# Balls Ups



## Finite (31/5/06)

Just finnished making a Dark Ale @ 1:17am  
put her to sleep on a nice warm shelf with a light underneith (will post pics tomorrow)

Anyway I had filled up the fermenter and was going through my tribal rolling ritual. AKA. rolling the fermenter on the ground to air-rate the wort, and im thinking. "Gee it feels like ive forgoten something, some moments later I looked up and saw my yeast hydrating on the shelf. WOOPS, pitched it in, Crisis over!

I was think though how funny it would be if i forgot to pitch the yeast or do something stupid like that. Anyone have any crackers?

P.S: On this same brew I went to tip the fermenter on the side to roll it around and forgot to cover the airlock hole, nice big spurt of brown ale everywhere. Only lost 200ml aprox though


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## peas_and_corn (31/5/06)

I really haven't had any huge disasters, a few 'near misses' like yours... a few batches that have been shite because of some stupid, stupid ingredients (like that 1kg of raw sugar I put into that belgian... tasted like acid) and probably one infection.


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## Steve (31/5/06)

Last brew I bulk primed with 130gms of sugar....but I cant for the life of me remember if I zeroed my scales to allow for the bowl that sits on top which weighs 92gms....so I couldve only primed with 38gms! Bugger - will just have to wait and see.
Cheers
Steve


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## Fingerlickin_B (31/5/06)

I did a kit once and forgot to mix it after adding the watersurprisingly it turned out fine B) 

PZ.


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## Asher (31/5/06)

My main problem is forgetting to add the flocculent near the end of the boil.... seems to happen to me quite often.... I guess it forces me to lager better though 

Asher for now


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## goatherder (31/5/06)

My last brew, I'd bottled 8 tallies by the time I realised I had forgotten to add the priming sugar to the fermenter. Out with the bottle opener...


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## MHD (31/5/06)

After buying a new set of scales measuring my grain on the pound scale instead of the kg... was a very weak beer that one....


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## bindi (31/5/06)

MHD said:


> After buying a new set of scales measuring my grain on the pound scale instead of the kg... was a very weak beer that one....


 :blink: Would not the level in the bucket and the time spent cracking the grain give you a hint it was 'light-on'?
I have put too much in and when re weighed it was half a Kg over, never under  .


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## AngelTearsOnMyTongue (31/5/06)

Hi Brewers,

Not a brewing mistake but still....

A couple of weeks ago, I Walk out to the brewery to bottle. Put my pint down in front of the brewery door and then immediately opened the door flinging the pint onto the concrete floor. :angry:  

ATOMT


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## MVZOOM (31/5/06)

AngelTearsOnMyTongue said:


> Hi Brewers,
> 
> Not a brewing mistake but still....
> 
> ...



Same sort of thing after a couple - filling twp glasses up, put the first full one on top of fridge door, got 1/2 way through the second then thought I'd check the keg - so opened the fridge door.... 

Caught it, but threw beer EVERYWHERE!


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## Aussie Claret (31/5/06)

My little disaster happened when I just got my kegging system; filled the kegs, gassed no worries, connected the beer outlet ball lock to the keg, where's the other end of the tub? In my hand not connected to the tap, yep first beer shower! Lost a couple of litres before realising I had to disconnect to stop the flow. Errrm stupid yes!

Took about 2 weeks to clean under the eves, windows, floor, bar; it went every where.
AC


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## Doogiechap (31/5/06)

Last bottling session on Mon night... Worst ever.... :angry: Stupid &##$ Foamy Ginger Beer, took forever to fill my stubbies which were pre primed with white sugar, last couple of odd size bottles I went to drop sugar after filling FOAM everywhere ! OK, last stubby, drop sugar, race into capper with cap PSSST !! Spray Ginger beer everywhere including through my my big box of new clean crown seals.... Soaked them overnight... Rusty in morning... :angry: 
Note to self: Keep some carb drops handy for such moments...

Oh and disconnecting hose from HERMS system with pump still running spewing beautiful hot Porter all over my Arm :lol: 
Cheers
Doug


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## Fents (31/5/06)

Twice now i have done this...

Been making kits - poured kit into fermenter, boiled the kettle and mixed in 4 litres of boiling water along with malt or dex...

Stirring it all round nice and happy...

Then look on the kitchen floor and wonder why im standing in a puddle of wort...I've forgotten to put the BLOODY tap on the fermenter...

Damn that shit is sticky as all hell too. Was mopping for days.


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## peas_and_corn (31/5/06)

I've done that with leaving the tap open, but I've never left the tap off before! Amusing, though


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## Finite (31/5/06)

What Style would you define the Morgans Ironbark Dark Ale as?

English Brown Ale?


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## razz (31/5/06)

I wonder if the mods might find their way to "award" someone with the best balls up for the year. Perhaps a trophy with a suitable inscription. How about it Hoops, Doc, Johnno and Dane ? I'm happy to chip in for the trophy.


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## facter (31/5/06)

ummmm....

I was making a dunkelweizen last night - i was up til fairly late, I had everything finished up at about 11:30 - it was a long brew for sure..so, anyways, I go to add my yeast and wow, its really vigorous - so I bleed some of the c02 off it, it froths up a fair bit, almost to the neck and ...

Well, im not really SURE what i was thinking - i usually shake my starters up a few minutes before pitching, but id forgotten to do so, so i gave it a good shake, put ti down, poured the water intot he fermenter ...picking up the starter, all 2 liters of nice, dark dark wort , opened up the lid on one go ...

BOOM


Bloody yeast and wort literally went everywhere - over me, over the ktichen, over the ceiling ..sat there dumbstruck for a secondf, looked down and saw yeast shrapnel all over and int he fermenter and went "ah bugger" and emptied what little there was left into the fermenter, then popped the lid on.


I dont have high hopes that some kind of contamination went in, but shes bubbling away steadily today - guess we'll see, but i'll be laying down another beer this weekend jsut in case.



I have learnt the value of using an airlock on starters.


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## Gerard_M (1/6/06)

Having read that last post how about a mounted pair of Safety glasses as a trophy!
Cheers
Gerard


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## Piste (1/6/06)

Capping a stubbie I'm drinking while bottling and drinking a stubbie that I haven't capped, never drink much though............................


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## MHD (1/6/06)

bindi said:


> MHD said:
> 
> 
> > After buying a new set of scales measuring my grain on the pound scale instead of the kg... was a very weak beer that one....
> ...



It was my second AG....


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## AngelTearsOnMyTongue (1/6/06)

Piste said:


> Capping a stubbie I'm drinking while bottling and drinking a stubbie that I haven't capped, never drink much though............................




Oh god. I can imagine me doing that.

