couple of pints each and a half dozen longnecks with the CPBF (its virginal use). Empty the keg, strip it and clean it, more beer. Both of us excited about the potential time saving.

Rack the brew from secondary in to the keg, force carbonate. Leave for half an hour in the fridge over dinner, burp keg back to serving pressure, break out the CPBF again.

I suspect a little more time needed. CPBF pouring with what I suspected was a fair bit of head certainly more than when we bottled off the remainder of the other keg. CPBF with quite a bit of pressure desperately wanting to come free. Remove CPBF. Beer thunderstorm, with scattered ceiling rainfall for an extended period thereafter. But, I our infinite wisdom, we repeated the experiment with reduced pressures, etc. 4 times, with similar results. Certainly got a few you boys smell like a brewery type comments when we retired hurt some minutes later.

In the light of day, and without the added benefit of beer, allowing the CO2 to have some time to settle is probably a good idea. Were going to have another crack tonight before we hook in


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## Doc (12/10/04)

bwwwahahhahaahah sounds like my first attempt with my CPBF. :lol: 

The flow was a bit slow so I increased the pressure a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more then whooosh, walls, windows, ceiling, me, the dog.

I painted the kitchen recently so now the slowly does it approach with a few towels down to catch any stray drops.

At least you are allowed to take a second stab at it tonight.

Beers,
Doc


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## jgriffin (2/11/04)

Well i discovered a new way to waste several liters of IPA last night.

I decided to transfer from the cube to the keg, so i could chill and carbonate it.
Did the ususual, hooked up the racking tube, coiled it nicely in the keg, and opened the tap on the fermenter.

What happened next was unexpected - i had turned the tap on without opening the lid on the cube. What made this bad, was the the beer was rather carbonated, so it came out the racking tube with quit sime force. Enough to lift the tube out of the keg, and start snaking around the room (kinda like a garden hose).

Around 6L of lovely IPA squirted all over the room (and my pool table) while i like an idiot tried to grab the hose, rather than just turn off the tap :-(


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## Scotty (2/11/04)

I have done all the usuals, leaving the tap open, pushing the gromit through the lid, forgetting to add the yeast..... the list goes on....


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## SJW (15/6/07)

While I have been bringing back from the dead some old threads, this one was a classic.
That brings me to my latest disaster.
While having a march pump in the brewery now it pays not to drink and brew. While pumping to the boiler I got to thinking that I must of over sparged a touch as I was up to full boil volume and still had heaps of wort in the mash. To my surprise I had left the HLT valve open and ended up diluting the boil with about 5 litres of water. Not a big disaster just ended up with a 5 hour boil. :angry: 

Steve

ps. I wont bring back any more oldies today. Its just a slow day at work.


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## mckenry (15/6/07)

Besides an infection my worst brewing disaster went thus;
Made a nice stout. Tasted good at kegging. Filled the keg and carb'd her up. A few days later, put the keg in the fridge, pulled the tap, had a lovely stout. 
Got up the next morning went to work. When I got home from work my boy (then 2) was playing in the back yard. I could hear an almighty hissing sound coming from the back yard. My keg fridge was on the verandah. I dashed around the back and the CO2 was hissing out the tap and a pool of stout was dripping between the deck boards  Seems my boy wanted to pull his first beer unsupervised


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## Doogiechap (15/6/07)

mckenry said:


> Besides an infection my worst brewing disaster went thus;
> Made a nice stout. Tasted good at kegging. Filled the keg and carb'd her up. A few days later, put the keg in the fridge, pulled the tap, had a lovely stout.
> Got up the next morning went to work. When I got home from work my boy (then 2) was playing in the back yard. I could hear an almighty hissing sound coming from the back yard. My keg fridge was on the verandah. I dashed around the back and the CO2 was hissing out the tap and a pool of stout was dripping between the deck boards  Seems my boy wanted to pull his first beer unsupervised



That would make me cry ! My 5Yo son knows not to touch Dad's brew stuff but my 8 month old.. well a few years to go before the training will be complete... Then I will have to start all over again when they hit their rebellious teenage years Hmmmm locks on taps Hmmmm.


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## Duff (15/6/07)

johnno said:


> This isnt really related to homebrew but it is about beer.
> I know a lot of people wont aknowledge this as a disaster and will say it was a good thing that happened but here goes.
> Back in 87-88 I worked at the CUB plant in abbotsford for about 15 months.
> My job there was what they call a "pumpman". There was always 2 people doing this job together.
> ...






jayse said:


> I'll admit to one of my worst brewdays so far also.
> It was over a year ago when doing two batches with some friends. The first batch went well but after finishing a full keg between us in just a few hours the next batch ended up all over the shed floor.
> First thing that went wrong was i had not tightend up a hose clamp on my pump properly and while i was off inside piss farting around with something a mate comes inside and says a hose has come of. So i bolt out and turn of the pump to find all the mash liquior has pumped out onto the floor instead of through the herms coil.
> Anyway i decide i might aswell save what is left. So begin to sparge into the kettle.
> ...




First time I've seen the topic, but these are two of the funniest posts I've read. Ever. :lol: :lol:


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## KoNG (15/6/07)

Agreed......Johnno's is gold...!!!! :lol:
For some reason i was picturing George Costanza getting marched into the Yankee's head office..!!! :lol:
"Yes Mr Steinburner... No Mr Steinburner..... Never again Mr Steinburner......"


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## sqyre (15/6/07)

No where near the kind of bad day as the above post are... but when i started out kegging i seriously over carbed a keg of beer.. and I mean seriously.. nothing but glasses of the frothiest foam..

So i slowly depressurised the keg... then i removed the lid...and for some "god only knows" reason...

i picked the keg up and bounced it on the ground.... . . . . .. . 

_See if you can guess what happened next.....?_



yep... Chernobyl all over again...

seen that episode of the Simpsons when Bart shakes the sh*t out of a can of beer and when homer opens it it detonates spraying foam out of the windows...

hmmmmm... been there...



Sqyre...


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## browndog (15/6/07)

SJW said:


> While I have been bringing back from the dead some old threads, this one was a classic.
> That brings me to my latest disaster.
> While having a march pump in the brewery now it pays not to drink and brew. While pumping to the boiler I got to thinking that I must of over sparged a touch as I was up to full boil volume and still had heaps of wort in the mash. To my surprise I had left the HLT valve open and ended up diluting the boil with about 5 litres of water. Not a big disaster just ended up with a 5 hour boil. :angry:
> 
> ...


Been there and done that just recently as Bonj can attest. Result 3hr boil.

cheers

Browndog


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## Fents (15/6/07)

10 Litres on dirt in the back yard because i gravity feed from my kettle on the decking floor into the fermenter on the ground and i left the fermenter tap off completey....not even in the on or off postion but off the fermenter totally. I blame mary jane :unsure:


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## boingk (15/6/07)

Whoa, been some major mishaps going on! Geez... Good read though!

Worst I've had so far was bottling beer when my bro was over for the weekend. Everything was going well, sterilising and so on, then it came to putting beer in the bottles. I turn the tap on the carboy, and the damn thing turns in its thread and starts gushing beer! Sh*t!!! Took me a couple of seconds to work out what was happening, after which I quickly screwed the tap back in - it was most of the way out. Only a few hundred mil of beer was wasted, so I was lucky.

Quote from my brother: "Ah...was that supposed to happen?" :lol:


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## facter (20/6/07)

I have no idea what happened, but I got home last night and went to pour myself a beer, and found the entire contents of a keg in the bottom of my converted chest freezer. All I can think of is that it came up out of the gun or the quick dis-connect, as there are no holes, and the keg is still under pressure 

15 liters of irish red, nicely aged for two months, gone. Boo.


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## andrewg (21/6/07)

Monday night - was my most recent brewing disaster - I was running off a few bottles of milk stout from the fermenter before kegging the rest of it, and next thing the end of the bottling wand drops off in one of the bottles and I have thick black stout gushing out of the tube onto the kitchen cupboards & floor - managed to lose about half a litre before the tap was turned off. Geez did that relatively small amount of beer make a mess - it seemed to have splattered all over the kitchen! Much to my surprise SWMBO was fairly sympathetic and she even help me with the clean up. 
Despite this disaster I still managed to fill the keg (& looking foward to tapping this one too!)
cheers
HStB


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## SJW (21/6/07)

> First time I've seen the topic, but these are two of the funniest posts I've read. Ever.


