Worst Brewing Disaster. Ever!

[michael_aussie]

I know this is an old thread .. but it certainly has some gold.

My mishaps are trivial compared to some of these.

My worst ones so far are:

1. Boiling over a few saucepans on the kitcn stove - wife not happy.

2. Setting fire to one of the above - shit that stuff burns pretty easy. Wife even less happy.

3. The dog chewing a few of my fittings when I turned my back while cleaning a fermenter. Me not happy.

4. The dog licking the underside of my fermenter lid when I got my son to hold it while I took a SG reading. The kids saw the funny side of it. I nick-named that one "the lick of the bitch".

= as i said after reading this thread, I don't feel 1/2 as bad....

 

[WarmBeer]

Brew # 41, All grain brew # 15, feeling pretty smug, never had much of a mishap other than a boilover when I was still doing extract brews in the kitchen.

Well tonight it finally bit me in the arse.

Brewing an APA, everything had gone to plan, brew was ahead of schedule, and was feeling pretty chuffed with myself. Looking forward to getting to bed before midnight.

Well, a mate had let me loose on his Chinook plant a couple of weeks ago, so I decided at the last moment to use them instead of pellets for the flameout addition.

Flame out. Whirlpool. 10 minutes later, go to drain into the cube... Nothing! A little dribble, then maybe a drop a second. A frickin flower has made it's way up my pickup tube, and gotten stuck there.

Panic! Think! There's my old 30lt aluminium stock pot I haven't used in a while, so I quickly attach a ball valve, and ladle the wort, one jug at a time, out of the keggle, through a strainer, into the ali pot. Well, I guess we shall get to see if this Hot Side Aeration thing is a myth or not.

Bring it back up to boil for a minute or so to sanitise and finally get it into the cube.

The moral of this tale, if you're even considering brewing with flowers, make sure you've got a screen over the pickup.

 

[shadders]

Love this thread...

My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.

First batch took about three weeks to carbonate enough to drink, how happy was I when it was nice and fizzy after one week...

I think you know how the story ends... I only got to drink about 3 bottles. Once it started I was too scared to go in the garage for a few weeks. I still remember the machine gun effect late one night when one set off a chain reaction of others while I cringed under my blanket.

15 years later I brewed my 3rd batch. It was a light beer

 

[Fodder]

Love this thread...

My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.

First batch took about three weeks to carbonate enough to drink, how happy was I when it was nice and fizzy after one week...

I think you know how the story ends... I only got to drink about 3 bottles. Once it started I was too scared to go in the garage for a few weeks. I still remember the machine gun effect late one night when one set off a chain reaction of others while I cringed under my blanket.

15 years later I brewed my 3rd batch. It was a light beer

thats gold! Heeehehe

well written!

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

Love this thread...

My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.

First batch took about three weeks to carbonate enough to drink, how happy was I when it was nice and fizzy after one week...

I think you know how the story ends... I only got to drink about 3 bottles. Once it started I was too scared to go in the garage for a few weeks. I still remember the machine gun effect late one night when one set off a chain reaction of others while I cringed under my blanket.

15 years later I brewed my 3rd batch. It was a light beer

Very funny stuff mate, could see that happening when i was 19 too.... So is that where you got your user name from?

 

[Superoo]

Had one boilover, and a few minor things,

But thinking I'm a clever prick, decided to make my own temp controller using some microprocessors we use at work.

Programmed one up, worked fine for fermenter fridge.

Then I changed the program a bit so I could set temp for a BIAB strike temp, and that worked good too.

So after the Biab I changed the program back for my fermenter fridge, but I stuffed one line up where it turns the relay off after the temperature has dropped to 19.5 degrees.

Eagerly got out of bed Wednesday morning to see how high the krausen was, the bloody freezer is at -5 and the wort is at 6 degrees in the fermenter. If I hadnt looked I reckon the wort would have fozen by the afternoon.

Good news is krausen is fying high after temp back to normal.

 

[Pennywise]

Love this thread...

My first go at brewing only lasted two batches. On the second batch (a stout) at bottling time I finally clicked that more sugar = more alcohol. Being a 19 year old uni student at the time I thought I was definitely onto a good thing. Unfortunately since it was finished fermenting it was too late to add more, until I remembered the part about priming the bottles. Eureka! I can make it stronger by putting more sugar in the bottles... I thought I'd start easy for the first time so I only quadrupled the sugar dose per bottle.

