Your Worst/Dumbest Brewday Stuff Up...

[Siborg]

The title says it all: What is the worst/dumbest stuff up you've ever made on a brew day? And what did you do to recover, if this was possible?

Mine would have been the time I was brewing on the braumeister for the first time in ages. I was making a milk stout. Milled the grain bill, heated up my strike water, started mashing in, then noticed the mesh screen filters sitting next to the brau. For anyone that doesn't know the system, there is a filter screen that sits on the bottom of the malt pipe (inner pot) and on top of the mash. If these aren't in place, the pump at the bottom would try to suck the mash through and become clogged pretty quickly. Swearing and cursing, I grabbed the nearest esky and scooped the entire mash out, 2 litres at a time into the esky. A quick clean out of the brau and pump, an adjustment for the 10-15 minutes this took to my mash schedule and it actually turned out fine. I didn't even lose that much heat during the process of transferring.

 

[Rocker1986]

Trying to do a full step mash in a Crown urn was a bit of a fail. I was doing a Bo Pils. Started it at 35C but there was so much crap released from the grains when doughing in that it caked the element and the thing refused to heat up properly. In the end I got the old stock pot I used to use for extract boils, drained some of the wort into it, took it up to the stove and boiled it, returning it back to the urn once done. I think I did this about 3 or 4 times to get the temp up into the mid 60s. It was then left as a single infusion for the remainder. At least managed to scrape enough shit off the element to allow it to boil. The beer turned out sub standard though, especially compared to the following batches where I ditched the full on step mash and just used a Hochkurz schedule. I'm sure there are ways to do it in an urn but I can't be arsed anymore, given I was very happy with the beers using the Hochkurz mash.

Other than that nothing terribly bad... lost a couple of litres out of a cube that was just filled once when the tap was accidentally kicked out of it. :mellow:

 

[Coodgee]

Filling the fermenter with chilled wort after a long 6 hour brew day and realising 3 or 4 litres has trickled out onto the floor because i forgot to close the fermenter tap.

 

[Tahoose]

Kegged a batch of beer with a few litres of starsan still in the keg. I could taste the sanitiser, batch had to be tipped.

 

[Siborg]

Kegged a batch of beer with a few litres of starsan still in the keg. I could taste the sanitiser, batch had to be tipped.

Whenever a homebrewer has to tip a batch, I always picture it's like that heineken ad where someone drops a slab of heineken and everyone the world over feels the pain

 

[welly2]

Filling the fermenter with chilled wort after a long 6 hour brew day and realising 3 or 4 litres has trickled out onto the floor because i forgot to close the fermenter tap.

I did something like this. Usually recirculate wort through my Grainfather chiller back into the Grainfather for 15 minutes or so when I start chilling. Didn't notice I hadn't put the wort exit tube back into the Grainfather so pissed out about 3 or 4 litres onto the floor. Flies had a feast.

 

[Tropico]

Filling the fermenter with chilled wort after a long 6 hour brew day and realising 3 or 4 litres has trickled out onto the floor because i forgot to close the fermenter tap.

Been there twice. The worst part was having to clean up all the spilt wort as well

 

[Danscraftbeer]

The brew night got too late and I was too tired (after what must have been the longest all grain 40lt brew I've ever had) so I turned the boil off and left it overnight. Started it up the next morning never considering a sediment cake needed to be mixed up off the bottom. Finished the brew and decanted to find a big burnt cake on the bottom. Yes it had an off flavour. Borderline tipping it but it just got left and neglected in the keg and the off flavour dissipated after 3 - 4 weeks to drinkable. So I haven't done too badly.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Your not a brewer until you have left the tap open

 

[Mardoo]

Not disassembling and washing out the manifold between the first and second iterations of the mash on a big 360L RIS brewday. Ended up with a solidly stuck mash in a 250L mash tun. Had to scoop it out and lauter it in batches in the 150L mash tun to finish the runoff. Together with other minor delays and assorted fuckups it ended up being a 21-hour brewday, 27 hours including prep and setup the night before.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

^^that hurt reading that.

Classic one would be not clipping or tying the BIAB-bag to the pot and stirring too vigorously, only to drop the bag into the liquor along with all the grain on the outside of the bag. Manual lautering into multiple buckets, cleaning of pot, replacement of bag, grain and liquor setting you back X hours on a brew day.