I have to aggree Duff. I started this thread many years ago and thought I should revive it. They are two classics

Steve


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## matti (21/6/07)

I told this story at Grumpys not long ago and at wasn't that funny at the time.
I was making a partial own recipe having about with 2,5 kgs grain in a mini esky. And I put the oven on 50 degrees. and thought that wouldn't harm the plastic esky.
Little did i know that the thermostat was bust so in about 20 min I could smell the burning plastic.
Fortunately only the outside was damaged slighty so I rescued the grains and poured the the rest in to a 10 litre stockpot and continued the mash from there. no real ill effects.

Lesson 1. Esky + oven= no go. I felt really big when missus asked for the little drink esky for a picnic a few weeks later.  

That was about 18 months ago or so.

Lesson 2. Keep your eye on the boil

Earlier this year I had a boil over on the stove wok burner in my 20 litre stockpot and blew the oven up.
I am still paying GE finance for that one.  

My brew cost per litre as recently posted in another thread was around 75c/L.
In thruth it would be more like $11/L at the moment.  

My baby is still with me but for how much longer??? 
Ain't life grand.

I'll drink to that. :chug:


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## Offline (12/8/07)

Ok its a long story and not exactly about brewing, 

Our house has only two power circuits and the second circuit has only one power outlet. I use half of this second circuit outlet to power my shed including beer fridges. Well being winter and all, with two kids, we wanted to run a lot of appliances simultaneously, this is not possible on only one circuit with out tripping the circuit. 

So the minister of finances comes up with the brilliant idea of running the laundry off the second circuit. The easiest way of doing this of course was to unplug my shed and use this power in the laundry. Well I was away for two weeks when this decision was made and executed then when I returned I was sick for a week too (ie no beer).

Normally this would have only resulted in warmish beer and would not have been a major problem. However the before mentioned minister had previously declared that the unused freezer section of my beer fridge would be used for storing frozen food stuffs, which was fine by me at the time. Well at the time of the unplugging the freezer was full of bulk meats. 

Well I went to pour a beer after three weeks and what did I find, not only is the beer warm and flattish but the freezer has defrosted and dripped all through the fridge, there is water and mould in the fridge and the worst smell imaginable (the sort of smell a dog would roll in). It made me dry reach, I have to hold my breath when I pour a beer. I have tossed the rotten food but have not yet had the time or courage to clean the fridge out properly.

Offline


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## petesbrew (13/8/07)

Broke my f#$%ing can opener yesterday on the 2nd tin for my toucan stout!

It's only been used about 3 times.

Luckily it was open juuuuuust enough to be able to messily pour in some hot water.


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## Doc (13/8/07)

petesbrew said:


> Broke my f#$%ing can opener yesterday on the 2nd tin for my toucan stout!
> 
> It's only been used about 3 times.
> 
> Luckily it was open juuuuuust enough to be able to messily pour in some hot water.



That is a sign Pete. Get that AG system finished. You know you want to :beerbang: 

Doc


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## petesbrew (13/8/07)

Doc said:


> That is a sign Pete. Get that AG system finished. You know you want to :beerbang:
> 
> Doc


Haven't even started to aquire stuff for the AG yet, Doc. Procastination is the name of my game.

Someday someday. :beer:

edit: Maybe i'll start planning for the next one.


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## SJW (13/8/07)

Great to see this thread is alive and kick'in. It reminds me that we are all only human!


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## fixa (13/8/07)

After reading this thread this morning and having a chuckle, it happened. Smug self was making a quick extract choc porter and as i poured the boiled stuff into the fermenter, looked down and saw it. black sticky goo making a run from the tap to the rug. Fortunately it was on the lino! took me a while to clean up, and lost prob 1 litre... 
Bugger, i was not wanting to post to this thread either.....


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## glennheinzel (13/8/07)

Not quite a brewday disaster, but brewing related. 

We had some workmen coming to replace our rusted out gutters. They were using big ladders and it didn't look like they needed access through our garage so I decided to hide all my brewing equipment in there.

I spent half an hour tidying up my gear, however the roller door caught the shelves as I was closing it. This sent a couple of kilos of malt extract all over the floor. 

About an hour later (just as I'd finished cleaning the mess) one of the workers asked if they could carry stuff through my garage... What a waste of a morning!

Edit: Doc - Perhaps this is a sign that I should get my AG setup finished ASAP?


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## captian black beer (2/9/07)

Never thought I'd have to post on this thread so soon but such is life. Me and my brew crew have declared that we'll never brew on the 1st of Sept (or the 1st Sat in sept) again. So many problems, mostly unrelated. These inculded but not limited to the following:

Forgetting to put yeast in the ferment,
Snapping an airlock when putting the lid on the ferment
dropping 2 grometts in the brew when fixing the airlock
Finding out that the carport which all the brew gear (& BBQ) is under, is about to fall down - fixed temporaily
A table that had 10 gallons of beer fermenting on it tipped - fortunately most of the beer was saved
In the process of the tipping a small leak in one of the fermenters was discovered so had to do an emergency keg.

After all that was fixed, we discovered we had no more cold beer in the fridge.

Terrible Day - next year we'll avoid brewing on that day and just head to the pub.


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## johnnymax (4/9/07)

I really don't want to go into too much detail, but I added some 5-Star pH adjuster to all my mash and sparge water. I noticed there was brown stuff floating in the water and the mash tun was getting shiny, but did not think much of it. I just thought the hot water was making the stains in my mash tun come clean. It was. I poured in the grains and mashed, then sparged. Had great efficiency. Added the hops, finished the boil, chilled then whirlpooled. I had 15 gallons of my favorite ESB. As I was waiting for it to settle out, I was starting to clean up and I read the label on the 5-Star pH adjuster (not sure why). It was NOT pH adjuster. Either I accidentally picked up, or they accidentally sent me a container of 5 Star "PBW" It is made by the same company as the pH adjuster. It is in the same white container and both products look the same (white powder). If you don't know what PBW is, well it is Pro Brewery Washand poison. You know my system shined like new. I had to dump the whole brew! :angry: 

I put a large skull and crossed bones on the lid of the PBW.


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## fraser_john (4/9/07)

Johnny Max said:


> I really don't want to go into too much detail, but I added some 5-Star pH adjuster to all my mash and sparge water. I noticed there was brown stuff floating in the water and the mash tun was getting shiny, but did not think much of it. I just thought the hot water was making the stains in my mash tun come clean. It was. I poured in the grains and mashed, then sparged. Had great efficiency. Added the hops, finished the boil, chilled then whirlpooled. I had 15 gallons of my favorite ESB. As I was waiting for it to settle out, I was starting to clean up and I read the label on the 5-Star pH adjuster (not sure why). It was NOT pH adjuster. Either I accidentally picked up, or they accidentally sent me a container of 5 Star "PBW" It is made by the same company as the pH adjuster. It is in the same white container and both products look the same (white powder). If you don't know what PBW is, well it is Pro Brewery Washand poison. You know my system shined like new. I had to dump the whole brew! :angry:
> 
> I put a large skull and crossed bones on the lid of the PBW.



Blech! Thank god you never took a sip of the stuff whilst boiling or something, thats pretty scary!


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## Millet Man (4/9/07)

Almost had a major disaster last week.

At the end of a 12 hour brew day I had just started transferring 3,200 litres of lager into the fermentrer, had the manhole open to throw in the dry yeast and a dirty big blowfly came and sat on the edge of the opening daring to go in. A quick prayer to the beer gods and he took off in the other direction.

There could have been copyright issues if it had ended up a blowfly beer.

Cheers, Andrew.


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## Fents (4/9/07)

Last weekend was doing a double batch (one batch just bigger volume) and everthing was going fine till i decided to have a beer at 11.50am...