First batch took about three weeks to carbonate enough to drink, how happy was I when it was nice and fizzy after one week...

I think you know how the story ends... I only got to drink about 3 bottles. Once it started I was too scared to go in the garage for a few weeks. I still remember the machine gun effect late one night when one set off a chain reaction of others while I cringed under my blanket.

15 years later I brewed my 3rd batch. It was a light beer

:lol: Love it, thanks for sharing. Funny how things that can be so dangerous are so funny when no-one gets hurt.

 

[gregs]

Well I think the worst brewing disaster ever would have to be Speedie.

Top that one. :beerbang:

 

[RdeVjun]

Well I think the worst brewing disaster ever would have to be Speedie.

The chaps responsible for this disaster unfolding on our doorstep are probably still rolling up laughing... Thanks guys, really thoughtful and I hope you are pleased with yourselves. :angry:
Does highlight the role and worth of the forum's Ignore function though. :icon_cheers:

 

[Hutcho]

Disaster averted !!!
Was only reading here the other day and can't remember who wrote it but a big "thankyou" for suggesting putting something under you bag after you have hoisted it out of the kettle.
Yesterday hoisted bag and let drip then remembered, so cleaned up an old fridge shelf and put that over the pot, no sooner had i done that as i was giving the bag a twirl the rope snapped with no warning and down the bag went bang onto the wire shelf, phew (heart skipped a few beats) !!! 6kg of heavy grain dropping straight into 30 litres of hot wort then all over me was on the cards if the shelf wasn't there.

 

[proudscum]

Spending the last day(6am start) of finishing off prototype #6 of the brewery so as to put a batch through as a test run and coming down with Gastro that afternoon and not finishing the brewery or brewing.That ended up being the last straw for that rig and it spent 5 years sitting in the shed in pieces,with most of it being sold off.That was the true disaster.Now with a new rig and the kids older i have put my first 2 brews through last week.So the drought of non mash brewing has been broken after 5 years.

 

[argon]

while not strictly a brewing disaster... last night got back from a day out to find that the temp probe had fallen out the bottom of the lagering freezer. Needless to say the freezer was cranking along trying to lower the ambient temp of 14C to -1C. The 2 kegs and the dozen or so bottles in there didn't appreciate this and decided to freeze in protest. So lost a few special bottles of commercial and froze a couple of kegs (that are thawing out now and will be fine).

Not to self ensure the probe is always attached to something...

 

[Midnight Brew]

How to waste 30 minutes cleaning?

Put a starter on the stove brining it up to a boil and go downstairs to the garage to get a yeast vial. Spend 2 minutes doing this to spend 30 minutes cleaning an exploded starter in the kitchen.

Hit every appliance and the roof including the air con vents. Good times.

 

[carniebrew]

How did it explode, was it under some kind of pressure? A boil over I understand...but reaching the roof??? Damn...

 

[Midnight Brew]

The flask is all good which Im glad just the foil on top exploeded under pressure and covered the roof and kitchen is sticky unfermented wort

 

[pilgrimspiss]

Just read the beginning of this post as it popped up in the recent threads list on the front page. Read a post and hit like. Realized i liked a comment from 2004!! HAHA

 

[Camo6]

Gold! Did similar awhile ago when I thought I'd be closer to the family and do a starter inside. The uncovered erlenmeyer started to boil and I though shit, I forgot the nutrient. Chucked in about 1/8th of a teaspoon but she went BOOM! Everywhere. Inside no more.

Recently I found a bottle of Kolsch I'd overlooked. Poured a glass of overcarbed fizz and tipped it out and went back to the kegerator. Later I went to rinse the bottle in the sink. I'd forgotten it was 1/2 full and shook it with a bit of water tipped in and a thumb over the crown. Phoooosh. Everywhere.

 

[OneEye]

Love the stories in this thread. Been going strong since 2004! Haha

Was planning a brew the other day and being the organised brewer I am I got going on preparing a starter. Boiled up some DME in the flask for 10 mins, cut the flame and placed it into the sink, where I would usually chill it down with an ice bath. Was clearly in a bit of a daze as I then proceeded to just pour the smack pack into the flask without chilling it down! Poured it in and went to pick it up to swirl it around... Shit Mass yeasty homicide.

 

[gava]

one of my worst is a double batch (48lt) of lager (Pils malt) only did a 60min boil and ended up with DMS fuelled ass water... was tipped.. and yes I've left he tap open to.

-gav