Worst Brewing Disaster. Ever!
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Johnno,
You realise of course that because of your cock-up the powers-to-be at CUB discovered that adding Caustic Soda to their swill actually improved the taste!
We now have it added to each and every batch. I further understand that they have found that Draino is a more cost-effective souce of flavour and are adding that to the brew!
Thanks a lot mate! <_<
You realise of course that because of your cock-up the powers-to-be at CUB discovered that adding Caustic Soda to their swill actually improved the taste!
We now have it added to each and every batch. I further understand that they have found that Draino is a more cost-effective souce of flavour and are adding that to the brew!
Thanks a lot mate! <_<
Gout
Bentleigh Brau Haus
Well to prove to myself that i am still a knob, i did my best ever yet,
mash, set up new pump and stand, etc , all went well so i was pumping to the boiler, the misses turns up, Mum, bro etc every one runngin around so i finally got rid of them and on my return was thinking why is the boiler so low... yes there is 10Lt of first runnings down the drive way.!
This is going to be a very light brew! (i am so angry at the waste, yet happy i didn't smash anything in rage)
Over and out
Ben
drive will be sticky for some time
mash, set up new pump and stand, etc , all went well so i was pumping to the boiler, the misses turns up, Mum, bro etc every one runngin around so i finally got rid of them and on my return was thinking why is the boiler so low... yes there is 10Lt of first runnings down the drive way.!
This is going to be a very light brew! (i am so angry at the waste, yet happy i didn't smash anything in rage)
Over and out
Ben
drive will be sticky for some time
I did another smart this yesterday.
My fridge is rather full atm, and during the week ikegged a beer i thought was ready. Unfortuantley it was still green, and as i couldn't fit another keg in there, i decided to put the beer back into a cube to age some more.
So i thought about it, and figured that if i put a line from the "out" post on the keg, and gently pumped it through with co2, i could get it back into the keg no problems.
Worked a dream, only problem was it was a bit slow, so i wound up the pressure a bit, but it still took a long time.
When it was 1/2 way through, walked away to quickly clean some gear, when i heard the keg emptying of the last drop. I ran back, but within a second or two my co2 was trying to carbonate the beer in the open cube.
Ever seen how much beer expands when you try to do this?
Oh well, another few litres lost.
My fridge is rather full atm, and during the week ikegged a beer i thought was ready. Unfortuantley it was still green, and as i couldn't fit another keg in there, i decided to put the beer back into a cube to age some more.
So i thought about it, and figured that if i put a line from the "out" post on the keg, and gently pumped it through with co2, i could get it back into the keg no problems.
Worked a dream, only problem was it was a bit slow, so i wound up the pressure a bit, but it still took a long time.
When it was 1/2 way through, walked away to quickly clean some gear, when i heard the keg emptying of the last drop. I ran back, but within a second or two my co2 was trying to carbonate the beer in the open cube.
Ever seen how much beer expands when you try to do this?
Oh well, another few litres lost.
Well I guess my biggest stuffup is not quite inthe brewing Dept but its alcohol related. I work in a Winery and on a busy nightshift in vintage I kinda opened the wrong valve on a earth filter and ran of to carry out another job and smuggled 13000 litres of water in 12000 litres of Margarete River sauv/Blanc. Boss not very
Happy. Not quite in your league Jonno but I recon a beauty anyway
Cheers
Jethro
Happy. Not quite in your league Jonno but I recon a beauty anyway
Cheers
Jethro
dicko
Boston Bay Brewery
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Probably not the worst disaster but these things are sent to try us!
Doing a brew today and since I have had the ful understanding of promash, I have been alternating between batch and fly sparging to see how the efficiency is working.
Anyway long story short, I had done the mash and the mash out and drained the wort into the kettle, then I start to fill the mash tun again for the second sparge and I am thinking - Gee the tun is not very full and I put in all the water (hot liquer), and then I see.
I have left the tap open on the mash tun outlet and the pipe into the kettle. :angry:
Well, some of the wort got into the kettle without being recirculated and cleared.
The rest of the brew went OK and I got half a litre more wort and one SG point under anticipated OG so I was pretty happy.
I'll just wait to see how clear the beer turns out. I used half a tablet of wirlfloc.
Cheers :chug: :chug:
Doing a brew today and since I have had the ful understanding of promash, I have been alternating between batch and fly sparging to see how the efficiency is working.
Anyway long story short, I had done the mash and the mash out and drained the wort into the kettle, then I start to fill the mash tun again for the second sparge and I am thinking - Gee the tun is not very full and I put in all the water (hot liquer), and then I see.
I have left the tap open on the mash tun outlet and the pipe into the kettle. :angry:
Well, some of the wort got into the kettle without being recirculated and cleared.