Four beers down (i know i know) nearly at the boil and i go to grab the hops...My homebrew store weighs out all my additions in a bag and seals it in three separate parts, so all i have to do is open the part and tip them in..I noticed there was only two additions in this bag so i thought **** dave's forgotten one lot. So i ring and luckily he's still open so i was about to jump in the car and thought hang on i'll just weigh what i have. Turns out (i'd forgot) we couldnt decide how much hops i wanted so i just said give me 50grams of each. So i weight out my hop additions....GOD DAMN i forgot which hops were what?

So now i have a lager with tettnang and pearle in it but i think i bittered with tettnang and flavoured / aromaded with pearle which also means all my IBU's are all over the shop cause i dont know which was which.

Oh well half of its going on either raspberrys or strawberrys so it shouldnt matter too much.


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## bindi (4/9/07)

Nothing major yet  just the usual left the kettle tap on and a boil over or two in the past.
Oh  smashed a 1.5L starter of Wyeast 3787 I was about to pitch last week, kept yelling duck duck and duck which did not help. :blink:


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## lucas (16/9/07)

it's been one of those days.

1. somehow set my clock forward an hour which led to my alarm getting me up an hour earlier than I'd planned, with HLT not up to temp yet.
2. crap efficiency, at least 5-10% lower than the last 5-6 batches which had been pretty consistent. dunno if maybe the proportion of wheat had something to do with it
3. massive boil over. I've had a few in my time but this one took the cake. must have lost at least 4-5 Litres in the minute or so i left it unwatched. damn you head retention proteins! huge mess on the floor of the garage

i guess it's not so bad but it just feels as though nothing has gone right today


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## Deanodriver (16/9/07)

I spose the worst disaster I've had while brewing (nothing compared to some, though), was a boilover of some of my wort.

Had my sugars in a pot on the stove going along nicely, went to put the tin in (still a K&K brewer atm), and next thing I know, spillage of sticky malty liquid all over the stove.

What's more, I wasn't paying attention when topping up the fermenter, so it was a bit over what I was aiming for, so I only ended up with a 1.034 beer.

Ah well, it's been bottled for six weeks or so, I'm tempted to try it sometime soon


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## domonsura (16/9/07)

All I'll say is, when you are running wort through the counterflow half-cut at the end of a brew day, and you are looking for something to sit across the top of the open fermenter (other than a sheet of clingwrap) to stop the hose from the counterflow from flicking out of the fermenter.....DON'T even let your eyes rest on that heavy ball-point hammer on the bench for a second. 
They aren't suitable. Just don't do it. 
Anyone want a hammerhead ale? 
(I put all the wort back in the kettle and re-boiled....:lol


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## ausdb (16/9/07)

domonsura said:


> All I'll say is, when you are running wort through the counterflow half-cut at the end of a brew day, and you are looking for something to sit across the top of the open fermenter (other than a sheet of clingwrap) to stop the hose from the counterflow from flicking out of the fermenter.....DON'T even let your eyes rest on that heavy ball-point hammer on the bench for a second.
> They aren't suitable. Just don't do it.
> Anyone want a hammerhead ale?
> (I put all the wort back in the kettle and re-boiled....:lol


Sounds like a good excuse to find a stainless steel hammer with a handle that can be sanitised


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## Hutch (17/9/07)

Ohmygod, I've laughed aplenty reading of other's brewing disasters, having never had anything major go wrong in over 15 years. Until yesterday.

I brewed a double batch of APA several weeks ago, and no-chilled into 2 cubes. When the fermenter was finally free, and ready to pitch the Wyeast 1737 Flying Dog, it was 3 days before a vacation to FnQ. No worries, I'll just leave it in the home-made fermentation box for the week, set on 18deg, and come home to a brew ready to keg.

Well, get home yesterday, knackered from the day spent travelling with 1-year-old daughter, and thought - "ahhh, lets go taste this wonderful brew that's finished".
Open the brew fridge, and  I can feel the radiant heat hit me in the face. The brew is sitting there at 60deg C, steam is billowing out of the airlock  and I have 20Ltrs of hot vegimite sitting in front of me. NOOOOOOOOO!
All because of a BLOODY SOFTWARE BUG in the Peltier controller, it's been sitting there in constant heat mode for the better part of a week, while I'm up north marvelling at how wonderful it is that beer makes itself while you're on holiday.

Well, lets just say it's a good thing I'm not writing software for NASA...


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## Zizzle (17/9/07)

Oops. Have you tracked down the bug yet? Fired your QA department?

Hardly in the league of many stories here, this is my software mishap story from the other night in case you didn't see it in the brewbot thread:

I stupidly walked away while testing out some new code that runs some of the steps in parallel (e.g. heating HLT to set-point while recirculating). The code was buggy and applied power to the HLT when it didn't have water in it. I smelt something was not happy, ripped the lid off the HLT to see both the elements glowing yellow hot. Hit the reset button. Remarkably they both survived, although now have a nice shade of blue. You can't beat the $9 kettle element:






I don't know how this may have effected their life span, but it sure did get all the gunk off them.


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## sqyre (17/9/07)

Zizzle said:


> Oops. Have you tracked down the bug yet? Fired your QA department?
> 
> Hardly in the league of many stories here, this is my software mishap story from the other night in case you didn't see it in the brewbot thread:
> 
> ...





I was just chatting to incider and he reckoned you were distracted testing your lastest invention...

"The BumBot" 

It has an uncanny resemblence to incider but made of metal and touches its toes at the press of a button..

Hangon a minute... :blink: now i know why Sean wanted all that aluminium foil...

Sqyre...


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## RobboMC (18/9/07)

Yes, this is a brewing disaster; read on.

My SWMBO has a nice hedge running up the fence, she is a very serious gardener. The hedge was getting overgrown and was having trouble getting through the gate, so I took to the hedge with a wipper snipper. She went absolutely beserk, through the roof!!! I only cut a few leaves off, but it was enough to cause all h*ll to break loose as far as she was concerned.

Unfortunately for me at the time I had a lovely Coopers Heritage Lager going in the shower recess. When I got home from work the next day I rushed into the bathroom to check the temperature of the brew, only to find that SWMBO had opened the tap and the whole thing had run down the drain.

I think there's a lesson there somewhere. I have a new brewing rule, whenever I boil the kettle I make her a cup of tea. Seems to make the brewing go a whole lot better.


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## Fents (18/9/07)

RobboMC said:


> Yes, this is a brewing disaster; read on.
> 
> My SWMBO has a nice hedge running up the fence, she is a very serious gardener. The hedge was getting overgrown and was having trouble getting through the gate, so I took to the hedge with a wipper snipper. She went absolutely beserk, through the roof!!! I only cut a few leaves off, but it was enough to cause all h*ll to break loose as far as she was concerned.
> 
> ...



:blink: thats not a brewing disaster! thats domestic brewing violence! get a court order out for her to stay 30 feet away from all fermentors h34r:


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## ham2k (18/9/07)

RobboMC said:


> Yes, this is a brewing disaster; read on.
> 
> My SWMBO has a nice hedge running up the fence, she is a very serious gardener. The hedge was getting overgrown and was having trouble getting through the gate, so I took to the hedge with a wipper snipper. She went absolutely beserk, through the roof!!! I only cut a few leaves off, but it was enough to cause all h*ll to break loose as far as she was concerned.
> 
> ...



geez... was there a rabbit in the fermenter?


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## Steve (18/9/07)

RobboMC said:


> only to find that SWMBO had opened the tap and the whole thing had run down the drain.




I would've been straight onto the hedge with a tin of petrol and a match :lol:


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## petesbrew (18/9/07)

Having the fermenter in the shower recess, wouldn't you run the risk of an odd pube getting in the airlock whenever you or SWMBO jump in? :blink:


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## Zizzle (18/9/07)

RobboMC said:


> only to find that SWMBO had opened the tap and the whole thing had run down the drain.



Time for a new woman I'd say. I don't even know someone that mallicious & vengefull, and certainly wouldn't want them in my life.


