Worst Brewing Disaster. Ever!

[SJW]

I have only been brewing since christmas so have only had the chance for one brewing disaster. It's an oldy but goody. It was my first Lager bottled at 1018.
It was not all bad in the end but the disaster was after being bottled for one week i decided to knock the tops of em all and re cap. I lined them all up on the kitchen bench and proceeded to knock the tops off, rapied fire style. I did them all and looked back at them all to see 29 long necked gushers. I had beer all over the kitchen and am surprised the Mrs let me brew again after that.
Anyway fellas i'm sure you have some clasic Homebrew Disasters you would like to share.

 

[Gough]

That's pretty impressive SJW. Can't really compete with that :lol: :lol: Worst I've done so far (fingers crossed) is the old 'leave the tap on the secondary open, beer all over the floor when racking' trick that most of us have managed at least once. Was a 'learning experience'...

Shawn.

 

[Justin]

Yep, I've left the tap open before, both on a fermenter and on the boil kettle while sparging. I caught both in time but you do feel like a right idiot. I'm sure everyone has pushed a rubber grommet into the fermenter when inserting the airlock too. This usually happens on your first brew, after this you never forget because it's such a tramatic experience and your worried you infected your first brew. I've done it once and I'll never do it again.

I broke my immersion heater (fish tank one, thermostatically controlled 18-30oC, very sad ) one night at 1am in the morning by dropping it into the sink. I had just bottled a brew to free up the fermenter for the next days brew. This was the night before my first all-grain brew that I was brewing with 5 other guys. First time on my system, first all-grain, and then brewing in a different enviroment (ie. not at home) so I had to make sure I took absolutely everything with me. Anyway, I was being particularly careful not to drop it in the sink while washing it. And I did. Bugger.

No bottle bombs though. I never even get a brew near a bottle inside 2 weeks. I don't need to produce beer at that rapid a pace so the extra days in the fermenter don't hurt. Other than that my brewing has been relatively event free, touch wood. No doubt there will be more to come.

I have read some great stories on some other forums though. Dangerous stuff this homebrewing.

Cheers, JD

 

[Gout]

I have knocked the tap off the fermenter on the door while walking with a fermenter full of beer and it all spewed out

also droped a full 22Lt of AG ale once i had cooled it at abour 1:30am when i finally finished for all of it to go to waste on the grass
GRRRRRRR, better than the floor though

 

[kook]

http://members.iinet.net.au/~wobsmum1/000_0176.JPG

I've had three bottle explosions. Two were tooheys old stubbies, and one was a 2 litre overprimed coke bottle. The photo is of my brew room ceiling, after the coke bottle explosion. I had to mop the ceiling with bleach!

They were all very early brews though (over a year ago now), and my technique for priming back then had many flaws Infact my brewing technique had many flaws!

 

[SJW]

Nice Kook, real nice.

 

[Batz]

I've also left the tap open while racking

And the first Wyeast I did , when ready to pitch I gave it an almighty shake up , wanted to airate it !
Then opened the bottle , Wyeast from " bum hole till breakfast time " !

 

[Wreck]

Once I was rehydrating my yeast whilst preparing everything else. After getting everything into the fermenter, I reached over to get the cup which the yeast was sitting in, and knocked it over, spilling everything over the bench.

Didn't have any other packets of yeast, so I quickly ran down to Big W, bought another coopers kit, ripped the yeast out of that and pitched it.

All worked out ok in the end.

 

[pioneergangsta]

Well, one nite not too long ago,,,was relaxing on the lounge when...smash bang crash!
Result seen below - bottle tree fell over, it was ontop of a fridge. Lucky i only lost like 3 longnecks, so not too bad in that i didnt lose a brew!

 

[Jazman]

well in lucky had a faulty cooper fermenter and lost 10 litres of black ipa also had a few gushers and bottle bombs when i couldn not what to drink them

when i fist started brewing 7 years ago i got a cider kit for the misses and she like stuff sweet and he said put 1/2 a tab of sugarine tab in the bottle when u prime and guess what in the spare room bombs were going off and every night around 2 in the morning bang a bomb would go of and scarer the shit out of us so after that i poured it over the lawn never done a cider since anyway i hate the shit

 

[wee stu]

I sometimes dream of the day a brew goes right!

My worst brewing disaster, though, happened in the safety of the home brew shop.

It was early days, and I wanted to start bulk priming and racking. So, I popped off to Grumpy's to get a second fermenter. Twas a busy Saturday arvo and everyone was working in the bar/cafe - nobody to help me in the brewshop. Couldn't find any fermenters for a while, until I looked up and spotted a nice stack of thirty or so, on their nice round sides, on a shelf above head height.

I reached up and grabbed the first one ...... and then the rest of them started to roll ...... Thirty fermenters start to roll very slowly, but they gather a good head of speed as they start to crash down, one by one, on a careless customer's head. In the end I was about the only thing left standing in a pile of fermenters. Luckily nothing suffered lasting damage, except perhaps my pride . The Grumpys even felt so sorry I scored a free pint of pale ale to help in the recovery process. :chug:

Was a while before I was willing to show my face in the store again, though h34r:

 

[Gough]

Top darts Wee Stu. Don't know that anyone can top that one. :lol: :lol: Gave me a good laugh anyway. With you of course, not at you Sounds like something I could easily have done...

Shawn.

 

[Barry]

Good Day
Yes, most of those mentioned above.
All the best, Barry.

