1st Brew Stories

[dirty mac]

anyone got funny stories from their first brew experience.

Mine was a disaster. Was cleaning everything in the bathtub and even filled up to volume starting with a jug and then got impatient and just used the shower head thinking i'd get good aeration. It was with a crappy kit with only a pack of dex and beer booster and tin. I didn't add the booster until too late so it was floating all through the brew. It was as hot as shit so it finished primary frementing in about a day and a half. Once bottled I thought I'd screwed it bad so I let it 'mature' for about 3 months. It still tasted like cats piss and you could have 5 tallies and probably still drive a car and be under the limit...(slight exageration)
:lol:

 

[Stuster]

My first brew was a semi-disaster. I also cleaned the first lot of bottles in the bath. Ended up bottling them on the bathroom floor. I couldn't work out how to use the bench capper (D'oh). :blink: So half the bottles ended up flat. The other half were quite nice though, I thought at the time, so I was hooked. :beerbang:

 

[Doogiechap]

My first was fairly non eventful after studying Paul Mercurio's definative brewing training course on the enclosed video tape
Yep Coopers would be happy, the idiot proof larger and yeats kit tasted 'satisfactory' enough to purchase more of their goo....
Then I found this site and a good HBS. Just recieved my grain rollers that my Dad turned up on his old lathe :super: My wife never ask me what I am thinking anymore because she already knows the answer. It's a slippery slippery slide....

 

[em1998]

My First brew was pretty good got a Coopers Pale ale and coopers brewing kit.. Turned out unreal.

2nd Brew was bit of a shocker turned out like rusty nails due to my non cleaning for a while and dodgy washing out of bottles.. Absoulty pissed off waiting 4weeks for some apple juice

 

[homekegger1]

My first brew was a bit of a disaster... I had been thinking of brewing for a while, then went to a mates house and he had just started, So next day off to the LHBS and went straight for a kegging system.

Put down my first ever brew (Tooheys I think(God how we learn)) Left it just inside the garage door to ferment. About 2 nights later my wife to be decided to go into the garage and accidently(Hmm) knock it over. About 5-8 litres pissed out of the airlock before she even got it back upright. I thought it would have been ruined then, but it turned out ok. Only lasted 4 days after I started drinking it

Cheers

HK

 

[facter]

dont want to talk about it.




you know when you make something, and it SHOULD be beer, but you have never quite tasted anything quite like it?

I think I tasted a better taste in my mouth than the time me and my mate ran over a skunk than that thing tasted ...

 

[Rocket]

My first was a coopers tin ,draught i think. Was all good except for the white sugar, gives a awful taste. Next couple i replaced the sugar with dextrose and further on to all malt. I didnt brew to many tins as i found they didnt taste like beer should it was then i went to all grain.
I've never had any nasty infection but did get a batch of exploding bottles, should have used my hydrometer.

 

[Whistlingjack]

My first should have been a disaster, but in spite of all the stuff-ups, I remember it was a great beer.

A mate came over, armed with several bottles of his latest brew. We had been to the HBS (Hoppers in William St) to get the necessary ingredients for a Munich Dunkel partial mash.

Everything was going well until I added the hop flowers to the boilng wort. Boil-over of catastrophic proportions. The wort spilled over on the gas stove around the burners. Not wanting to waste any and suitably charged with homebrew, I set about sponging the liquid back in to the pot...

A quick reboil to kill any nasties and into the fermenter. Turned out great, no obvious infection.

Also, used way too much sodium metabisulphate to sterilise the fermenter and had a blood nose!

 

[BENJAMOO]

Hi everyone,

I posted this under "Balls Ups" a month or so ago but I reckon it fits well in this thread too.......

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!

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.

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