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## lucas (18/9/07)

Steve said:


> I would've been straight onto the hedge with a tin of petrol and a match :lol:


too right. if that were my SWMBO she would lose MBO status very quickly. how very juvenile


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## Cortez The Killer (18/9/07)

That's terrible


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## Maple (29/10/07)

OK, so not my worst disaster, but the latest one... (it's a long list)

Bottled my latest on the weekend, and much to my dismay, the hop bag was open (read: empty). Of course I had only discovered this after all the bottles had been filled. All the hop pellets had escaped, and were for the most part all on the bottom of the fermenter. Curious, I had put the bottle up to the light, and sure enough, little bits-o-hops in the bottles. Question is, will these settle out in the bottle conditioning time, or shall I expect little green flakes in my beer?


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## chimera (29/10/07)

if not you could pour your beer though a tea strainer!


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## Tseay (29/10/07)

Late hopped iinto the bottle ? - BIG RESPECT


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## wabster (29/10/07)

Tseay said:


> Late hopped iinto the bottle ? - BIG RESPECT



Agreed. Remember the old coders adage, it isn't a bug it's a feature!!!

This may be the Next Big Thing in home brew  Cheerz Wab


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## newguy (29/10/07)

Tseay said:


> Late hopped iinto the bottle ? - BIG RESPECT



I've seen dry hopped bottles of IPA at several competitions before. Given enough time the hops settle out. The aroma of these bottles can't be beaten.


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## Darren (29/10/07)

Hop pellets in bottles make gushers is my observation.

cheers

Darren


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## Yeasty (29/10/07)

Ive had the ole start filling the fermenter with the tap open still trick happen


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## Phrak (30/10/07)

I've been pretty fortunate with my brewing luck - I usually follow a system which keeps me out of trouble. It's when I'm in a rush that something usually barfs up... Like today, for example. No major f*ck up, fortunately, but it's one of those moments that makes you go "ahhh shit" <_< 

"Where'd my refractometer eye-dropper get to? ahhh shit, under my kettle" <_< :


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## AlwayzLoozeCount (1/11/07)

this is realy stupid but all my mates have had a good laugh at my wounds and my story so i thought i should tell. I decided to try one of those Ibrew bett-a-brew 3.4kg things. They come in a plastic container with a screw on lid. I did the brew as per instructions sort of. tipped stuff in fermenter boiled the kettle tipped bit of boiling water in the plastic container swirled it around to try get all the stuff out, tipped that in my fermenter, noticed there was a bit of crud up higher in the container and on top of the inside of the lid so i decided to put some more hot water into the plastic container then screw the lid back on and shake it up a bit. Bad Idea. The lid popped of in my face, I am kinda glad that i absorbed most of the blow because this stuff is so damn hard to clean up. I just ended up with the inside of my right nostril all scabed up and my chest got burnt a little bit. the stuff went everywhere all over the floor, bench, stools, walls and a painting on the wall..... yes im stupid, and I wasnt even drunk


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## Insight (2/11/07)

AlwayzLoozeCount said:


> this is realy stupid but all my mates have had a good laugh at my wounds and my story so i thought i should tell. I decided to try one of those Ibrew bett-a-brew 3.4kg things. They come in a plastic container with a screw on lid. I did the brew as per instructions sort of. tipped stuff in fermenter boiled the kettle tipped bit of boiling water in the plastic container swirled it around to try get all the stuff out, tipped that in my fermenter, noticed there was a bit of crud up higher in the container and on top of the inside of the lid so i decided to put some more hot water into the plastic container then screw the lid back on and shake it up a bit. Bad Idea. The lid popped of in my face, I am kinda glad that i absorbed most of the blow because this stuff is so damn hard to clean up. I just ended up with the inside of my right nostril all scabed up and my chest got burnt a little bit. the stuff went everywhere all over the floor, bench, stools, walls and a painting on the wall..... yes im stupid, and I wasnt even drunk



Cathartic though don't you think? I popped the radiator cap on my old Torana many years ago, diagnosing a problem. Luckily I was wearing sunglasses at the time! My mate assisting me laughed for a bit, then passed me a VB stubbie for the injury (it was a long time ago, believe me).


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## schooey (16/4/08)

I could fair dinkum cry..... 

Brewed my first ever chocolate porter tonight. Looks excellent coming from the kettle into the fermenter, smells a treat, tastes freakin' fantastic! I screw the lid on tight, put my thumb over the airlock hole and proceed to shake the shit out of it to aerate it (my bloody aquarium pump died) and then guess what...

The lid just came straight off, jumped all the threads.... 

By the time I got it upright on the floor there was only 15L of a 33L batch left in a 60L fermenter.

Lesson 1: Make sure we have ALL the gear, ALL workig before we brew.
Lesson 2: Even big blokes can't juggle 30 odd kilos when it's got a mind not to be in your hands any more
Lesson 3: Fill the fermenter at the front of the garage where its easy to hose out, not way up the back where its nigh on impossible

I'm going to drink some really strong beer now and wallow in my own self pity.. :wacko:


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## Inge (17/4/08)

Had a really bad day yesterday, but finally got around to brewing at about 4pm. Started to relax, feel a little better. Everything went smooth, sparge went well, with efficiency, gravity and volumes all being spot on. 4 and a half hours later, as i was running the finished wort into a cube for chilling, the pickup tube got crammed with hops.

With no syphon, and no sanitary means to retrieve the fast cooling wort, I conceded defeat and dumped 22 litres of APA on the garden.


Made myself a ghetto hop screen today, not having this happen again, I'll give you the hot tip. :angry:


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## Tony (17/4/08)

Schooey...... I use plastic coopers spoon from big W to stir air into the cooled wort. I just keep pumping air into it with the spoon till its frothed up near the lid. I can only imading what you said when that lid came off :blink: 

Inge...... i had this happen with my first brew using hop flowers. They blocked the pickup and nothing would come out. I was going to tip it out but decided to stick my arm in a firmenter full of iodophur solution then in the brew it went (50 liters of it) I cupped my hand over the end of the pickup and got it all out slowly. Never got infected or anything.
Also you could have just upended the kettle into the firmenter and strained it as you went (im asuming you used flowers)

If the brew goes bad, youve lost nothing but if you save it its a bonus. THats my way of looking at it.

cheers


----------



## dpearce (18/4/08)

This happened just last night, and is more of an inconvenience than a disaster, but anyway...

Before I started on my first ever mead I decided to make some space in my drying rack by putting some things away. One of the things in the rack was my hydrometer, as I'd used it just the other day. Not wanting the hydrometer to get damaged I dropped it's tube... not realising that i'd taken the end off it when i washed it up the night before. The hydrometer dropped right through the tube and the base shattered on the kitchen counter.

It was my last hydrometer too  

So now I have to put off finding out what the starting gravity was. And buy a new hydrometer.


----------



## Thommo (18/4/08)

I chucked a sickie in early December last year and did a triple Brew day. Told the boss I had put my back out.

Everything went smooth as silk, even finished cleaning up just before a big storm hit.

Woke up next morning and the Karma Police had caught up with me. My back was screwed for a week.


----------



## Wrenny (18/4/08)

I had a blocked kettle tap the first time I used flowers. I just tipped the whole kit and kaboodle into the fermenter. Hops, trubs, everything. Turned out to be a very ballsey schwarzbier. Quite nice actually.


----------



## Snow (18/4/08)

Ah I love this thread....

ok - time to add to it. 

I was doing only my second full batch AG the other day. All going swimmingly until it was time to chill the boiled wort. Being hygenically minded, I had put the copper immersion chille into the boiling wort 10 mins before flameout to sterilise it. The water (from my rainwater tank) which was already inside the chiller coils started to boil after a while and expanded, sending some boiling water up each end of the attached hoses. Anyway, after flameout, I turned the pump on to run the cold water through the coil and went upstairs to do some cleaning up while the chiller did its thing. After about 15 mins, I came down to check the temp and realised I couldn't hear the sound of water dropping into the tank. Went into the garage and found it covered in water  . The boiling water had softened the hose and it slipped out of the clamp, thus allowing it to run freely into the workshop. Ruined $50 electric scales, $100 drill, 40kg potting mix, various tools, furniture and some grain. NOT HAPPY!!! :angry: 

Needless to say, chiller will be drained and claps checked next time <_< 

Cheers - Snow


----------



## SDJ (18/4/08)

Geez you guys crack me up  Ive made some stuff ups but you guys take the cake!! keep up the good work.


