Disastrous Brew Day

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Norto

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Well after moving house just before xmas and enjoying my last couple of days off I thought stuff it i'll put down a brew. So out to the 3 V system I have set up and into it, or so I thought. Here at my new house I have my setup on the back Alfresco area and yesterday the wind was blowing reasonable hard but not too bad. So smart ass me thought all I need to do is put some sort of wind barrier around my gas burner and she'll be right.

Problem 1. Off to the Hardware to see if they had a bit of sheet metal to wrap around the burner, get into town and find out the bloody shop don't open for half an hour, oh well its only half an hour still plenty of time in the day. When it finally opens get inside no sheet metal, oh well how bad can the wind be and head home.

Problem 2. Kick the brew off by heating up the strike water and go looking for the rest of the ingredients. Grain - check, Hops - check, yeast - yeast ..... shit where's the yeast, no I'm positive I've got some, she'll be right. After washing up some stuff that got dusty in the move time to mash in. So I go out mash in and notice mmmm this wind has picked up a bit and is a bit of a southerly little bit cooler than normal, I think i need to find something for that burner. Set the thermometer in the mash and off to find something to wrap the burner.

Problem 3. Can't find anything to wrap around the burner and the mash tun is struggling to hold temp, oh well she'll be right just start running it through the HERMS coil I've been recently trialling. Kicked off the pump and left to continue search for some sort of wrap by this stage getting pretty pissed off that I haven't found anything but one last spot I found a small piece of aluminium sheet metal beauty this will do the job. Back out to the brew setup mash temp has dropped significantly , what the F#@k is going on with this coil, water in the HLT was 70+ degrees surly it's not loosing 10 degrees between there and the mash tun, oh well it looks like it's starting to come back up she'll be right.

Problem 4. Where's that F%$#en yeast, can't find my US-05 so will have to make do with a few packets of Brigalow yeast and I've come this far I'm not stopping now.Shit!

Finally after mashing for twice as long as I needed given I forgot to start the timer and I was busy doing other things, finally sparged and started the boil at least the burner kicked off the boil quick. Geez this pump seems to be going slow no just my imagination . Finished the boil and set to cooling off through my parallel counter flow chiller. Shit haven't set the hoses up on that yet.

Problem 5. Can't find the f#$2ken hose connections what a day I'm thinking my young fella saves the day and brings me a couple of connections and I start the chill.

I don't know whether or not it's the different water or it was the wind but the chill was done super quick. Anyway into the fermenter and pitch the yeast.

Had a look this morning and it's bubbling away nicely.

Moral of the story - Don't be in too big of a hurry to do a brew make sure you've got everything sorted before you even start heating up the strike water.

When moving to a new house it pays to pick the right spot to brew.

Don't use 2 manifolds( let me explain) I had been up until this time using a stainless braided pipe as my manifold in the mash tun but in trying to get my efficiency up i bought a stainless false bottom, problem yesterday was i had both in the tun at the same time and what happened was the false bottom did a great job of holding back the husks and what not but it let through the very fine particles and they tried to block the braided pipe, hence the slow pump.

Oh and one last thing couldn't find my hydrometer so I have no idea what the numbers were, never used this yeast before so this will be a mystery beer, But I'm gonna drink it out of Spite. :chug:
Norto.
 
Haha good read. Sounds like my last brew day.
I recently put a sight guage in and let the water run out and leave the dead space in there then topped up to do the markings.
But on brew day my pump sucked it dry and I ended up with 12litres excess on my last sparge which I held back from the kettle. (I figured out later that 4 liters was from me marking the hlt scale wrong and another 8lts was from reading from the wrong recipe when filling hlt) then my battery went flat on my scales and I don't keep them little round f$*kers on hand. Beats me why they just arnt AAA size. So had to divvy up hops by eye.

I built a new brewstand to so I could wheel it around and the place I wheeled it to wasn't quite level so as I whirl pooled the cone sat right near the pick up tube and got sucked down. (Didn't notice till was nearly drained) next time I'll check with a level.

