Balls Ups

[bugwan]

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.

 

[blackbock]

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

 

[InCider]

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]

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]

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

 

[Ross]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[Bribie G]

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]

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]

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--]

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_]

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 ****-up when i had a few-toooooooo-many and felt very productive.

 

[petesbrew]

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.

 

[glennheinzel]

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)

 

[petesbrew]

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!!!

 

[O'Henry]

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

 

[kentr]

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.

 

[cliffo]

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!!