Balls Ups

[scotsdalebrewery]

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

 

[BENJAMOO]

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

 

[arsenewenger]

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

 

[DrewCarey82]

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!

 

[lucas]

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.

 

[Steve]

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:

 

[Punter]

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.

 

[Morrie0069]

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

 

[peas_and_corn]

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!

 

[Adamt]

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

 

[peas_and_corn]

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

 

[bindi]

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 .

 

[warrenlw63]

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 -

 

[bindi]

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.

 

[warrenlw63]

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

Warren -

 

[petesbrew]

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!

 

[hooky]

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.

 

[benno1973]

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]

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]

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!