On my first brew, before my homemade capper was in operation (Photo in thread "What fermenter do you use?"), I was using a hand capper and after capping about 10 stubbies (took me about 1/2Hr) I realised I hadnt primed them.  Those hand cappers are a Bastard too.

ATOMT


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## RobW (1/6/06)

Made a yeast starter in a 2 litre container & left it overnight. It must have taken off faster than I anticipated because the next day I couldn't get the lid off because of the pressure. How to let the pressure out? Drill a hole through the cap with the electric drill - just a little one. Well it shot out like a fire hose, all over the ceiling & all over me when I put my finger over the hole to try & stop it. Still pitched it after sanitizing the lid & it was fine - but it did take a while to get the ceiling clean.


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## Keifer (1/6/06)

After hooking up my first keg to the gas, i put the beer line on and had forgotten to check that the tap was off! it wasn't


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## Chatty (1/6/06)

And this one time, on band camp...  

Chatty


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## stephen (1/6/06)

Piste said:


> Capping a stubbie I'm drinking while bottling and drinking a stubbie that I haven't capped, never drink much though............................


Heating up my wort whilst taking a sample SG reading from the mashtun into a one litre jug. At same time sterilising other brew equipment with a mixture of betadine and water whilst also using a similar one litre jug. You quessed it - steriliser solution into the kettle!!!


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## mika (1/6/06)

A boy from the bush ?!
Must be a reasonable time between being able to get hold of ingredients, Chatty ?


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## AngelTearsOnMyTongue (6/6/06)

I wish i could find a funny side to the following but I cant. I almost started another thread but it most definitely belongs here.

Following on from the website attack recently, i had been experiencing all sorts of problems as a spy program "Spysheriff" got downloaded onto my PC.

After faffing about trying to rid my PC of the offender, I finally took the plunge and decided to start anew.

I backed up all my personal files, my emails etc etc etc onto our external hard drive.

I Deleted all partitions and formatted.

All was going well until I went to retieve my antivirus, Antispyware, antiadware exe's which I had saved in a file. I clicked on the backup file and recieved the message something equivelant to "What backup file".

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Now this was very devesatating. Being in IT, one is supposed to backup regularly, but as they say, a plumbers pipes always leak.

My last backup was 5 Months ago.

Apart from all the photos and documents which really makes me sad.........The thing that made me shed a tear is that I lost a beautiful excel file I had set up which was a database of all my brews.  

There were about a dozen detailed records in it (From start of this year) and they included all my ingredients, weights, how I handled the additions. Any minor details of how I slightly alterered the brew or the recipe. All my SG readings.......


WAAAAHHH HAAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

NOW I REALLY WANT TO HEADBUTT WHOEVER IT WAS IN BELGIUM WHO CAUSED ME ALL MY HASSELS. FREAKIN HACKERS!!!!!

Moral of the story: Dont assume  * a backup has worked.....CHECK IT OUT!!

Very sad

ATOMT *


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## Stuster (6/6/06)

Oh no. What a bugger. Photos and beer records. I'll help you with the hackers if you need it. :angry: 

Good moral too. I'm off to check out my backups. :unsure:


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## colinw (6/6/06)

I haven't ever had an all-out disaster, but over the years have had a few mistakes where were variously funny, inconvenient and very painful. 

- Getting my wife to drop me at my mate Adrian's place for a brew session (we alternate brewing at each other place). Had a nagging feeling I'd forgotten something but couldn't put my finger on it. Became obvious when we tried to start - I'd left the grain mill at home.

- bumping around in the downstairs bathroom looking for something. Didn't bother putting the light on - I know my way around. Bump, crash and a bottle of hefeweizen smashes on the tiled floor. I didn't realise I had a bloody great hole in my foot until I nearly slipped on the steps going upstairs, then my wife got up me for tracking blood into the house. And that was a really nice hefeweizen that I destroyed a bottle of.

- The usual "left the tap open" snafu.

- The over tightened the tap resulting in a buckled O-ring trick. Realised when I noticed that my ferment was smelling extra beery, and noticed the pool of beer slowly spreading around the base of the fermenter. Had to quickly sanitise another fermenter and dump the beer in. Lost about 4 litres I think.

- Snapping a mercury thermometer into my mini-mash tun (styrofoam cooler). Was prodding around and noticed I had hot & cold spots. Being a complete bozo instead of taking the thermometer out and stirring with a spoon, I tried to stir it with the thermometer. End result, one contaminated mash had to be dumped.

- Carefully draining the fermented "beer" off a yeast starter of WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale. Accidentally dropped the starter bottle (coke bottle) into the sink, to watch 80% of my yeast slurry go down the drain.

- Stirring the manifold connection off, resulting in the mash having to be dumped into another container so we could re-connect. 

cheers,
Colin


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## Finite (6/6/06)

LOL that termometer one is a gem colin

Ive got another to add now.

Just yesterday I was bottling my lager, all was going fine, I was using one of those bottling friend things.. It was always been great and this time when I went to take the bottle out it didnt stop....the bottle kept filling up, beer folowing everywhere out of the top. I took to bottle away to find the valve floating in my king brown and beer flowing at a rapid rate onto the ground.

I quickly stuck my thumb over the end and spent the next 20 mins fishing the valve out of the neck, I had to top up the bottle with boiled water to get the valve to float to the surface. For a while there It deadset looked like one of those beer bongs with the beer flowing out of the tube, accept in sted of a funnel it was attacked to a 20L bucket  .

BTW...about 15 bottles later the bloody thing came of again!! so I checked the valve was on properly before I filled each bottle after that. I think the pressure of the fluid pushing of the vavle when it turned off was firing the end off.

Might have to do some repairs on it before the next bottling session. Either that or I will buy a new one.


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## bindi (6/6/06)

AngleTearsOnMyTongue soory to hear  

NOW I REALLY WANT TO HEADBUTT WHOEVER IT WAS IN BELGIUM WHO CAUSED ME ALL MY HASSELS. FREAKIN HACKERS!!!!!

Moral of the story: Dont assume * a backup has worked.....CHECK IT OUT!!

I can't be trusted to do back ups so I have a program [FullSync] that backs everthing up to an external hard drive every 24 hours [or as often as I want], after reading your post I did it again  I know SFA about IT stuff. 
I also send all my done recipes to Screwtop as a back up  he knows about these evil things of which I know 'diddly squat'.*


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## Zizzle (6/6/06)

AngelTearsOnMyTongue said:


> Moral of the story: Dont assume  a backup has worked.....CHECK IT OUT!!



Commiserations, but you know all us non-windoze users have to laugh when we hear stories about the three R's forced on you by Billy (Reboot, reinstall, reformat).

Moral of the story: get a real OS.  

BTW: rsync rocks for backups


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## stephen (6/6/06)

Finite said:


> LOL that termometer one is a gem colin
> 
> Ive got another to add now.
> 
> ...