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## Muggus (18/4/08)

Tony said:


> I was going to tip it out but decided to stick my arm in a firmenter full of iodophur solution then in the brew it went (50 liters of it) I cupped my hand over the end of the pickup and got it all out slowly. Never got infected or anything.


Hahaha that's awesome Tony! 
Have to keep that in mind if i'm ever in trouble with blockages.


----------



## MVZOOM (18/4/08)

6 weeks ago. A mate dropped my refrac into the boil. Bugger.


----------



## Kleiny (18/4/08)

Early brewstand caught fire due to be thrown together out of some redgum sleepers, i dropped inside for a few seconds and returned to a fair size fire for under my carport. No problems got it out before any damage was done to the beer and the carport.


----------



## Tim F (18/4/08)

RobboMC said:


> Yes, this is a brewing disaster; read on.
> 
> My SWMBO has a nice hedge running up the fence, she is a very serious gardener. The hedge was getting overgrown and was having trouble getting through the gate, so I took to the hedge with a wipper snipper. She went absolutely beserk, through the roof!!! I only cut a few leaves off, but it was enough to cause all h*ll to break loose as far as she was concerned.
> 
> ...



I don't even want to think about what would happen if she poured out my beer in the heat of the moment. Don't think either of us would be walking away...


----------



## browndog (18/4/08)

Black Dog said:


> This happened just last night, and is more of an inconvenience than a disaster, but anyway...
> 
> Before I started on my first ever mead I decided to make some space in my drying rack by putting some things away. One of the things in the rack was my hydrometer, as I'd used it just the other day. Not wanting the hydrometer to get damaged I dropped it's tube... not realising that i'd taken the end off it when i washed it up the night before. The hydrometer dropped right through the tube and the base shattered on the kitchen counter.
> 
> ...



Haha.. I've done that one before. 

Snow, I saw you on TV the other weekend too.

cheers

Browndog


----------



## Lobsta (18/4/08)

one time, i did a k+k brew. 

if you dont think that this is much of a disaster, ask ross, zizzle, jai or a couple of the other members of BABBs how it tasted...

Lobby


----------



## TidalPete (18/4/08)

*A warning to all you Tight-Arse Stirplate afficondos out there.*

My 3068 starter was stepped up nicely from 100ml through to 2000ml (double batch) & was quite ok when I went to bed the other week.
When I went out to the workshop the next morning the closer I got, the more I could smell that great banana aroma. :beerbang: 
Wow! I thought, I have never smelt the 3068 so strongly before. this starter is going to be a ripper alright. :super: 

Oh s*%t, one of the magnets on the stirplate fan had come loose & the vibration from the lopsided fan had tipped the Erlenmeyer onto the workbench & all over a few tools, bits & pieces, etc as well as the floor.

Just as well it has not fallen the other way onto my partialy completed MashMate collection & other electric bits & pieces. then I would really been in deeep s*%T.

Just happy that all it took was a little cleanup & a repair job on the stirplate. If anyone has found a way to bolt their magnets to the stirplate fan please let me know.  

TP :beer:


----------



## Snow (22/4/08)

browndog said:


> Snow, I saw you on TV the other weekend too.
> 
> cheers
> 
> Browndog



Yeah they'll put anyone on telly these days. Not ready to go head to head with Mercs Own yet though!

- Snow


----------



## sqyre (5/10/08)

Yay its Sunday which means BREWDAY!!!! :super: 
As soon as the washing machine finishes this load of washing i will fill up the HLT....
Ummmm... what's that beeping alarm on the washer??
Hmmmmm... Low water pressure. <_< 
Dogs must have knocked the Pump Plug out of the Power point again... No... thats fine...?
Might just have a look in the tank.... . . . . .
EMPTY!!!!!!!!  

Its going to be one of those days....

Sqyre.. 

EDIT: and i just realized the crapper will only have one good flush left in it..
and after the amount beer i drank last night it better be a good flush...


----------



## winkle (5/10/08)

sqyre said:


> Yay its Sunday which means BREWDAY!!!! :super:
> As soon as the washing machine finishes this load of washing i will fill up the HLT....
> Ummmm... what's that beeping alarm on the washer??
> Hmmmmm... Low water pressure.
> ...



 so the missus gets the shovel & date roll today?


----------



## Carbonator (5/10/08)

Had a fermenter explosion today, catastrophic failure of vessel when it hit the floor. The brew inside had stopped fermenting and I was decanting it. It must of had about 6 litres still in it when it hit the floor and burst open. I'm thinking some carbonation must have been present, as it split right open;





Upon further investigation, it was found to be very brittle as a result of age, and probable sunlight exposure by the previous owner!


----------



## shellnaf (19/11/08)

As I'm a noob I have no shame in this. I went to test the SG of my 1st brew last week, had the hydrometer tube in hand, turned the tap on to fill, heard running water sound and looked down to see the vacuum getting a good soaking, some idiot forgot to put the cap on the end of the testing tube, vacuum was happy though. Not sure if it still works, not game enough to turn it on.

Nathan


----------



## stillscottish (21/11/08)

I decided to brew a Duvel clone on Monday.
Nice easy recipe with a 4 hour, 5 step mash. Despite only having an esky to do it in, Beersmith let me hit my times and temps (almost).
Drained the first runnings into the boiler. Mmmm. Hot, thick and sugary.
Added the first sparge addition, stirred the crap out of it and put the block of timber under the end to tilt up the esky as I normally do to get maximum drainage through my poorly positioned tap.
Went into the garage to get my extension lead for the boiler, was turning around to come out when I heard the sound they must have heard during the Great Porter Disaster of 1814.
The esky slid off the edge of the table, lodged in the top of the boiler and a tidal wave of malt and wort (only about 1/3 of the contents, thankfully) slopped over the edge and on to the pavers.



Now, a four hour mash leaves a lot of time for drinking so at this point I screamed like a schoolgirl, leaped into the steaming puddle in my bare feet and started scooping up handfuls of grain and flinging it into the esky until I stopped and thought about what I was doing.
So I chucked another couple of litres of water into the esky, gave it another stir and proceeded as normal.
I hit about 78% efficiency so it would have been interesting to see what it could have been.
And I'm still trying to get rid of the stickiness out the back.

Cheers

Campbell


----------



## Bribie G (21/11/08)

For months to come when you walk out there in rubber soled shoes they will go 'rripp rripp rripp'  

Glad you saved the day, heck it's only the mash, imagine if the kettle had fallen over. Great efficiency.


----------



## jonocarroll (21/11/08)

> *Worst Brewing Disaster. Ever!*



Without a doubt in my mind...

No question about it...

Worst. Brewing. Disaster. EVER! ... 

:icon_vomit: 


Edit: File dimensions.


----------



## winkle (22/11/08)

stillscottish said:


> I decided to brew a Duvel clone on Monday.
> Nice easy recipe with a 4 hour, 5 step mash. Despite only having an esky to do it in, Beersmith let me hit my times and temps (almost).
> Drained the first runnings into the boiler. Mmmm. Hot, thick and sugary.
> Added the first sparge addition, stirred the crap out of it and put the block of timber under the end to tilt up the esky as I normally do to get maximum drainage through my poorly positioned tap.
> ...



It'll just be the same as the Prince of Wales Hotel's carpet in Melbourne :super: 

(wear double pluggers)


----------



## Rodolphe01 (22/11/08)

I've made kit beer following the instructions a few times... :lol:


----------



## NickB (22/11/08)

OK,

16.5L cube of RIS (OG of 1.091) brewed on the big brewday Friday before last. Have the Partigyle batch from that brew in the fermenter currently, building up a nice big slurry of 1028. Came home from work today to find my precious cube like a balloon. Took the cap off just now, and watched in horror as my RIS is slowly glugging out the top and onto the grass....

NOT F**KING HAPPY. :angry: Have NEVER had an infected cube...and of course, the first HAD to be this one.....  

DAMMIT. Need several beers to drown my sorrows.


----------



## Tony (22/11/08)

Was brewing my IPA last week while home alone. It was night time and the Wife was at work.