The rest of the brew went OK and I got half a litre more wort and one SG point under anticipated OG so I was pretty happy.
I'll just wait to see how clear the beer turns out. I used half a tablet of wirlfloc.
Cheers :chug: :chug:
Kai
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I've been pretty lucky so far, closest I've had to a disaster was doing a Coopers Heritage Lager in summer; I didn't keep an eye on the temperature as I was filling and ended up with my wort at 26C. Sucker came out tasting like raisins.
Yeah Kai, been there,done that. I mainly do Coopers heritage lager and L.M.E.Kai said:
After being in the wine game many years I understand how important temp control is,but I didnt put 2+2 together and have thrown out about 4 brews made last summer up here in sunny Qld, will be a different story next summer, i am in the market for an old fridge big enough to take 2 fermenters that i will modify with a good thermostat. Will be looking at this forum for advice.
THE DRUNK ARAB
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I so didn't want to post under this thread !
Planned a double brew day for yesterday, woke up with huge hangover partly due to lots of red wine drunk on Saturday evening and also partly due to beers drunk at Goliath's Brew Day.
First brew was a dopplebock, mashed in no worries and 90 minutes later went to run first runnings into the kettle after recirculating. Went inside to check sparge water and have some lunch, came back out 10 minutes later to a pool of wort running over the cement !FARK!!!!! I had left the tap open on the boil kettle. Not happy Ahmed :angry: . I estimated I lost about 8 to 10 litres of first runnings. Anyway, after that debacle i carried on and that brew is now a Bock, 16 litres at OG 1068, instead of 22 litres at 1080. So I lost 6 litres of first runnings.
My second brew, an Oktoberfest, went smoothly
I won't be making that mistake again :unsure: !
C&B
TDA
!Planned a double brew day for yesterday, woke up with huge hangover partly due to lots of red wine drunk on Saturday evening and also partly due to beers drunk at Goliath's Brew Day.
First brew was a dopplebock, mashed in no worries and 90 minutes later went to run first runnings into the kettle after recirculating. Went inside to check sparge water and have some lunch, came back out 10 minutes later to a pool of wort running over the cement
!FARK!!!!! I had left the tap open on the boil kettle. Not happy Ahmed :angry: . I estimated I lost about 8 to 10 litres of first runnings. Anyway, after that debacle i carried on and that brew is now a Bock, 16 litres at OG 1068, instead of 22 litres at 1080. So I lost 6 litres of first runnings.My second brew, an Oktoberfest, went smoothly
I won't be making that mistake again :unsure: !
C&B
TDA
jayse
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I'll admit to one of my worst brewdays so far also.
It was over a year ago when doing two batches with some friends. The first batch went well but after finishing a full keg between us in just a few hours the next batch ended up all over the shed floor.
First thing that went wrong was i had not tightend up a hose clamp on my pump properly and while i was off inside piss farting around with something a mate comes inside and says a hose has come of. So i bolt out and turn of the pump to find all the mash liquior has pumped out onto the floor instead of through the herms coil.
Anyway i decide i might aswell save what is left. So begin to sparge into the kettle.
By this time i was so drank i could hardly stand up so while it is boiling i passed out on a couch in the shed for awhile.
When i woke up 1 hour later i find my mates have lit a fire just outside my shed.
I ask where did you get the wood from? and they point to my shed door and i see it is in million pieces and ash from the fire is covering the whole shed including the boiling wort.
I was too drunk to care so just sat down and continued to empty another keg sitting around the fire.
Time comes to cool down the second batch or what was left of it. Anyway the fermenter tap was still open and i didn't discover this untill almost all of the wort had run out onto the shed floor.
I close the tap and collect a whole 2 litres of wort. Then get down on my knees pissed as a fart and start licking up the rest straight of the shed floor. :unsure: .
Iam sure this won't be my last brew disaster. But i sure hope it will remain my worst.
Jayse
It was over a year ago when doing two batches with some friends. The first batch went well but after finishing a full keg between us in just a few hours the next batch ended up all over the shed floor.
First thing that went wrong was i had not tightend up a hose clamp on my pump properly and while i was off inside piss farting around with something a mate comes inside and says a hose has come of. So i bolt out and turn of the pump to find all the mash liquior has pumped out onto the floor instead of through the herms coil.
Anyway i decide i might aswell save what is left. So begin to sparge into the kettle.
By this time i was so drank i could hardly stand up so while it is boiling i passed out on a couch in the shed for awhile.
When i woke up 1 hour later i find my mates have lit a fire just outside my shed.
I ask where did you get the wood from? and they point to my shed door and i see it is in million pieces and ash from the fire is covering the whole shed including the boiling wort.