Finite

Just buy another bottler. I had the same problem with one and, no matter how hard I assembled it etc, it would regularly fall apart at the worst possible moment. They are cheap!!!

Steve


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## Finite (6/6/06)

stephen said:


> Finite said:
> 
> 
> > LOL that termometer one is a gem colin
> ...



Yeah I will buy a new one tomorrow when I grab some shopping stephen thanks for the reply. Do you remember where you got yours? there is a bigW and Kmart right near where I got shopping so Ill look there b4 driving out to the HB store


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## Mothballs (7/6/06)

I have had the usual leakage/spillage losses over the years. Some small and some not so small but my worst balls up was on my very first brew and was similar to the one Colinw had . I was a naive 17 year old and wanted to make cheap piss. So using a starter kit from Coles I got cracking. On reading the instructions very briefly I picked up that the starting temp was very important. So following the instructions I added 4.5lt boiling water to my fermenter and added the can of goo and good old white sugar. After mixing this I thought I had better check the temp of the liquid so I grabbed the thermometer hanging on the wall of my Mum's kitchen and without thinking plunged it into the hot liquid. Unfortunately the thermometer was a mercury type which only went up to 50 deg. So consequently the thermometer busted and the mercury dropped to the bottom of the fermenter   . This left me in a state of great distress and after an extended bout of swearing and cursing at my own stupidity I decided on a course of action to salvage the brew. The mercury was sitting on the bottom of the fermenter so I poured the majority of the wort into another bucket and then tried to get all the mercury out of the bottom of the fermenter. This is a task easier said than done. But after another bout of swearing and cursing I got it all out. Well all the visible traces anyway  . I cleaned the fermenter out and poured the wort back in and and topped up with cold water and added the yeast. The rest of the process went as smoothly and as quickly as can be expected in typical Qld December temps and the resulting beer like liquid was bottled and consumed. Needless to say my second batch was a huge improvement and 100% mercury free :lol: .

Cheers
Mothballs


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## Doogiechap (7/6/06)

Mothballs that's a scary one ! I'd be getting a couple of tests done to see how much made it into your system !
I remember pouring it through my fingers in Year 10 Science :blink: 
No offence but it does make me think of 'The Castle's' Darryl Kerrighan though with his "so what do you know about lead ?"  


The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,The way of the Future,


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## DrewCarey82 (7/6/06)

Dont know if this is a balls up more unlucky.

Was happily bottling away a brew about 6 months ago and then all of a sudden the bottom part of the little bottler fell off!

It absolutely pissed it, and being in a state of disarray it took me about 10 seconds to switch the damn tap off, all over the damn tiles for about a 2X2 radius, being sticky shit that wort is, it took me about half an hour of hard mopping and scrubbing to get it up.

- Personal balls up, forgetting to prime a brew after entirely finished bottling, lucky I have a bench top capper, but still wasnt to pleasing.

- Few times forget to add hop bag after adding yeast+sealing+adding airlock.


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## Steve (7/6/06)

Drew - grab yourself a $1.50 bucket from Bunnings and put that under your little bottler....saved me a few times when it stayed open.
Cheers
Steve


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## DrewCarey82 (7/6/06)

Already done bro, I did have a container underneath but it burst out like a bloody high pressure hose and in my angsts knocked over the damn thing!


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## Steve (7/6/06)

:lol: it sure gets the heart going doesnt it!


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## scotsdalebrewery (15/6/06)

Just racked my Vanilla Honey Lager - Ooops! the stopper from the racking cane is now in secondary as well!


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## BENJAMOO (2/7/06)

Hi everyone, 

This is my first post on AHB & I thought a good place to start would be the story of my first brew.

Apart from making ginger beer as a kid my first foray in homebrewing beer was when I was 16. My dads 50'th birthday was approaching and what better present I thought than a few cases of homebrew. I came home from the shops with a Coopers Draught kit and some sugar eager to get started - only one problem I didn't have a fermenter! Off to the shed I went to see what I could find......

Sadly there wasn't a lot of choices when it came to something big enough. The best I could find was one of those 25 litre plastic containers with the small screw top lid and tap down the bottom.

No worries, that would do I here you say? I thought so too, I just had to find another home for the 10 litres of white-spirits that was in it first! :blink: 

That done it was out with the dishwashing detergent to give it a clean. I forget how many times I cleaned it before eventually convincing myself that it was 'lemony fresh' enough and could hardly smell its former contents.  

The beer was brewed, bottled and the birthday came. My old man was really chuffed with his present and a few longnecks went straight into the freezer to get 'em cold. 

It was the moment of truth. It sounded & looked like the real stuff - we were both impressed. :beer: 

I'll never forget the look on my dad's face as he raised the glass and took his first sip.

"Fwoar - jesus!" he said "What the bloody hell's in this?"

I poured myself a glass to find out. It didn't smell all that bad but there was no mistaking the 'crisp' flavour of white-spirits!

After convincing the old man I wasn't trying to poison him I explained the story. I was a bit dissapointed that he didn't want the beer after all my efforts. "It's ok, it's drinkable!" I remember saying. He didn't agree.  

The brew was eventually relegated to the sink. I couldn't even convince my mates it was ok by sculling a glass of the stuff. 

After 15 years I'm a bit wiser now (i'm a winemaker by trade) and have brewed off and on since - I just get sick of cleaning bottles. 

My dad even brings the odd tin of concentrate with him when he visits these days and asks when i'm going to make some more beer.

It's his birthday again in a few months............

Cheers
Ben


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## arsenewenger (2/7/06)

Had a bock lagering in the fridge, had alook inside and realised that i had shut the door on the tap which had been banged loose which meant that three quarters of the bock was now under th fridge


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## DrewCarey82 (31/7/06)

Was doing my partial y'day.

And had everything right til the hop additions.

Forgot to add the 1kg of dried malt.

Chilled it then, topped it up to 22 litres, took a hydrometer reading 1.30! Was horrified til out of the corner of my eye I noticed the malt still there grinning at me.

After doing a dance around the kitchen swearing at the fridge and fermentor, I boiled it in about 2.5 litres of water, had it dissolved as best as possible then added to fermentor, took another reading 1.035! Was horrified til I say the volume in the fermentor close to 25 litres.

So 3-3.5% alcohol if I am lucky.

Very, very unhappy but atleast its good for mates and family who are driving I guess.

Lesson - Dont try to do 5 loads of washing, clean house, play cpu and entertain a mate when doing a brew!


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## lucas (31/7/06)

I was doing my first 3kg esb kit the other day and thought I'd be clever and put some boiling water in the tin, jam the lid back on and give it a shake to get the last bits of malt and hops from the inside. i failed to notice the lid bulging after than and when i went to pry it open again the lid shot off at quiet a velocity and nearly hit the ceiling, spraying sticky malt all up the wall. note the fact our ceilings are about 3 metres high, if they were todays standard height I'm sure there'd be a hole (or at least a big dent) there.