Finnished the boil about 10pm and let it stand for 10 min before draining to the cube to No Chill.

I...... as i always do, stood the cube at an angle with a block under the front of it to make the cube spout sit to the top, naturally forcing all the air out. If i have got my water calcs right, it will fill to the top, no air, with just a drop left in the kettle.

After doing this many times with no problems i was oblivious to the dangers of the process...... just waiting to bite me.

The cube was 95% full. I was watching it with my hand on the kettle tap, ready to close it as it got to the top when........ all by its self, the mongrel thing slowly fell over backwards. It was like slow motion. Not in my mind, it was actually like slow motion. It slowly rolled over away from the block it was sitting on at the angle.

Well by this time of the night........ im brewing right next to a fridge holding a 50 liter keg full of 6% Oktoberfest, i have a bit of courage under my belt and also not thinking as sharp.

Guess what i did!

It was pure reflex!

I lurched down over the top of the slowly falling cube to grab the handle and save my precious nights work.

Only problem was as i grabbed the handle, 90+ deg wort gushed out all over my arm and hand.

Ya!

In a nanosecond i thought to myself........ well im burnt now, night as well save it. So i stood it back up, still with the how wort running over my hand. It landed on its base, steady again and i ran......... saying, oh f#$k, oh f#$k, oh f#$k, all the way to the laundry and jamed my arm under some cold water. afterabout a minuite, my hand went very very red. Now ive had 2nt and 3rd degree burns before from steam..... melted all the skin off my right calf muscle, and i pictured the blister my hand would be shortly. I looked at my nice gold wedding ring and pictured it being cut off my blistered hand so i pulled it off...... taking a large portion of skin off my finger with it. Not good!

Resigned my self to a night of pain and went and sealed the cube up. IT was close to full and a squeeze got all the air out.

Poured my self a large glass of strait scotch on the way upstairs, used it to swollow a couple Nurofin + and sat with my hand under cold running water for 2 hours till the wife got home.

The cold water stoped the blistering. The skin is now peeling off my hand like a sunburn.

Anyway.......... No chillers beware!

cheers


----------



## SDJ (22/11/08)

Tony said:


> Was brewing my IPA last week while home alone. It was night time and the Wife was at work.
> 
> Finnished the boil about 10pm and let it stand for 10 min before draining to the cube to No Chill.
> 
> ...



Im trying really hard (honestly I am!!) really really hard not to laugh.......f#$k it thats funny :lol: 
seriously Tony I hope you get better soon.


----------



## Tony (22/11/08)

Im fine, and it was funny!

My wife came homeat about 1am, took one look at me, sitting on a chair at the kitchen sink, burnt hand under the tap, the other holding a scotch........ the third one i think, and said.......... what the **** have you done!

I told her and she just stood there shaking her head at me and said........ well your not feeling any pain now i see <_< 

I just answered..... naaaaa im fine  

It hurt like holy hell the next day but a bit of pain never hurt anyone.

I saved the cube..... that was the main thing. Skin grows back. IPA on the floor is lost forever!

Edit: boiling an Altbier behind me in the garage and just exchanged the thongs for socks and leather boots. One day.......... one day, that kettle will fall off its complex house brick stand the the skin between the toes...... well i dont want to think of it!

cheers


----------



## SDJ (22/11/08)

Im glad to hear you are ok Tony.
Ive done about 20 or so BIAB no chill brews now and never worry about getting all the air out of my cube, most times the brew is 3 inches or so from the top, what I do is squirt some CO2 into the cube b4 filling with hot wort and then squeeze the cube in the back gate b4 putting the lid on, so far (touch wood ) ive never had and infection, just bloody good beer (please to excuse blowing smoke up ones own arse)

P.S I have been drinking several hours now and may not make sense, shit happens ay!!


----------



## SDJ (22/11/08)

> Edit: boiling an Altbier behind me in the garage and just exchanged the thongs for socks and leather boots. One day.......... one day, that kettle will fall off its complex house brick stand the the skin between the toes...... well i dont want to think o



apparently, and please dont quote me on this, but apparently boiling Altbier between the toes is a well known cure for tinea


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## Tony (22/11/08)

only once fermented mate..... hence the term.... piss on your toes!


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## warrenlw63 (22/11/08)

QuantumBrewer said:


> Without a doubt in my mind...
> 
> No question about it...
> 
> ...




:lol: +1

Warren -


----------



## achy02 (22/11/08)

My worst disaster to date was when I was making a K and K brew with some LDME and hops. I added the LDME and hops while still hot and it raised the temp of 20 odd litres of kit wort I already had. I was doing all of this in the kitchen. I had some blocks of ice in the freezer and so i hatched a brilliant scheme to put a block in the kitchen sink with water and lower full fermenter in to cool. Of course I failed to move the dish rack and the half dozen beer and wine glasses next to it. Naturally as i put the fermenter in the sink, the ice slid to one side and the fermenter tipped on its side. I dont know how much wort I lost but it made a tsunami of sticky fluid that knocked all of the glasses on to the kitchen floor and all over my freshly done dishes. I nearly cried. It took me about an hour to clean it up and I had to make up a good excuse as to how I broke most of our glassware. I think I blame an earthquake.....

Tony I feel for ya. I cant imagine what a hot wort burn would be like. it must of hurt like hell.


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## Tony (23/11/08)

Who was it years ago that was cooling a pot of boiled wort in the laundry tub, when their wife went and threw a hand full of dirty sock into the laundry tub, as she always did, only they landed in the cooled wort.

Maybe it was on the old grumpys forum.

I still laugh when i think about that one.

Your not a real home brewer unless........... 



cheers


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## Effect (23/11/08)

Tony said:


> boiling an Altbier behind me in the garage and just exchanged the thongs for socks and leather boots. One day.......... one day, that kettle will fall off its complex house brick stand the the skin between the toes...... well i dont want to think of it!
> 
> cheers




My first brewday, the wort was boiling, only had about 15 mins to go. So I have a quick shower before I have to put it into a no chill cube. I lift the kettle off the burner to put it onto something higher so it can gravity feed into the cube. As I have just had a shower I thought it wouldn't be necessary to put shoes back on. So my big toe thinks it would be a great idea to touch the kettle whilst it is on the floor between places. Sealed it like a steak on the barbie. Ran for the bath and put it under cold water for a few mins....Got back to the kettle, forgot to whirlpool, and as I didn't have a hop screen yet....the hops clog up the pickup tube. I have to leave for a party in 5 mins to dj for at it...my foot is well burnt and now I can't even get the wort out of the boiler. GRRR. I blow through the tube connected to the valve on the kettle, whirlpool and get it all into the cube.

All sorted now, but will always wear closed in shoes when brewing.


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## flattop (23/11/08)

lol I guess you would call it

Stinkysocks Bitter?
Pinky stinky ale?
Bunions bitter
International pedal ale
Tooegarden?


 Sorry....


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## newguy (23/11/08)

Glad to hear you're okay Tony.

I use a CFC and I boil it just before and just after I use it. The first boil is to sanitise it and the second is to dissolve and dislodge any sticky wort left behind after I've flushed it out with water. I have a SS pot that's just big enough to hold the CFC and completely submerge it.

The house I was living in at the time had a small wooden deck off the kitchen. Once the pot came to a boil, I'd take it all out to the deck and pour the boiling water onto it. This took care of the odd weed that would come up through the boards and it also took care of the odd mouse family that would take up residence. I always wore shoes when I did this. Until one day.....

I wouldn't have burned myself at all if I hadn't been wearing socks. I poured out the water and a tsunami went straight for my foot. Before I could move, it had soaked my sock. I now had a 100C soaked sock on, and I couldn't take it off quickly enough. It's kind of surreal - take off a sock, chuck it across the backyard, and it leaves a vapour trail of steam.

You know the arched part of your foot where the skin is thinner? That entire portion blistered. Walking was a bitch.