I had no yeast either but I no chill and I noticed as I was getting ready to pour the cube in lol.
I only ended up a few points down in the end but it's tasting fairly bitter early on in the ferment.
I nearly abanded mission a few times but glad I stuck it out.
Clean up seems way harder when yav had a shit brew day to.
 
disastrous? sounds like it was more annoying. i was expecting your house to catch fire or something haha
 
fletcher said:
disastrous? sounds like it was more annoying. i as expecting your house to catch fire or something haha
Shit mate don't say that I only just finished building it... and besides I really couldn't go through another move.
 
Kingy said:
Haha good read. Sounds like my last brew day.
I recently put a sight guage in and let the water run out and leave the dead space in there then topped up to do the markings.
But on brew day my pump sucked it dry and I ended up with 12litres excess on my last sparge which I held back from the kettle. (I figured out later that 4 liters was from me marking the hlt scale wrong and another 8lts was from reading from the wrong recipe when filling hlt) then my battery went flat on my scales and I don't keep them little round f$*kers on hand. Beats me why they just arnt AAA size. So had to divvy up hops by eye.

I built a new brewstand to so I could wheel it around and the place I wheeled it to wasn't quite level so as I whirl pooled the cone sat right near the pick up tube and got sucked down. (Didn't notice till was nearly drained) next time I'll check with a level.

I had no yeast either but I no chill and I noticed as I was getting ready to pour the cube in lol.
I only ended up a few points down in the end but it's tasting fairly bitter early on in the ferment.
I nearly abanded mission a few times but glad I stuck it out.
Clean up seems way harder when yav had a shit brew day to.
Thanks mate it was more about venting than anything. And Yes mate the clean up did suck.
 
Norto said:
Shit mate don't say that I only just finished building it... and besides I really couldn't go through another move.
haha, all good. glad you got your brew on eventually and whatever it is, it'll be beer :) well done on not losing it and giving up!
 
Tandaco bread yeast will work at a pinch.
If you've ever been in jail then you'll know all about Pruno.

Mmmmmm Proooono
 
All's well that ends well Norto.

Its a week before xmas and time to keg 2 beers for the big day.
Clean and sanitize kegs and gear, grab the first beer out of the fridge...........my first infection! looked and tasted alright 3 days ago, now looks like the surface of Mars. Gee I hope the other beer is alright?
Grab 2nd beer from fridge....is that ice particles on top of the beer? (first CC in new fridge, appears to hold the temp better than the last fridge). I'll just pop it on this chair while I go grab a glass for a taster.......turn my back and WHOOSHKA.
20L of RIPA across the floor. Guitar amp and pedals are swimming in the stuff. find myself saving all the music gear as I'm standing in the puddle while the beer now sounding live power board.
40L down the shitter.........o well, it's just beer.
 
Here's me thinking that I'm glad I'm too organised to make snafus....then half an hour ago I realise I've left the manifold out of my mash tun 5 minutes after putting 10kg of grain andf 25L of hot water in. Hah!!! Managed to remove a frair whack of it with jugs and shuffle the manifold down to the bottom of the tun and fit it....just as well got decent gloves, too.
 
madpierre06 said:
Here's me thinking that I'm glad I'm too organised to make snafus....then half an hour ago I realise I've left the manifold out of my mash tun 5 minutes after putting 10kg of grain andf 25L of hot water in. Hah!!! Managed to remove a frair whack of it with jugs and shuffle the manifold down to the bottom of the tun and fit it....just as well got decent gloves, too.
Hahaha mate i did the exact same thing on about my third brew ..was a ******* trying to get the manifold in the bottom in the hot liquid managed to get some down the inside of my rubber gloves as well... The joys of it all Ha I wouldn't have any other way but.

Norto.
 
I have to agree with- "all's well that ends well". I worked extra hard to make extra beer for xmas and Jan holidays. 5 different all grain brews 120lt in total that all went well on brew day and ferment. All 5 beers smell and taste like plastic!!!!!. Now that's a disaster. Well, more like a tragedy actually. Worst part is I don't know what the hell has happened. :wacko:
By far the most outstanding brew fail I've ever had and I cant brew another beer out of fear of the unknown. Until I work out WHY!!!!!!I've now got a phobia of anything plastic. :unsure: That's not an easy or cheap fix replacing 5 plastic fermenters with glass or hmmm, a stainless conical that wont fit in my temp control fridge... oahhhh.
 