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## Steve (31/7/06)

lucas said:


> I was doing my first 3kg esb kit the other day and thought I'd be clever and put some boiling water in the tin, jam the lid back on and give it a shake to get the last bits of malt and hops from the inside. i failed to notice the lid bulging after than and when i went to pry it open again the lid shot off at quiet a velocity and nearly hit the ceiling, spraying sticky malt all up the wall. note the fact our ceilings are about 3 metres high, if they were todays standard height I'm sure there'd be a hole (or at least a big dent) there.




:lol: ya nonger :lol:


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## Punter (31/7/06)

Had my first real balls up 1.30am Sun. morning.

Just finnished boiling a very hoppy APA. While cooling, cleaned and sanitized
fermenter, then syphon wort from kettle to fermenter. Watching inside kettle so I dont pick up the trub,
suddenly feel a cool liquid between my toes! WTF is that I scream and look down to see beautiful
sticky wort all over the floor :angry: 
Not happy! 5 hours of brewing....f***
MAKE SURE FERMENTER TAP IS SHUT BEFORE FILLING !
Still ended up with 9 lt, so not all lost.


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## Morrie0069 (7/10/06)

My "Balls Up" cherry has been cracked... :unsure: 

Was siphoning my wort (Canadian Blonde) from the fermenter into a keg, when I turned around to do something (can't even remember what I was going to do!), and when I did, you guessed it, the siphon hose came out of the tap and I was showered with sticky wort :excl: Luckily I was able to turn the tap off quickly, so I think I lost about a litre or so, but it sure did make my legs and the laundry (brewery) floor sticky! Not to mention the shelving below which was also splashed! Just finished cleaning it all up before the wife gets home h34r: I usually have a firm grip on the hose until I turn the tap on the fermenter off, which is something I'll definitely be doing in the future  

Oh well, off to the recipe page to look at what to brew next! If I can find a large pot, I might even have a crack at BIAB during the week! 

Cheers,

Morrie


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## peas_and_corn (8/10/06)

I had finished the boil and was taking the hop sock out of the kettle. I was squeezing some of the liquid out of the sock by pressing it against the lip of the pot. Bad mistake- I brought it a *little* too high, and spilt hot hops all over my pants and shirt! I changed after I had finished, because there was a batch to finish!


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## Adamt (8/10/06)

Is that the "Golden Shower" Golden Ale? Or was that another "balls up"? :blink:


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## peas_and_corn (8/10/06)

yeah, that was while making the golden shower. My other half came up with the name, I wanted something more imaginative than 'Golden Ale'


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## bindi (15/12/06)

It had to happen  Balls up doing a mash today.
I knocked the pick up tube going into the false bottom with the mash paddle and the tube 'came adrift'  after removing most of the mash to inspect it [after the required time for the sacc rest] I also found the olive holding the pick up tube was cracked. 
I will try and post some photos if I get time, the saving grace is sometimes the stuff ups turn out to be your best beers, well it has for me in the past  .


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## warrenlw63 (15/12/06)

bindi said:


> It had to happen  Balls up doing a mash today.
> I knocked the pick up tube going into the false bottom with the mash paddle and the tube 'came adrift'  after removing most of the mash to inspect it [after the required time for the sacc rest] I also found the olive holding the pick up tube was cracked.
> I will try and post some photos if I get time, the saving grace is sometimes the stuff ups turn out to be your best beers, well it has for me in the past  .



Must have given it a decent old whack Bindi?  

Is it all solid plumbed? Copper, brass etc?

BTW Don't trust nylon olives for stuff that gets removed frequently. I've flared the pipes for my FB. Seems to survive a little better when you've got to remove it all to clean it after a mash.

Warren -


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## bindi (15/12/06)

Yep, copper and brass but still using nylon olives.
I could get my brother-inlaw/outlaw the plumber to do something better but means having to talk to him h34r:  . Nar, I will give it a go myself, thanks for the idea.

edit: Add a few poor quality mobile phone photos.


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## warrenlw63 (15/12/06)

Bit more teflon tape and tightening next time I'm picking. :lol: 

Warren -


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## petesbrew (15/12/06)

Started a Canadian Blonde last year.
The barrel was cleaned and up on the kitchen bench. In goes the Can, in goes the malt and brew booster, followd by 2l of boiling water. A bit of stirring follows, then I start with the cold water.

All of a sudden I hear a trickling sound. I look down and to my horror I'd left the tap on. All this wonderful nectar had pooled on the bench, and was now cascading in a malten waterfall (complete with an amber-tinged rainbow) onto the floor.

I quickly closed the tap, shed a few tears, and continued, renaming it to a "Dumb Blonde".
Fortunately it was fantastic!


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## hooky (15/12/06)

This thread has been cracking me up all morning so i thought i'd add mine.

I posted it in another thread but this seems the right place for it - I first tried my new fridgemate out on a washing machine. I put the probe in my little bar fridge and put a 20ltr cube in the fridge to CC and after a while was wondering why it wasn't working. I was doing washing at the time and noticed the washing machine had turned off(it's right next to the bar fridge) i opened the door of the fridge and the washing machine turned itself on. i had plugged the wrong cord into the fridgemate.

I learnt that boiling your light dry malt is much easier than scooping out several cricket ball sized clumps from the fermentor when using a large amount of malt for a high alcohol brew.

Sterilising - lemon scented bleach makes lemon scented beer.

You can't get a spoon out of a 65 degree pot of grain with your fingers.


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## benno1973 (15/12/06)

OK, I was tempted never to tell anyone this, but as long as it's kept within the secure 4 walls of the internet, I guess I'll share my balls up...

Years ago I inherited an AG brew rig from my brother who was going overseas - I was a partial brewer at the time so I thought I'd give this AG thing a crack. I took each step carefully, keeping things simple, but I was concerned that my efficiency was really REALLY low every time. Which made for weak watery beers (being new to AG, for some reason I didn't want to top up with extract - this just seemed like cheating). This went on for about 3 or 4 batches and by the last one I was tearing my hair out.

About a month later I discovered the reason. I had been weighing out my grain using an old set of kitchen scales. For some reason I'd never checked the units on it - the large outside numbers (which I'd assumed were kg's) were lbs and in tiny font on the inside were their kg equivalents.

Lets just keep this between us select few people who access the internet, yeh?


----------



## Stuster (15/12/06)

Your secret's safe with us, KS.