----------



## Barley Belly (22/12/08)

Here's my worst...............so far :huh: 

Today was to be my first AG.
I'd amassed my primitive gear (33l Esky Mash Tun stainless braid type, 40l Aluminium kettle with tap, using a camping three burner as heat source) planned to batch sparge into spare fermentor, then tip into kettle for the boil, then no chill in a cube.
Had a dry run yesterday, boiling 25ltr from tap temp to boil in around 50 minutes, tranferring to mash tun via silicone hose, mash tun held good temp over 90mins, drained out fine, so all in all thought I'd have a good run at my first AG.
Got my grain and had it cracked for me at MHB's as well as the 65g hops required for my 20l virgin batch, forgot the Whirlflock tabs but managed to grab some off Mark today.

Heated my 11l of mash in water to 73deg, transferred to my pre-heated mash tun, added grain and stirred well, mash temp came in around 62deg which was below my 66deg target so I added a full kettle of boiling water and got the temp up to 65.4deg, which I figured, will do without reboiling the kettle. Sealed up and cover with an old doona with insulationfor it's 90min mash.

While it was mashing I filled the kettle back up with another 20l of water, 7l for mash out and 10l for sparge, with some left over in case I came up short. I also divided the hops into 4 separate containers ready for the boil. An hour to go on the mash so I started to get the sparge water up to temp and reheated to boiling just in time for the 90min mash to end. Added the 7l mashout water, stirred well, and got the temp up to 76deg, 2deg short of my intended 78deg so I added a little more water to get up to temp, stirred in well and let sit for 10 minutes.

Time to drain my first runnings, placed tap over my fermentor and drained around 1 litre of cloudy wort into jug until it started to run clear, poured jug back into tun and let the clear wort run into the fermentor, it was going at a snails pace and after 20mins or so I'd only collected around 500ml, I ran a cable tie up to tap to see if there was a blockage but it was still just trickling. After about 30mins it had all but stopped :angry: I know you are not supposed to disturb the grain bed but I had no flow, so I had no option, even after stirring the grain bed continously there was still on a slow dribble, and the wort was getting cloudy  The stainless braid I used must be too fine!!!

PHARK!!!!!!!!!!

I've got 17l of water and soaked grain in my mash tun and it's not going anywhere, tried moving the braid around with a spoon and countless other things all to no avail.

TIME TO ABORT

Thoroughly pissed off, I picked up the mash tun with every intention of throwing the whole contents on the garden.

I tripped up the steps and smashed my big toe into the top one and had sticky wort and grain all over my pebblecrete.

I looked at my big toe in my chinese workboots and realised there was claret pooring out, so three hours wait at Maitland Hospital Casualty and then a trip into Hunter Street GP Access, finally 5 hours after my worst brewing disaster I am back home, very sore and sorry for myself and still very pissed off about my mash tun.

I guess first AG was just not meant to be  

Here a pic of my toe I took on my phone at casualty.


----------



## Muggus (22/12/08)

Oh! Dude! That's just not cool!
That's not how a 1st AG should end!


----------



## browndog (22/12/08)

That must be the stubbed toe from hell....ouch. Never mind Finners, throw that braid and make a slotted copper pipe job. Do another AG and name it Mangled Toe Ale.

cheers

Browndog


----------



## Tony (22/12/08)

I remember my First AG. 

IT was with my Esky..... that i still use wit hthe mod i made that day many years ago to get the wort flowing.

It was set up with a bit of 3/8 copper tube bent around as a pickup and about a dozen 1/8 holes drilled in it. This is before false bottoms were redily available on line.

I mashed in, let it mash and when i opened the tap i got about a nip glass out. I stired it, blew up the tube..... even tried sucking the tube to encourage flow but it was stuck fast.

So i doned the wifes (way to small) rubber gloves and tried to remove the tube with an 8" shifter.

That lasted about 10 seconds. HOT.

So i emptied the mash out into a couple of buckets and wrapped a bit of SS mesh i had sitting around, over the pipe and secured it with a couple of cable ties. Put it back, tipped the mash back in and it ran out fine.

Ive used it like this for many years now. It works so why change it.

Didnt bust my toe up though. Did you really go to hospital for that? did they tell you to wear boots in future  

hope it gets better soon. It looks like it hurt a tad! 

cheers


----------



## Tony (22/12/08)

FYI..... here is how i have it set up. ditch the braid.


----------



## bouncingcastle (22/12/08)

Ouch!

That's why i brew in steel caps... The one time I don't - I'll probably have that happen to me!

Glad to hear it was only a stubbed toe (nasty one at that though )


----------



## monkeybusiness (8/6/09)

Digging up an old thread, but when I first saw this thread some time ago I figured it was only a matter of time before I felt an obligation to post. Sure I've left the tap open and done a few other dumb things, but nothing really noteworthy. Well now I think I am worthy to join this elite group.

I was waiting for my first runnings to fill my jug (I like to let the first runnings slowly) and turned my back to do something. Must have gotten distracted and forgotten what I was doing because i came back five minutes later to find the jug overflowing and a MASSIVE puddle on the floor. 

This isn't so bad I hear you say. Well, while big the puddle didn't look big enough to contain the 10L of sparge that was now absent from my mash tun.

What I should point out is that its late and cold so I'm brewing inside. On timber laminate floors. Not the good quality ones with ply backing, but the cheap stuff with mdf. The sort of stuff that swells up like a festering wound when wet.

So now the better part of 10L of wort is sitting under my floorboards and when I walk on the kitchen floor I can hear a squelch squelch squelch and if I push down hard enough wort bubbles up between the joints. 

Time to review the house insurance policy cause its going to be bloody ugly in the morning. And I still have to tell the missus. She'll understand :unsure: h34r:


----------



## svyturys (8/6/09)

Whether you tell the missus or not!...you are still going get the Spanish Inquisition. My heart goes out to you. 
Then again, you could claim it's a product of global warming


----------



## MaestroMatt (23/11/09)

So...I remember reading this topic ages ago thinking "Poor buggers! I am glad nothing like this has ever happened to me!"

Well, now it has....

To save re-writing all the info again, I have made a write up of my worst brewday ever on my blog (link in signature) - which includes a few choice horror photos.

To feed your curiosity, the concrete outside my garage is now well watered with wort! 

Matt


----------



## Spartan 117 (23/11/09)

MaestroMatt said:


> So...I remember reading this topic ages ago thinking "Poor buggers! I am glad nothing like this has ever happened to me!"
> 
> Well, now it has....
> 
> ...



you poor poor porr bugger.. makes my broken carboy and 18L of beer seem like nothing.... RDWHAHB

Aaron


----------



## Tony (23/11/09)

Oh bugger... what a mess!

I had a bit of a disaster the other night but nothing on that scale of loss.

It actually would have won a prize on Funny home video show i recon!

A year ago Ducatiboystu visited for a few cold ones and brought along a 750Ml beer bottle full of 1318 british ale yeast for me to use. I love this yeast so put it in the back on my keg fridge to keep cold.

The other night i decommissioned the fridge and moved everything into the new kegorator. I found the bottle of 1318 and thought........ mmmmm...... if it smells ok i will stick it in a starter and see if it kicks off.

So i....... thinking nothing of it, cracked and removed the twist top lid and was greeted by a VERY loud PSSSHHhhttt sound.

It was like slow motion, the entire bottles contents seemed to turn to bubbles but it just hung there..... not moving.

I thought...... oh crap! and started trying to re fasten the twist top lid.

The rest would have looked realy cool in slow motion i recon. The contents of the bottle evacuated in about 5 seconds........ the lot!

I ran for the back door of the garage but by the time i got out (5 steps running) it was spent and everything within 3 meters radius of my path had brown yeasty beer running down it, including myself.

I put the bottle down on the ground outside where the last 10mm in the bottom continued to foam out, turned around and just burst out laughing.

I had to hose my garage out and im still finding yeast spary on stuff.

What a mess.

cheers


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## superdave (29/11/09)

Been meaning to post my brewing story in here for a while.
Was doing a k&k one night, boiling the water for my hops, adding the sugar, opening my tin of goop; then I was attacked! The lid of the goop tin sliced my hand open between my thumb and index finger. Luckily there was a delay in bleeding so I could get away from the goop and put some pressure on it before it started to flow. Managed to continue brewing with one hand (commitment B) ). Since it was late Sunday night I didn't bother with trying the local GP and went straight to the hospital for stitches...Now since I'm one handed, and it was winter I was wearing my best get-up of ugg boots and trackie dacks. Get to the hospital and it turns out every man, child and dog is down there with 'swine' flu. So instead of waiting with 50 sick people for 4 hours I go looking for a GP. Turns out it too is full of 'swine' flu victims, so only got the stitches in at around 1am.

