Your Worst/Dumbest Brewday Stuff Up...

[Danscraftbeer]

Broke my own record. Installed a thermowell into my Kegmenter. Long story short I didn't pressure test it.

All done properly it seemed the original rubber seal wasn't good enough for pressurization. Filled with 40lt new beer wort pitched with yeast (already a twelve hour brew day, just one of those days). Pumped some Oxygen into it to see the doom that the seal failed and beer squirting out. So late and tired I depressurized it (it seemed ok depressurized). Left the pressure release open. I placed it in the ferment fridge in a 50lt black tub just in case. Next morning the kegmenter is sitting in about 10lt of fermenting beer.
Set up a plastic fermenter to transfer and rescue the rest I tried lifting the kegmenter out (too heavy) tipped that black tub with 10lt of beer onto a carpet floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :angry2:

Then the rest of the toiling that followed. Finding a good seal, pressure testing, cleaning that carpet etc. Safe to say that's the hardest brew experience I've ever had.

 

[Grott]

You deserve a beer, no several beers.

 

[Coodgee]

In my heart, I know you are 100% correct.

But a dry brew day for me is about as likely as sober karaoke.

I always wait until it's chilling before i crack the first beer.

 

[timmi9191]

I always wait until it's chilling before i crack the first beer.

clearly a brew day stuff up.. :super: :super: :super:

 

[Dave70]

I always wait until it's chilling before i crack the first beer.

I'm a highly functional inebriate.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Carpet Circles. Anyone relate to this Phenomenon?



This the same crap carpet I spilled the beer on. That's the signature of a hot boiled sanitized kegmenter.

 

[Zorco]

Carpet Circles. Anyone relate to this Phenomenon?
This the same crap carpet I spilled the beer on. That's the signature of a hot boiled sanitized kegmenter.

Made by an old brewer with a plank of wood and a soldering iron!

Brewing scars are weirdly cool.

 

[spog]

Carpet Circles. Anyone relate to this Phenomenon?



This the same crap carpet I spilled the beer on. That's the signature of a hot boiled sanitized kegmenter.

Bung a smiley face in the middle and know one will be the wiser.

 

[Mardoo]

Or just paint a giant W on either side and it'll say WOW, maybe a surprised emoticon too. No one will notice the burn.

 

[Moad]

I brew on a gas fired herms with the coil in the HLT, it ramps real slow so I turn the MT burner on to assist getting to mash out temp. If I am drinking on brew day I can almost guarantee I forget to turn it off... I've had boiling grain on a few occasions.

Forgetting to turn off various taps on fermenters is probably the worst because you are thinking you are on the home straight about to get stuck into a few brew... NOPE

The biggest mistake was starting a brew then being reminded by mrs Moad we had dinner plans. She wasn't happy going to dinner alone

 

[Kingy]

The biggest mistake was starting a brew then being reminded by mrs Moad we had dinner plans. She wasn't happy going to dinner alone

I've done this a few times haha

I havnt had a bad brew day for a while.

I crack my first beer after I clean the mash tun out and the wort is boiling. It wasn't like that when I started brewing tho. I was usually to pissed to clean everything up until the next day. That doesn't happen anymore.

 

[Weizguy]

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

I was listening to a BN/Jamil podcast a while back,and the advice was given about the willingingness to tip a bad batch is apparently a vital part of being a brewer.

It certainly would not serve you well if you dip your toe into commercial brewing, and you're too precious with your beer to tip a bad batch.
Sending a batch of bad beer for packaging/sales would sour your brewery's reputation, especially in the early days, so it would be cheaper in the long run to run it to the drain and re-brew.

 

[AJS2154]

I thought it would be a great idea to brew without a false bottom this morning.......not sure why, just did.

Yep, burned a hole in the bottom of my faithful old brew bag. FMD......not to mention I destroyed the grain I bought for the footie club brew day.

Oh well, life goes on. Worse things have happened at sea.

Anthony

 

[wynnum1]

I was listening to a BN/Jamil podcast a while back,and the advice was given about the willingingness to tip a bad batch is apparently a vital part of being a brewer.

It certainly would not serve you well if you dip your toe into commercial brewing, and you're too precious with your beer to tip a bad batch.
Sending a batch of bad beer for packaging/sales would sour your brewery's reputation, especially in the early days, so it would be cheaper in the long run to run it to the drain and re-brew.

Or put in bottles with different brand name and label simular to your opposition and sell cheap.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Transfered wort from braumeister to ss kettle and fogot to turn off element. Element still has black wort stuck to it after 3 cleans sodium perk.

 

[spog]

Did it again for the second time.

Used a 1 metre long s/s ruler to clear a blockage in the mill hopper while in use.
Ahh well it's now perfectly handy for measuring the length of snake next summer as it slithers across the yard.

 

[Rocker1986]

Transfered wort from braumeister to ss kettle and fogot to turn off element. Element still has black wort stuck to it after 3 cleans sodium perk.

Try mixing some citric acid and water in it and boil it for a few minutes.

 

[mattjm]

Had my biggest F up today. Doughed in and went to pickup some dextrose I wanted to add to the boil. Got home with 10 minutes to spare on my mash step only to realise i had flicked my grainfather control switch to boil and my mash had been creeping up slowly and was sitting at 88c instead of the low mash of 62 I was hoping for, after some thoughts of salvaging it, using it as a starter medium and trying to keep going with an experimental ferment, I finally scrapped the lot and started from scratch.

 

[Fents]

Started with 10 litres too much water on sat night. 5 hour brew night turned into a 7 hour brew night, didnt hit bed till 1am :huh:.

 

[dannymars]

So many....

Carrying fermenter to other room, knocked the tap on a door frame and the thread popped and beer started squirting out everywhere... had to tip the whole thing on it's side, wrap some plumbing tape on the thread and re-insert. Then clean the kitchen floor.

I have a shitty plastic valve on the end of my hose, so I don't have to keep running out and turning the tap on and off. Unfortunately if you leave the main tap on the pressure sometimes gets a bit much for the crappy plastic fitting and the hose just pops right off. I've flooded my entire brew garage on several occasions via this exact method. Last time it happened hours after the brew day was actually over. Then I could hear running water outside... Went out to find 5-10cms of water over the whole garage floor, some grain bags were on the floor too :-/


I've had the outlet hose of my chiller get a kink in it and pop off spraying 80+degree water all over my bare legs and feet. OUCH


The old 'forgot to clean the pump trick', now this can be ******* gross... I'm pretty sure I've grown mushrooms inside there before.

Borrowed the STC1000 from a ferment fridge on brewday to use on my HLT figuring the temp should remain stable for a few hours as the whether was about the same temp.... After the brew day was done I put the STC back, but forgot to re-programme the temperature. A few days later I was out checking on my brews and one fridge was displaying 38c on the STC.... !!!!!! what! I couldn't believe it, then the penny dropped.... ah, it was still set to my HTL sparge temp of 76c

Brew wasn't toally ruined (it was a sour beer that was mostly finished),,, but still.

When using brewing salts I like to mix them up with some warm water in a mason jar and give them a good shake to disolve before adding them to my mash etc... Did this last weekend and then proceeded to throw the jar on the floor spilling chalky mess everywhere... (That was the last of my CaCO3 too, had to run to a mate's place and get more before I could start)

Using zinc plated bolts to weight down a dry hop bag thinking they were stainless steal, thus stripping the whole coating and disolving it into the beer... mmmmm zinc.


So many more little ones, leaving taps open etc etc... But those ones are by far the worst.