Like most, I've left the tap open when racking. Other than that, I can't think of too many huge boo-boos. Except for miscalculating volumes for cubes at ISB brewdays. h34r:


----------



## DJR (15/12/06)

Stuster said:


> Your secret's safe with us, KS.
> 
> Like most, I've left the tap open when racking. Other than that, I can't think of too many huge boo-boos. Except for miscalculating volumes for cubes at ISB brewdays. h34r:



Don't worry Stu, it wasn't your fault was it :lol: Still made a fine beer anyway.

Tap's been open plenty of times for me, thankfully when i'm just making up the Iodophor solution!


----------



## bonj (15/12/06)

hehe... here's mine...

A few years ago, I had the fermenter on the kitchen bench. The beer was pretty much ready to bottle, so I thought I'd take a final gravity reading. Hydrometer in one hand, I turned the tap on, and filled the tube. At a decent level, I turned the tap off, only to find that the whole tap assembly rotated instead. Beer now flowing all over the floor, I quickly found a place to rest the full hydrometer tube, and used both hands to fix the tap situation. After everything was sorted out, and gravity reading taken, I went into the garage to get the mop. As I stepped into the garage, the door slammed behind me, and I found myself locked out of the house. My mobile and keys were inside. I had no option but to introduce myself to a neighbour so I could call my wife at work. The call centre operator had a great chuckle when I told her my predicament, and put me through to my wife. My wife doesn't have a licence, so had to get a colleague to drive her home (fortunately only 10 minutes from her work, but it took her about half an hour to find someone that could) to let me back inside. After that ordeal, I still had to mop the spilt beer off the floor...


----------



## MVZOOM (15/12/06)

I don't bottle often, but had a few litres left of a brew a couple of months back. Sanitised four bottles and lids - the PET Coopers kind. Primed with raw sugar and couldn't remember how much to use to prime. Kinda thought that a longkneck would need 1 tablespoon of sugar..

Four weeks later, these had been sitting in my fermenting fridge - in garage- which wasn't turned on. I am skillsawing in the garage and hear this 'Ka BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM'. 

Open fridge door, PET bottle bomb, sitting in the base of the fridge floor has put a hole through the roof of the fridge and dented the top, from the inside out. The fridge is about 6 foot tall....

Oh yeah, it's one teaspoon per 720ml....

Cheers - Mike


----------



## browndog (15/12/06)

I have not read the whole thread, so I don't know if this one has been mentioned yet. (aside from stuffing my mill with a straightened out coat hanger) I had a few of those plastic vials the wyeast yeasts come in and wanted to save some english ale yeast from the yeast cake I had for a brew a few weeks in the future. I simply swilled the remaining beer and yeast around in the bottom of the fermenter till it was liquid then poured straight from the tap into the vials. Well, imagine my surprise a few weeks later when I opened the first vial to find that it sprayed out everywhere, not a drop left in the vial and not matter how carefully I tried to release the pressure on the second one, I still ended up with only a teaspoon full.

cheers

Browndog


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## Batz (15/12/06)

Bonj said:


> hehe... here's mine...
> 
> A few years ago, I had the fermenter on the kitchen bench. The beer was pretty much ready to bottle, so I thought I'd take a final gravity reading. Hydrometer in one hand, I turned the tap on, and filled the tube. At a decent level, I turned the tap off, only to find that the whole tap assembly rotated instead. Beer now flowing all over the floor, I quickly found a place to rest the full hydrometer tube, and used both hands to fix the tap situation. After everything was sorted out, and gravity reading taken, I went into the garage to get the mop. As I stepped into the garage, the door slammed behind me, and I found myself locked out of the house. My mobile and keys were inside. I had no option but to introduce myself to a neighbour so I could call my wife at work. The call centre operator had a great chuckle when I told her my predicament, and put me through to my wife. My wife doesn't have a licence, so had to get a colleague to drive her home (fortunately only 10 minutes from her work, but it took her about half an hour to find someone that could) to let me back inside. After that ordeal, I still had to mop the spilt beer off the floor...




Fantastic!

You win

Batz


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## poppa joe (15/12/06)

Capped about 8 b bottles....
Then my smart arsed daughter said........
Dad shouldnt you fill the bottles with beer first...
Thankfully i had a good apprentice at the time.....
PJ


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## Adamt (16/12/06)

Never drink on botling day.


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## bonj (17/12/06)

Batz said:


> Fantastic!
> 
> You win
> 
> Batz



Bloody funny to laugh at now... but I felt like such an idiot... hehe


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## Steve (12/1/07)

Was bottling me Koelsch last sunday. Grabbed all me bottles from the laundry. Happily bottling away. Half way through I grabbed another long neck to fill, put in the little bottler and to my horror the bottle that I had presumed was clean and empty had a quarter of very old mouldy beer. There was about an inch of mould with the little bottle poking right through the middle of it. Shit I swore!!!
Cheers
Steve


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## DarkFaerytale (12/1/07)

Steve said:


> Was bottling me Koelsch last sunday. Grabbed all me bottles from the laundry. Happily bottling away. Half way through I grabbed another long neck to fill, put in the little bottler and to my horror the bottle that I had presumed was clean and empty had a quarter of very old mouldy beer. There was about an inch of mould with the little bottle poking right through the middle of it. Shit I swore!!!
> Cheers
> Steve




is that the bottle your sending to the stammtisch steve? sounds tasty


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## petesbrew (12/1/07)

Went to test my bitter on wednesday night, after enjoying a longneck swap of Oblomov's Belgian Golden Strong Ale.  
I "happily" picked up the hydrometer tube from the wrong end, and as I turned towards the fermenter the centrifugal forces kicked in. The hydrometer shot out the open end of the tube, across the garage-cum-brauhaus and shattered into many peices.

Note for next time: Cap both ends always.... take care testing while drunk/tipsy/happy. 

Edit 16th January... 2nd Ballsup in a week...

Okay I was extremely slack last night. With no high hopes for my bitter, I couldn't be bothered sanitising the bottles. Just washed and rinsed them. Had enough longnecks and carb drops, so the priming bucket was left out as well. 

4 bottles from the end, I ran out of carb drops. Out comes the sugar jar and a small funnel. 2 carb drops per tallie = 2 teaspoons per tallie. Only this morning do I realise that it's ONE teaspoon per tallie.
Straight On the phone to the wife "If you hear a bang from the garage, that's one of my bottle bombs".

My fingers are crossed, and I'll be double boxing those glass ones tonight!!!


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## petesbrew (19/3/07)

Yet again I've had another balls up.
What luck I have!

Lesson learnt - don't brew with too many beers under your belt.

Had some friends over last night for dinner. After dinner the guy was keen to see me make a brew.
I made up the XTRACT Pilsner. Nice and easy. We started adding the water. I said, "see that black line? That's 23litres. Fill it to that." No problems. I take the hydro reading... 1034. Far out, that's the lowest I've ever had.... oh well. I add the yeast... think about it, re-read the intructions "FILL TO 20Litres".
BUGGER.