The moral of my story, make the step up to grain. I haven't used a tin of goop ever since :lol:


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## michael_aussie (4/2/11)

I know this is an old thread .. but it certainly has some gold.

My mishaps are trivial compared to some of these.

My worst ones so far are:

1. Boiling over a few saucepans on the kitcn stove - wife not happy.

2. Setting fire to one of the above - shit that stuff burns pretty easy. Wife even less happy.

3. The dog chewing a few of my fittings when I turned my back while cleaning a fermenter. Me not happy.

4. The dog licking the underside of my fermenter lid when I got my son to hold it while I took a SG reading. The kids saw the funny side of it. I nick-named that one "the lick of the bitch".

= as i said after reading this thread, I don't feel 1/2 as bad....


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## WarmBeer (5/3/11)

Brew # 41, All grain brew # 15, feeling pretty smug, never had much of a mishap other than a boilover when I was still doing extract brews in the kitchen.

Well tonight it finally bit me in the arse.

Brewing an APA, everything had gone to plan, brew was ahead of schedule, and was feeling pretty chuffed with myself. Looking forward to getting to bed before midnight.

Well, a mate had let me loose on his Chinook plant a couple of weeks ago, so I decided at the last moment to use them instead of pellets for the flameout addition.

Flame out. Whirlpool. 10 minutes later, go to drain into the cube... Nothing! A little dribble, then maybe a drop a second. A frickin flower has made it's way up my pickup tube, and gotten stuck there.

Panic! Think! There's my old 30lt aluminium stock pot I haven't used in a while, so I quickly attach a ball valve, and ladle the wort, one jug at a time, out of the keggle, *through a strainer*, into the ali pot. Well, I guess we shall get to see if this Hot Side Aeration thing is a myth or not.

Bring it back up to boil for a minute or so to sanitise and finally get it into the cube. 

The moral of this tale, if you're even considering brewing with flowers, make sure you've got a screen over the pickup.


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## shadders (5/3/11)

Love this thread...

My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.

First batch took about three weeks to carbonate enough to drink, how happy was I when it was nice and fizzy after one week... 

I think you know how the story ends... I only got to drink about 3 bottles. Once it started I was too scared to go in the garage for a few weeks. I still remember the machine gun effect late one night when one set off a chain reaction of others while I cringed under my blanket.

15 years later I brewed my 3rd batch. It was a light beer


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## Fodder (5/3/11)

shadders said:


> Love this thread...
> 
> My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.
> 
> ...



thats gold! Heeehehe

well written!


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## beerdrinkingbob (5/3/11)

shadders said:


> Love this thread...
> 
> My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.
> 
> ...



Very funny stuff mate, could see that happening when i was 19 too.... So is that where you got your user name from?


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## Superoo (5/3/11)

Had one boilover, and a few minor things,

But thinking I'm a clever prick, decided to make my own temp controller using some microprocessors we use at work. 

Programmed one up, worked fine for fermenter fridge. 

Then I changed the program a bit so I could set temp for a BIAB strike temp, and that worked good too. 

So after the Biab I changed the program back for my fermenter fridge, but I stuffed one line up where it turns the relay off after the temperature has dropped to 19.5 degrees. 

Eagerly got out of bed Wednesday morning to see how high the krausen was, the bloody freezer is at -5 and the wort is at 6 degrees in the fermenter. If I hadnt looked I reckon the wort would have fozen by the afternoon. 

Good news is krausen is fying high after temp back to normal.


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## Pennywise (5/3/11)

shadders said:


> Love this thread...
> 
> My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.
> 
> ...



:lol: Love it, thanks for sharing. Funny how things that can be so dangerous are so funny when no-one gets hurt.


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## gregs (6/3/11)

Well I think the worst brewing disaster ever would have to be Speedie.

Top that one. :beerbang:


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## RdeVjun (6/3/11)

gregs said:


> Well I think the worst brewing disaster ever would have to be Speedie.


The chaps responsible for this disaster unfolding on our doorstep are probably still rolling up laughing... Thanks guys, really thoughtful and I hope you are pleased with yourselves. :angry: 
Does highlight the role and worth of the forum's Ignore function though. :icon_cheers:


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## Hutcho (10/3/11)

Disaster averted !!!
Was only reading here the other day and can't remember who wrote it but a big "thankyou" for suggesting putting something under you bag after you have hoisted it out of the kettle.
Yesterday hoisted bag and let drip then remembered, so cleaned up an old fridge shelf and put that over the pot, no sooner had i done that as i was giving the bag a twirl the rope snapped with no warning and down the bag went bang onto the wire shelf, phew (heart skipped a few beats) !!! 6kg of heavy grain dropping straight into 30 litres of hot wort then all over me was on the cards if the shelf wasn't there.


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## proudscum (10/3/11)

Spending the last day(6am start) of finishing off prototype #6 of the brewery so as to put a batch through as a test run and coming down with Gastro that afternoon and not finishing the brewery or brewing.That ended up being the last straw for that rig and it spent 5 years sitting in the shed in pieces,with most of it being sold off.That was the true disaster.Now with a new rig and the kids older i have put my first 2 brews through last week.So the drought of non mash brewing has been broken after 5 years.


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## argon (11/7/11)

while not strictly a brewing disaster... last night got back from a day out to find that the temp probe had fallen out the bottom of the lagering freezer. Needless to say the freezer was cranking along trying to lower the ambient temp of 14C to -1C. The 2 kegs and the dozen or so bottles in there didn't appreciate this and decided to freeze in protest. So lost a few special bottles of commercial and froze a couple of kegs (that are thawing out now and will be fine). 

Not to self ensure the probe is always attached to something...


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## Midnight Brew (5/4/14)

How to waste 30 minutes cleaning?

Put a starter on the stove brining it up to a boil and go downstairs to the garage to get a yeast vial. Spend 2 minutes doing this to spend 30 minutes cleaning an exploded starter in the kitchen.

Hit every appliance and the roof including the air con vents. Good times.


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## carniebrew (5/4/14)

How did it explode, was it under some kind of pressure? A boil over I understand...but reaching the roof??? Damn...


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## Midnight Brew (5/4/14)

The flask is all good which Im glad just the foil on top exploeded under pressure and covered the roof and kitchen is sticky unfermented wort


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## pilgrimspiss (5/4/14)

Just read the beginning of this post as it popped up in the recent threads list on the front page. Read a post and hit like. Realized i liked a comment from 2004!! HAHA


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## Camo6 (5/4/14)

Gold! Did similar awhile ago when I thought I'd be closer to the family and do a starter inside. The uncovered erlenmeyer started to boil and I though shit, I forgot the nutrient. Chucked in about 1/8th of a teaspoon but she went BOOM! Everywhere. Inside no more.

Recently I found a bottle of Kolsch I'd overlooked. Poured a glass of overcarbed fizz and tipped it out and went back to the kegerator. Later I went to rinse the bottle in the sink. I'd forgotten it was 1/2 full and shook it with a bit of water tipped in and a thumb over the crown. Phoooosh. Everywhere.


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## OneEye (7/4/14)

Love the stories in this thread. Been going strong since 2004! Haha

Was planning a brew the other day and being the organised brewer I am I got going on preparing a starter. Boiled up some DME in the flask for 10 mins, cut the flame and placed it into the sink, where I would usually chill it down with an ice bath. Was clearly in a bit of a daze as I then proceeded to just pour the smack pack into the flask without chilling it down! Poured it in and went to pick it up to swirl it around... Shit Mass yeasty homicide.


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## gava (7/4/14)

one of my worst is a double batch (48lt) of lager (Pils malt) only did a 60min boil and ended up with DMS fuelled ass water... was tipped.. and yes I've left he tap open to.

-gav


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