I was too drunk to care so just sat down and continued to empty another keg sitting around the fire.
Time comes to cool down the second batch or what was left of it. Anyway the fermenter tap was still open and i didn't discover this untill almost all of the wort had run out onto the shed floor.
I close the tap and collect a whole 2 litres of wort. Then get down on my knees pissed as a fart and start licking up the rest straight of the shed floor. :unsure:
.Iam sure this won't be my last brew disaster. But i sure hope it will remain my worst.
Jayse
warrenlw63
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Very good Jayse! :blink:
'tis exactly the reason that I do my brews in the early A.M. these days. Sampling + brewing = bigproblemo
Worst thing I ever did was brew 25 litres of porter (with about 25 litres of another brew in my gullet). Have a hop plug block the tap restricting the runoff to the fermenter to zilch.
What does stupid/very drunk :chug: /very lazy and tired yours truly do??? Yep dumped it all down the sink when I could have siphoned the wort to the fermenter or sanitized a stirrer or somesuch and clear the blockage. :unsure:
Pissed at 3am very much clouded with my reasoning. Let's not get started on the amount of times I've fallen asleep whilst cooling the wort too <_<
Warren -
'tis exactly the reason that I do my brews in the early A.M. these days. Sampling + brewing = bigproblemo
Worst thing I ever did was brew 25 litres of porter (with about 25 litres of another brew in my gullet). Have a hop plug block the tap restricting the runoff to the fermenter to zilch.
What does stupid/very drunk :chug: /very lazy and tired yours truly do??? Yep dumped it all down the sink when I could have siphoned the wort to the fermenter or sanitized a stirrer or somesuch and clear the blockage. :unsure:
Pissed at 3am very much clouded with my reasoning. Let's not get started on the amount of times I've fallen asleep whilst cooling the wort too <_<
Warren -
Not so much a brewing disaster, but brew related.
Early in my tenure at The Country Brewer I was busy filling some pails with malt from a 300 litre malt tub to be shipped to our other stores for their stocks. A customer walks in, I walk away to serve, ten minutes later ...
Imagine the difficulty I had removing 100+ kilos' of liquid malt from the floor of the shop.
Cheers,
Pete
:chug:
Early in my tenure at The Country Brewer I was busy filling some pails with malt from a 300 litre malt tub to be shipped to our other stores for their stocks. A customer walks in, I walk away to serve, ten minutes later ...
Imagine the difficulty I had removing 100+ kilos' of liquid malt from the floor of the shop.
Cheers,
Pete
:chug:
warrenlw63
Just a Hoe
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Would have been some very happy ants that day!
Warren -
Warren -
I feel I have to confess that last night, Lady Logic left me alone for a wee while, and I have something to contribute not in the realms of Johnno for pure volume, nor Jayse for drunken floor licking depravity, but fess up I will.
The spirit of goodwill residing in me, I offered to do a quick extract&steep brew for a mate, who was showing interest in the noble art of craftbrewing. Brew went down fine, secondary/CC with possibly a LEEETLE too much dry hopping (shade grassy for my tastes at this point in time), but the push was on to bottle it for him, firstly cos I needed the jerry for the next brew in the production line, and secondly, cos he wanted to drink it.
So he came round last night to have a quiet one, and do the deed. Heres where I checked my brain in at the garage door. Now, I thought, he wants to minimise the time the beer has in the bottle, so what options do we have for carbonation?.
Bottle priming out. Too likely I d under/overprime and hed end up with flats or gushers. Plus a couple of weeks lag time.
Bulk priming possible. Consistent carbonation, but still a couple of weeks in the bottle.
Force carbonation winner. Plus we can dispense to bottles with a CPBF.
It so happened that one keg only had a few litres left, so a couple of pints each and a half dozen longnecks with the CPBF (its virginal use). Empty the keg, strip it and clean it, more beer. Both of us excited about the potential time saving.
Rack the brew from secondary in to the keg, force carbonate. Leave for half an hour in the fridge over dinner, burp keg back to serving pressure, break out the CPBF again.
I suspect a little more time needed. CPBF pouring with what I suspected was a fair bit of head certainly more than when we bottled off the remainder of the other keg. CPBF with quite a bit of pressure desperately wanting to come free. Remove CPBF. Beer thunderstorm, with scattered ceiling rainfall for an extended period thereafter. But, I our infinite wisdom, we repeated the experiment with reduced pressures, etc. 4 times, with similar results. Certainly got a few you boys smell like a brewery type comments when we retired hurt some minutes later.