Looks like a light pilsner is on the way.... um, is it too late to add any dextrose after I've added the yeast?


----------



## Stuster (19/3/07)

Some great ones on here. A good way to start the day. :lol: 

Not too late to add the dextrose, petesbrew. Add away, or personally I'd be saving my money and adding some normal sugar.


----------



## barneyhanway (19/3/07)

Bought a new fermenter a while ago, HBS lady tells me proudly that these ones come from Australia and are a bit cheaper. Great. I observe that the tap doesn't seem to have enough thread to get really tight. No dramas eh, them aussies must know what they're doing...

So I'm making an APA, using the last of my cascade hops and plenty of them.

I'm ready to empty the lovely smelling contents of my kettle (still boiling hot - I no-chill) into my fermenter. Empty away, I had enough volume for 25l leaving pretty much all of the trub in the kettle.

Put the lid on, tighten, the fermenter spins around on the floor a bit and I ended up putting a fraction too much pressure on the tap with my bare foot.

Tap pops out, boiling hot wort pours all over my bare foot and over the floor. Nothing I could do but get it outside quickly and watch it go down the drain.

And I still had to clean up.


----------



## Kingy (20/3/07)

Apprentice_Brewer said:


> After hooking up my first keg to the gas, i put the beer line on and had forgotten to check that the tap was off! it wasn't



done the same (first keg also) i herd this waterfall and im looking around the keg for a few seconds thinking wtf is that (couldnt see no leaks) then my feet were gettin wet . shit! the tap.


also 
drilling holes for the beer tap and gas lines in the fridge,when i was finished, turned power back on and sweet! it still works. 
Went away for about an hour and had to go back and look at my work.
Opened the door and bzzzzt! sounded like the power went out oh shit! must have hit a wire.....i couldnt have tho because it was working fine 

So pulled the tap off and gas lines out,took about 20 longnecks out and glasses etc etc tilted the fridge up couldnt see nothing :unsure: decided to turn the fridge on (after i kicked it because i just bought it off ebay,thought i bought a dud)

the compresser started up and it was then i realised all it was was the light bulb blew.  

so back to work again doing a re-installation.


----------



## yardy (20/3/07)

doesn't really qualify as a BA but I didn't block the end of my 'outpipe' from the kettle and now has been infested with mudwasps :angry:


----------



## fixa (20/3/07)

yardy said:


> doesn't really qualify as a BA but I didn't block the end of my 'outpipe' from the kettle and now has been infested with mudwasps :angry:



You reckon that's good...
After all the rain we had last month, i went out to the shed to find my stirring spoon had 1/4" of mould growing on it! and just about everything out there was nearly alive with fungus!!!!!!!!!! bring on the iodophor.
Fun times, fun times...... The beauty of living in the tropics.


----------



## Sammus (20/3/07)

fixa said:


> You reckon that's good...
> After all the rain we had last month, i went out to the shed to find my stirring spoon had 1/4" of mould growing on it! and just about everything out there was nearly alive with fungus!!!!!!!!!! bring on the iodophor.
> Fun times, fun times...... The beauty of living in the tropics.



I'm in newwy and I found the same thing 2 days ago...maybe not a 1/4" but still, quite healthy cultures of various fungi had uncleaned my up-until-recently clean brewing gear (fermenters and such)...


----------



## Pumpy (20/3/07)

I tried to use gravel as a false bottom in my mash tun it worked quite well.

I tried to convince the forum that it was a good idea, I called it 'Gravel Buster Ale' 

People Heckled and jeered me  

To this day people still give me 'SH one T' over it .

I wish I had not mentioned it , 

It could be regarded as a 'Balls up' .

How can people be so unkind :unsure: 

Pumpy :huh:


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## fixa (20/3/07)

Pumpy, HTFU!!!!



LOL!


----------



## yardy (20/3/07)

Pumpy said:


> I tried to use gravel as a false bottom in my mash tun it worked quite well.
> 
> I tried to convince the forum that it was a good idea, I called it 'Gravel Buster Ale'
> 
> ...





That goes way beyond BA, that's a 6, that's over the stand !


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## DrewCarey82 (21/3/07)

2nd brew forgot to prime with sugar, it was the old pet coopers bottles as well had to uncap and then rescrew on extra tight after priming, had blisters on my thumb and what ever the finger is next to it after woulds.

Not soon after I went glass lol!


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## winkle (21/3/07)

Wait til you take off the ball valve on the kettle, clean it to within an inch of its life then replace and boil, only to discover its on the wrong way and won't open cause the handle hits the kettle.


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## razz (21/3/07)

Winkle, that is GOLD


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## mika (21/3/07)

No Razz....it's not just gold...it's Champagne Comedy ! 

Great reading this thread.


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## petesbrew (21/3/07)

Pumpy said:


> I tried to use gravel as a false bottom in my mash tun it worked quite well.
> 
> I tried to convince the forum that it was a good idea, I called it 'Gravel Buster Ale'
> 
> ...



Thats just out there... but how'd it taste? :blink:


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## rustie (21/3/07)

petesbrew said:


> Yet again I've had another balls up.
> What luck I have!
> 
> Lesson learnt - don't brew with too many beers under your belt.
> ...




No its not too late. Don't put it in dry though, it will fizz up all over the place. Desolve in water, or drain off some of the Pilsner, desolve in that & return to the fermenter.

Cheers rustie


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## DJR (21/3/07)

winkle said:


> Wait til you take off the ball valve on the kettle, clean it to within an inch of its life then replace and boil, only to discover its on the wrong way and won't open cause the handle hits the kettle.



That's why there's a nut on top of the handle, so you can take it off and put it back on the right way  I've done that one before as well!


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## Darren (21/3/07)

How about standing in line at the hardware store and remembering that the kettle still had not reached the boil before I left.

Got home to a huge mess and the shed was full of gas as the boil-over had extinguished the flame.

cheers

Darren


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## Blackfish (21/3/07)

Pumpy said:


> How can people be so unkind :unsure:
> 
> Pumpy :huh:




Is that you Kamal!?

Ok Ok, here's mine

AG #1 The maiden voyage of my copper wash boiler kettle, which has a pickup in the centre bottom and an old style gate valve that screws all the way out.

Boil finished, hose on, ready to dump into the fermentor to no chill. Open the tap, no flow!
Damn it the pickup is jammed with break/hops. No probs, unscrew the valve and insert chopstick to clear it.

and clear it does! sending a 1/2" stream of near boiling wort onto my hand holding the valve knob. I swear loudly and drop the knob into the fermentor. Not wanting to leave it in there during the ferment, I make several attempts to snatch it out as the level rises. 3 tries and I get it but at the price of 1 scalded hand.

It was red and throbbing for 3 days and curiously the only thing that gave relief was a cold beer in hand!