This was a disastrous brew day in my opinion. Only have this week between Xmas and NY off, so I thought I'd do a double brew, seeing as I have a 3V HERMS. 100L all up at the end of the day. Was getting my stuff together when I realised I was out of acid malt. pH was going to be 5.8 in the mash without it. No HB shops open either. Oh well I thought, I never worried about it before and made good beer back then, she'll be right.
First brew was under expected gravity by a fair bit, preboil and even worse post boil. The gas also almost ran out, so boil was not as vigerous as usual. 'Could the acid malt really make that much difference in conversion, or was it that unknown time where the boil was under performing?' I wondered. Changed the gas bottle during the first boil too. Second batch was only marginally better. WTF is going wrong?
Missed my OG by 6-8 points. While this in itself isnt a big deal to me, knowing why is.
In my never ending desire to tweak and fiddle, it turned out I fxckd up my equipment profile in beersmith. I have quite a few I use, depending on whether I chill or no chill, which fermenter, OG of the beer etc etc. This one I had changed the 'boil off' figure to what should have been my 'total boil off' seeing as I do 75 min boils. So basically, too much water, under par conversion, lack lusture boil..... I made 100L of beer and its all fermenting away happily today :)
 
mckenry said:
This was a disastrous brew day in my opinion. Only have this week between Xmas and NY off, so I thought I'd do a double brew, seeing as I have a 3V HERMS. 100L all up at the end of the day. Was getting my stuff together when I realised I was out of acid malt. pH was going to be 5.8 in the mash without it. No HB shops open either. Oh well I thought, I never worried about it before and made good beer back then, she'll be right.
First brew was under expected gravity by a fair bit, preboil and even worse post boil. The gas also almost ran out, so boil was not as vigerous as usual. 'Could the acid malt really make that much difference in conversion, or was it that unknown time where the boil was under performing?' I wondered. Changed the gas bottle during the first boil too. Second batch was only marginally better. WTF is going wrong?
Missed my OG by 6-8 points. While this in itself isnt a big deal to me, knowing why is.
In my never ending desire to tweak and fiddle, it turned out I fxckd up my equipment profile in beersmith. I have quite a few I use, depending on whether I chill or no chill, which fermenter, OG of the beer etc etc. This one I had changed the 'boil off' figure to what should have been my 'total boil off' seeing as I do 75 min boils. So basically, too much water, under par conversion, lack lusture boil..... I made 100L of beer and its all fermenting away happily today :)
I'm hearing you mate...The one thing out of all this I reckon is that you should never rush into it or try and do a brew with a deadline. As soon as I couldn't get the temp up and the wind was causing havoc with my burner I should have just said F%$k it try another day or experiment in another spot.

Norto.
 
Danscraftbeer said:
All 5 beers smell and taste like plastic!!!!!. Now that's a disaster. Well, more like a tragedy actually. Worst part is I don't know what the hell has happened. :wacko:
By far the most outstanding brew fail I've ever had and I cant brew another beer out of fear of the unknown. Until I work out WHY!!!!!!I've now got a phobia of anything plastic. :unsure: That's not an easy or cheap fix replacing 5 plastic fermenters with glass or hmmm, a stainless conical that wont fit in my temp control fridge... oahhhh.
I'm betting you never had a problem with your plastic fermeters before right? Well plastic flavour and aroma can be down to many things including the wrong plastic (including in keg lines), too high temps being used with the plastic, chlorine in brew water or infections.....

Search the attached fault finder to find out the 'plastic' aroma and flavour you are detecting. Might help solve the problem (now or in future brews).

View attachment Complete_Beer_Fault_Guide.pdf
 
Not a complete disaster but chilling my wort the other day with the Grainfather CFC, it took about two litres of wort pissing through the garage before I realised that I hadn't put the out tube back into the Grainfather. Could have been a lot worse.
 
I had a three month break between brews recently. I did a dry run the night before. No Probs.
 
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