In the light of day, and without the added benefit of beer, allowing the CO2 to have some time to settle is probably a good idea. Were going to have another crack tonight before we hook in
The spirit of goodwill residing in me, I offered to do a quick extract&steep brew for a mate, who was showing interest in the noble art of craftbrewing. Brew went down fine, secondary/CC with possibly a LEEETLE too much dry hopping (shade grassy for my tastes at this point in time), but the push was on to bottle it for him, firstly cos I needed the jerry for the next brew in the production line, and secondly, cos he wanted to drink it.
So he came round last night to have a quiet one, and do the deed. Heres where I checked my brain in at the garage door. Now, I thought, he wants to minimise the time the beer has in the bottle, so what options do we have for carbonation?.
Bottle priming out. Too likely I d under/overprime and hed end up with flats or gushers. Plus a couple of weeks lag time.
Bulk priming possible. Consistent carbonation, but still a couple of weeks in the bottle.
Force carbonation winner. Plus we can dispense to bottles with a CPBF.
It so happened that one keg only had a few litres left, so a couple of pints each and a half dozen longnecks with the CPBF (its virginal use). Empty the keg, strip it and clean it, more beer. Both of us excited about the potential time saving.
Rack the brew from secondary in to the keg, force carbonate. Leave for half an hour in the fridge over dinner, burp keg back to serving pressure, break out the CPBF again.
I suspect a little more time needed. CPBF pouring with what I suspected was a fair bit of head certainly more than when we bottled off the remainder of the other keg. CPBF with quite a bit of pressure desperately wanting to come free. Remove CPBF. Beer thunderstorm, with scattered ceiling rainfall for an extended period thereafter. But, I our infinite wisdom, we repeated the experiment with reduced pressures, etc. 4 times, with similar results. Certainly got a few you boys smell like a brewery type comments when we retired hurt some minutes later.
In the light of day, and without the added benefit of beer, allowing the CO2 to have some time to settle is probably a good idea. Were going to have another crack tonight before we hook in
bwwwahahhahaahah sounds like my first attempt with my CPBF. :lol:
The flow was a bit slow so I increased the pressure a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more then whooosh, walls, windows, ceiling, me, the dog.
I painted the kitchen recently so now the slowly does it approach with a few towels down to catch any stray drops.
At least you are allowed to take a second stab at it tonight.
Beers,
Doc
The flow was a bit slow so I increased the pressure a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more then whooosh, walls, windows, ceiling, me, the dog.
I painted the kitchen recently so now the slowly does it approach with a few towels down to catch any stray drops.
At least you are allowed to take a second stab at it tonight.
Beers,
Doc
Well i discovered a new way to waste several liters of IPA last night.
I decided to transfer from the cube to the keg, so i could chill and carbonate it.
Did the ususual, hooked up the racking tube, coiled it nicely in the keg, and opened the tap on the fermenter.
What happened next was unexpected - i had turned the tap on without opening the lid on the cube. What made this bad, was the the beer was rather carbonated, so it came out the racking tube with quit sime force. Enough to lift the tube out of the keg, and start snaking around the room (kinda like a garden hose).
Around 6L of lovely IPA squirted all over the room (and my pool table) while i like an idiot tried to grab the hose, rather than just turn off the tap :-(
I decided to transfer from the cube to the keg, so i could chill and carbonate it.
Did the ususual, hooked up the racking tube, coiled it nicely in the keg, and opened the tap on the fermenter.
What happened next was unexpected - i had turned the tap on without opening the lid on the cube. What made this bad, was the the beer was rather carbonated, so it came out the racking tube with quit sime force. Enough to lift the tube out of the keg, and start snaking around the room (kinda like a garden hose).
Around 6L of lovely IPA squirted all over the room (and my pool table) while i like an idiot tried to grab the hose, rather than just turn off the tap :-(
SJW
As you must brew, so you must drink
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While I have been bringing back from the dead some old threads, this one was a classic.
That brings me to my latest disaster.
While having a march pump in the brewery now it pays not to drink and brew. While pumping to the boiler I got to thinking that I must of over sparged a touch as I was up to full boil volume and still had heaps of wort in the mash. To my surprise I had left the HLT valve open and ended up diluting the boil with about 5 litres of water. Not a big disaster just ended up with a 5 hour boil. :angry:
Steve
ps. I wont bring back any more oldies today. Its just a slow day at work.
That brings me to my latest disaster.
While having a march pump in the brewery now it pays not to drink and brew. While pumping to the boiler I got to thinking that I must of over sparged a touch as I was up to full boil volume and still had heaps of wort in the mash. To my surprise I had left the HLT valve open and ended up diluting the boil with about 5 litres of water. Not a big disaster just ended up with a 5 hour boil. :angry:
Steve
ps. I wont bring back any more oldies today. Its just a slow day at work.