I have since updated the valve. <_<  

FHG


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## Doogiechap (21/3/07)

Some useful advice.
When using Co2 to transfer from fermenter to keg via filter. When the process is finished, don't unscrew the lid of the fermenter and have a big sniff to see if there are any 'off odours'. It will knock you on your proverbial. Seriously, the effect was instant and I was not far off blacking out :blink: .


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## Pumpy (21/3/07)

petesbrew said:


> Thats just out there... but how'd it taste? :blink:




It was sparkling clear and did not taste like the bottom of a fish tank but not much body for an AG 

Pumpy


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## therook (21/3/07)

> It was red and throbbing for 3 days and curiously the only thing that gave relief was a cold beer in hand!





> Hey fhgwgads
> 
> Similar to the affects of Viagra
> 
> rook


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## Blackfish (21/3/07)

"It was red and throbbing for 3 days and curiously the only thing that gave relief was a cold beer in hand!"

 

I wouldn't know about that rook! No experience with that whatsoever!!!!


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## Jye (30/3/07)

Not exactly a stuff up but more of a what not to do...

When standing next to the kettle controlling a potential boil over DO NOT decide to chew on some columbus hops :blink: I was stuck controlling the boil and unable to spit them out any where since I brew in the garage... surprisingly enough they arent so tasty in their raw form


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## haro (30/3/07)

My biggest screw up was today.. i just bought my whole keg setup, so this was my first time kegging. I carbed my beer it was all good i tested the outlet value on my keg and nothing happens... so im like wtf.. in order to fix the problem i had to de-pressurize the beer so of course beer sprays all over me etc etc. I eventually found the problem which was a dry-hop bag had burst all into the secondary and this in turn clogged my beer line when i tested it... so pretty much i had to transfer to another keg, filter and carbonate the crap out of it and drink it really fast so that infection would'nt occur.. 

big screw up

ps (had a few)


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## poppa joe (30/3/07)

My biggest BALLS UP.......
When i moved from Sydney to Gold Coast..
I left behind 8 Corny Kegs....(Wife said we dont need these)  
Cheers 
PJ


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## brendanos (30/3/07)

Pumpy said:


> I tried to use gravel as a false bottom in my mash tun it worked quite well.
> 
> I tried to convince the forum that it was a good idea, I called it 'Gravel Buster Ale'



I would've thrown some tree branches in there too just to make sure!


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## THE DRUNK ARAB (30/3/07)

Jye said:


> Not exactly a stuff up but more of a what not to do...
> 
> When standing next to the kettle controlling a potential boil over DO NOT decide to chew on some columbus hops :blink: I was stuck controlling the boil and unable to spit them out any where since I brew in the garage... surprisingly enough they arent so tasty in their raw form



That is absolutely hilarious Jye :lol: .

Thanks for the tip.

**Goes to freezer to try a Warrior hop pellet**

C&B
TDA


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## newguy (31/3/07)

Just discovered my biggest screw up yesterday. 10 gallons of cardboard dunkel. I left the carboys in my garage (made a lagering chamber out there) for about 6 weeks and brought the 2 carboys into the house a week ago. Noticed that the water in the airlocks seemed to have evaporated a bit as the water level was so low that there was no longer an airlock anymore. Air could get straight through.

So I left it and had a taste last night. Yuck! Cardboard! Now I have 10 gallons of dunkel drain cleaner.

Since we're talking about screwups, here's another one (and a save). I made my first mead last November, and kegged it about a month ago. Now a friend who has made several award winning meads tells me I'll need to add acid to it when it's done and I believe him since I know nothing about mead. So I bought a 100g pack of 'acid blend' for making wine from the local HBS. The formula my friend gave me came out to 97g of acid, so I dumped it all in. What a mistake! Acidic doesn't even begin to describe this stuff.

I was seriously thinking about dumping it all out when I thought "bases neutralize acids." So I went to a pet store and in their fish section I found 'pH up'. On the label it says it contains sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Aha! So I added this stuff to taste, and 4 tablespoons in about 18 liters brought it from undrinkable to really, really good.

In case you're wondering, NaOH + acid = H2O + a 'salt'. Not toxic.


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## Barry (31/3/07)

Good Day
Jye's hop tasting reminded me of my experience. Eating peanuts out of a small bowl while focussed on the boil. Grab a hand full of nuts without looking and chewed down on them. Had a mouthful of EKG's, bitter, bitter, bitter. I was also in the garage but spat it out anyway.


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## bugwan (5/4/07)

Just to finish off my hellish day at work....I thought I'd post my biggest balls up to date.

Just two weeks ago, I was saving a nice healthy yeast cake to pitch a robust porter onto. I had discovered that a previous batch (in another fermenter) was infected the day before pitching, so threw it out on the lawn, but left the yeast cake in the second fermenter.

Not being particularly careful, I managed to dump 23 litres of sweet, sweet robust porter wort into the wrong fermenter....straight on the top of an infected yeast cake!!! DAMN! 5 hours of brewing and the whole lot down the drain.

I may as well have purchased grain from the HBS and handed it back.


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## blackbock (6/4/07)

Just did a stupid thing: After taking a gravity reading from brew in my brewfridge I stuck the hydrometer in the shelf on the door while cleaning the tap. Forgot about it, slammed the door, CRUNCH! One less hydrometer


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## InCider (6/4/07)

blackbock said:


> Just did a stupid thing: After taking a gravity reading from brew in my brewfridge I stuck the hydrometer in the shelf on the door while cleaning the tap. Forgot about it, slammed the door, CRUNCH! One less hydrometer



I did the same blackbock. But I needed to HTFU and now don't use one at all!  

No hydrometer
No sanitiser
No worries!  

InCider


----------



## flattop (7/1/09)

Pitched a fast and dirty kit last week, not much time so it was a basic K&K, i re-hydrated the yeast and noticed it dropped to the bottom unlike every other yeast i've re-hydrated. 2 days later no Krausen, not much drop in SG, nothing happening, obviously dead yeast so i reached for a stubbie of trusty US-05 harvested from another brew.....
Grab the opener and crack the top and whooooooshhhhh beery yeast all over the shop, it emptied 1/3 of the stubbie before i got my finger in the top.
Pulled the rubber bung from the lid of the fermenter and put the stubbie end down into it. Then 30 mins of cleaning yeast cake from the shag pile.

Hope my finger was sterile


----------



## Adamt (7/1/09)

Hahahahahaha. Well done. Next time cap your slurry with some alfoil for a week or so


----------



## Ross (7/1/09)

flattop said:


> Grab the opener and crack the top and whooooooshhhhh beery yeast all over the shop, it emptied 1/3 of the stubbie before i got my finger in the top.
> Pulled the rubber bung from the lid of the fermenter and put the stubbie end down into it. Then 30 mins of cleaning yeast cake from the shag pile.
> 
> Hope my finger was sterile




I'd be hoping it was just normal fermentation going on & not an infection!!!