 

[popsy]

Went to bottle one day, moved the fermenter outside to sit on the deck and was cleaning 2nd fermenter to bulk prime. SWMBO began hollering then dragged me out shopping for a few hours. Did not think to move fermented beer.

Returned home eager to finish the chore of bottling, only to find my two dogs had chewed the tap enough for the beer to be slowly leaking out, and were also helping themselves to the said leaking liquid.

Poor bastards, they only got through about 22.5 litres of the stuff. Even if heaps fell on the ground, they still managed to get a pretty good session in.

Needless to say it was an interesting evening dealing with the results of their indulgence.

 

[Boots]

ROFLMAO :lol:

Popsy - that's the funniest thing i've read in ages. Absolute gold.

 

[johnno]

popsy, are they keen, come bottling day now. :lol: :lol:

 

[Hopeye]

Yup, Yup, and Yup,

3 Bottle bombs (different batches). Happend twice at parties and once when I gave a couple of stubbies to a mate to try.... He wasn't too impressed trying to explain the shaving nicks on his forehead...

2 Open Taps. Once on the floor in the shed and once in the sink. Caught them pretty quickly though.

2 Boil over's on SWMBO's cooker (same batch), sh*t what a mess.

1 fish head brew. I ferment in my shed (read garage). After one summer's party we had, the missus left a bag of prawn heads and shells in the shed (by mistake she says). After three days of 30+ temps, the shed stunk like sh*t. The bitter that was fermenting in the shed (in an esky with water and ice bottles) somehow acquired the aroma and flavour of the smell. The one and only brew I've had to toss. :chug:

 

[johnno]

This isnt really related to homebrew but it is about beer.
I know a lot of people wont aknowledge this as a disaster and will say it was a good thing that happened but here goes.
Back in 87-88 I worked at the CUB plant in abbotsford for about 15 months.
My job there was what they call a "pumpman". There was always 2 people doing this job together.
Basically when the beer is ready to move from the conditioning tanks to be filtered through the "jets" then on to packiging. You got a call from the "jet" operator instructing you which tanks in which cellar you had to connect via the main "pumps" room. This room you stepped dpwn onto it via 4 or 5 steps from ground level Once you had them connected you just sat back and didnt do much really as the volumes wee so high.
Anyway I cant remember for sure now if it was fortnightly or weekly that the lines had to be cleaned with a couple of different solutions one being good old caustic soda.
On this particular Saturday my partner was away sick and I was left alone to clean the lines.
I went ahead and started cleaning lines by making some connections in the pumps room then moving on to another cellar to make some more connections.
Half an hour later on my way back to the pumps room I noticed a shitload of beer pissing out of the pumps room onto the outside ground of thr plant. Making my way there I realized I had left a connection open. I swear I had to swim through the beer to get there and close this thing off. I knew I was a goner. Finally closed it and went and reported to the foreman. He was ok about it. Later we estimated that about 40 to 50,000 litres had been lost.
But thats not all folks.
Next monday they discovered that I had left a holding tank open that was approximately half full. These were the new 4000 kilolitre tanks. I had run the caustic soda into this tank. Yes I screwd up a lot of beer.
I got taken up to the "big" bosses office and was told that this was not a warning. Any more screwups and I was outa there mega quickly.
I later found out that they tried to get rid of me but couldnt as they had left me alone on a job that 2 people were supposed to be doing.
Anyway thats one disaster.

cheers

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

This isnt really related to homebrew but it is about beer.
I know a lot of people wont aknowledge this as a disaster and will say it was a good thing that happened but here goes.
Back in 87-88 I worked at the CUB plant in abbotsford for about 15 months.
My job there was what they call a "pumpman". There was always 2 people doing this job together.
Basically when the beer is ready to move from the conditioning tanks to be filtered through the "jets" then on to packiging. You got a call from the "jet" operator instructing you which tanks in which cellar you had to connect via the main "pumps" room. This room you stepped dpwn onto it via 4 or 5 steps from ground level Once you had them connected you just sat back and didnt do much really as the volumes wee so high.
Anyway I cant remember for sure now if it was fortnightly or weekly that the lines had to be cleaned with a couple of different solutions one being good old caustic soda.
On this particular Saturday my partner was away sick and I was left alone to clean the lines.
I went ahead and started cleaning lines by making some connections in the pumps room then moving on to another cellar to make some more connections.
Half an hour later on my way back to the pumps room I noticed a shitload of beer pissing out of the pumps room onto the outside ground of thr plant. Making my way there I realized I had left a connection open. I swear I had to swim through the beer to get there and close this thing off. I knew I was a goner. Finally closed it and went and reported to the foreman. He was ok about it. Later we estimated that about 40 to 50,000 litres had been lost.
But thats not all folks.
Next monday they discovered that I had left a holding tank open that was approximately half full. These were the new 4000 kilolitre tanks. I had run the caustic soda into this tank. Yes I screwd up a lot of beer.
I got taken up to the "big" bosses office and was told that this was not a warning. Any more screwups and I was outa there mega quickly.
I later found out that they tried to get rid of me but couldnt as they had left me alone on a job that 2 people were supposed to be doing.
Anyway thats one disaster.

cheers

Ladies, Gentleman and bald headed kids, we have a WINNER!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[BarneyG]

Jonno, that's the best story ever :lol: :lol: Maybe its karma for CUB putting out some terrible beer.