More recently on one of my earlier 3V brews, not rinsing out or cleaning pump head properly (only recirced hot water through), week or so later on next brew day started draining to the kettle and a big black/blue lugie of mould came out of the pump into the otherwise beautifully clean wort spinning in the kettle, we managed to scoop everything we could see out of the wort and continued with the boil. Still happily drinking that beer on tap as we speak it turned out fine thank the beer gods. Needless to say every brw my pumps get a PBW record and hot water rinse before being disassembled and dried.

 

[mofox1]

Damn pump boogers.

Mine get dried (the pumps, that is), but I make sure my HLT coil gets a good flush if it hasn't been used for a while.

Edit: Do brewing injuries count in this thread? I've got a nice bright patch of new pink skin on the back of my hand courtesy of an overflowing flask... dumbass-moi.

 

[Droopy Brew]

Open tap- happened a couple of times during K&K days. thankfully I learnt that lesson before AG.

Last brew I ran an Amber Ale through the plate chiller and walked away for 20 min. Come back and undo it all and tip the remenants out of the chiller into a flask for a starter and its still hot. check the fermenter- about 40-50C. ****! Timer on the garden hose ran out so there was no water pumping through the chiller for probably half of the drain. Think the wort was cool enough but to stop isomerisation.

Father in law decided to help one day. Was draining a sparge through a pvc hose (silly me). The heat was softening it and it was kinking so the FIL being the ideas man he is, goes and grabs a rake from around the shed. He tries to prop the hose up and in the process drains about 100ml of months old mosquito larvae infested water from the hollow rake handle into the wort. Luckily it was pre boil so no harm done.

Nothing tragic but all learning experiences.

 

[lobedogg]

Few spills etc as above and I still consistently leave my hop calculations/additions too late, and often do them on the fly or consequently stuff them up. Have actually ended up with some good beers that way though.

Recently though, I managed to accidentally clean a keg with washing detergent instead of Napisan. I realised and rinsed, cleaned, re-rinsed etc. Filled her up and had a keg full of soapy DSGA which had to be disposed of despite trying to convince myself it really wasn't that disgusting.

Changed the seals and re-cleaned and was fine for next time but that was a painful one.

 

[Blind Dog]

Mine would have been the time I was brewing on the braumeister for the first time in ages. I was making a milk stout. Milled the grain bill, heated up my strike water, started mashing in, then noticed the mesh screen filters sitting next to the brau.

Been there, done that. Unfortunately more than once. Even left the whole malt pipe out before now and only realised after pouring in the grain. That's when I'm glad I kept the big w BIAB pots.

Funny one the other day was when I assembled the ball lock valve (upgraded from the brau standard tap) the wrong way round so that it opened clockwise, ie towards the brau. Barely got a trickle out of it and took over an hour to drain into the cube. I just reboiled for 15 min after fixing the tap.

 

[The Judge]

Oh man.... biggest stuff up ever.

Didn't push down my quick connect far enough on the gas in line to a keg, but apparently far enough to pinch the valve open. A whole new 6kg bottle of CO2 vented straight out... and because all other kegs are manifolded (check valve at the regulator) all my kegs vented through this open line.

Result: empty CO2 bottle, 3 flat kegs, and a sunken loungeroom probably full of CO2 (hope the cat wasn't down there....)

 

[mxd]

I have a few

left 3kg, out of 9kg, of grain out

poured cube into fermenter with starsan in it

put fermenter in with temp of 2 degrees

put fermenter into fridge without yeast

mixed the order of hops (the only one I did when pissed)

batch sparge with all valves open (so the HLT went to kettle and MLT, MLT went to kettle)

put sodium perc in kettle when it was meant to be dex

I'm sure there's more

 

[Coodgee]

I have a few

left 3kg, out of 9kg, of grain out

poured cube into fermenter with starsan in it

put fermenter in with temp of 2 degrees

put fermenter into fridge without yeast

mixed the order of hops (the only one I did when pissed)

batch sparge with all valves open (so the HLT went to kettle and MLT, MLT went to kettle)

put sodium perc in kettle when it was meant to be dex

I'm sure there's more

wow some of those are disaster scenarios. especially the last one!

 

[Zorco]

Set hair on fire.

Pallet rack brewery, top row has HLT on a BG14 style burner. Mash tun below it mashing, heating sparge in HLT. Moved in to make a visual inspection of mash from above, flames jumped onto elvis man-doo incinerating follicles, good looks and pride. Fumigated the second story with floorboard penetrating hair smoke.

No love made with wife that night. Currently sporting angry anderson makeover.

 

[Mardoo]

You win, brother!