Cheers & good luck....


----------



## Bribie G (7/1/09)

I re-use Nottingham a couple of times and usually have a 1.25L PET in the beer fridge, and on brew day (in the days when I would pitch that evening, now I'm no chilling I can't do that any more) I would let the bottle warm up to room temp and then add some boiled up LDME or even just a couple of carb lollies to give it something to chew on. By pitching time the yeast would be rolling and working in the bottle and fully awake.
One evening it was a race between getting the wort cool enough and the yeast literally fighting its way out of the bottle, so I thought "Ill just close the top of the PET, won't do any harm, it takes a bottle days to carb up anyway".

Haha, at eleven o'clock I opened the PET. Big spray all over myself, laundry, ceiling, washing machine... I got half of it into the fermenter so not a complete disaster. It took me a week to clean up the mess, still finding the odd spot.


----------



## staggalee (7/1/09)

re. the Nottingham - my first reuse of the slurry {250 ml. of it } resulted in a huge and furious krausen, and took over half an hour to clean the fermenter when it was all over.
Must say I`m quite impressed with this yeast, presently got a us-56 working away which seems very tame by comparison.
But I`ve been assured by a member it is normal for the Nottingham to go troppo. {and that was at 17*}
I can imagine what would happen if you repitched onto a full bed of the used slurry  

stagga.


----------



## flattop (7/1/09)

No infection Ross but perhaps i left too much beer in the slurry. But the brew has had a nice Krausen since....


----------



## Bribie G (7/1/09)

Nottingham.. the rottweiler of yeasts  I currently have 2x2 arriving from Ross. I've been using a couple of the Wyeasts and they are positively sluggish and half hearted compared to Notto. I have been warned that N. can strip hop flavours if used too hot, I'm going to try it with my Welsh Bitter but ferment cool and do late hopping towards secondary when the N. has done most of its work. Reading my Victorian Beer Manual it was common to ferment at 15 to 18 degrees even back then, cold to us but hey we're talking about the temperateres where the poms start putting on shorts and sunscreen  

Anyway getting off topic here, just a reminder that Nottingham:


Excellent ale yeast and loves being recultured
Be careful as it makes a great fire extinguisher


----------



## porky (7/1/09)

I have done the usual leave the tap open, put the lid on the fermenter and then noticing the yeast waiting to go in. Never any big deal. Did dump a few brews over the years due to infection.

But here is the BIG ONE  

I have a light on top of the beer fridge for pouring at night. It worked just fine, but I just had to put this nice new light on it as it will look so much better  

SWAMBO was standing next to me and I said "hand me another tec screw". I just had to put in one more as three weren't enough for me. 
Suddenly, you guessed it......ppssssssssssssss all gas gone from a fridge purchased new less than five years ago. 




It was noon on a Sunday, SWAMBO says, "lets go to town and buy a new fridge". Who am I to refuse?
So with tape measure in hand off we go. 

Found a beauty that is wide enough for six kegs...."that will do", I say with excitement....just imagine six taps  , not that I mentioned this at the time.....

Having only four, two more were the go.....the type I had wouldn't fit the way I wanted them to, so six new ones were essential. Besides....new fridge...new taps!!

By the time I got taps, bought the fridge, new hardware for inside, piece of stainless for the front, galvanized square tubing for the shelves.....$2300 gone.

BUT MY NEW LIGHT IS ON IT :beerbang: 







I am going to put the old taps and drip tray assembly in the Marketplace one of these days....

Cheers,
Bud


----------



## raven19 (7/1/09)

Super set up there Bud.
An expensive light fixing though...

Fingers crossed I have not had too many bad things happen. Broken Hydrometer (by SWMBO) resulted in a new refractometer for me - hence a win in my book.

No infections as yet.

A few bottle bombs due to overly warm storage during conditioning...

First AG this weekend I hope, and I am hoping for no issues there either... we shall see!


----------



## enigma-- (10/6/09)

seems as someone linked me to this from one thread... that im obliged to post 


first time brewing today, got my kit yesterday.

came on here seeking help for a problem i had - my hydrometer wasnt working. people were helpful, but couldnt get it right... a few hours later i looked at it again. i had it upside down! hahah 

brewing is fun so far though


----------



## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (18/9/09)

Hey guys:

First up, a big "ROTFFL"!!!

I had an incident only 2 weeks ago where my 2 YO son had found a fermenter he can reach and turned the tap on, Result: 20-odd litres of a special coopers pale ale (i was working on) on the floor...... What makes it worst, if i hadn't got blind on the friday night, it would've been bottled safe and sound. Or i can blame my boss for calling me into work the next day! Hmmmm.............  

and 50 odd morgans draught stubbies blew up when i used the tallie priming measure instead of the *STUBBIE* priming measure...(just another cock-up when i had a few-toooooooo-many and felt very productive.


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## petesbrew (5/12/09)

On bottling night, never assume you are stocked up on bottle caps.
Just finished washing bottles, and with the kids in bed, now I have to wait for SWMBO to get home from dinner with a friend before I can duck up to Coles.


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## glennheinzel (5/12/09)

petesbrew said:


> On bottling night, never assume you are stocked up on bottle caps.
> Just finished washing bottles, and with the kids in bed, now I have to wait for SWMBO to get home from dinner with a friend before I can duck up to Coles.



Luckily someone just happened to be dropping by... B)


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## petesbrew (5/12/09)

Rukh said:


> Luckily someone just happened to be dropping by... B)


And I forgot to give you the $2ish for them.... h34r: 
You're a brewsaver, Rukh!!!


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## O'Henry (6/12/09)

Did the same last week. Had to make a special trip to town... Very annoying as had been there all day.


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## kentr (8/12/09)

Years ago when I was new to brewing a mate suggested I add extra dried malt or dextrose, (hard to remember) to my brew to make it more alcoholic.
I stupidly added around 400 grams. I bottled these bombs and one night a week later I heard gun shot sounds coming from the room they were being stored in. Major explosions continued to occur with there being very little I could do about the situation. It's easier to let bottles explode in a room rather than go in and let them rip your face off when you try to move them.
I thought the "exploding bottle" stories were exaggerated until I saw what these things were capable of doing! The tiny shards of broken glass were stuck into the walls, literally a grenade type vibe.


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## cliffo (9/12/09)

Today....brewing an amber/brown ale thingy...forgot to put the 10min hop edition in (Nelson Sauvin) and started the whirlpool then through the chiller into the fermenter.

So, I did a 50min total boil resulting in hop editions at 50 & 10 minutes instead of 60, 20 & 10mins.

Think it's going to be a bit lighter on the IBUs...damn!!


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