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**passedpawn** · 09-20-2011, 07:14 PM

Duvel clone, bit too much sugar, fermented a bit warm, ended up with rocket fuel.

Didn't dump. Friend drank it all. I think he liked it

Ellis · 09-20-2011, 09:28 PM

I have thrown out 4. To this day, I am still not certain what happened. But I think it had to do with how I was washing yeast. I think I was not doing a good decant of the junk at the bottom, and was getting perhaps some proteins or something capable of spoiling in my yeast harvests.

My only evidence is I tasted some month old bottles of yeast, and they had the same horrid after taste that the bad beers had. I have since switched to top cropping, and have not had a hint of a problem.

SwampassJ · 09-20-2011, 09:32 PM

Had one of those bad Nottingham batches before the recall.

Wanted to make a light pseudo lager but couldn't get it below 1.008, friends advice to use Beano turned it into 1.000 that then turned into gushers. Beer picked up a clove taste that made it taste like a watery Belgian blonde was ok, until it started to get even more clove flavor. Mother in law loved that beer though.

Ruined half of my batch a Munich Helles with some bad O2 absorbing caps. I had about 20 left and wanted to use them up so I bottled half of the batch in them and the other half in the regular gold caps. Every bottle that got the O2 cap took forever to carb, then they all turned into gushers. (Not improper mixing of priming sugar, I had sanitized the caps then randomly pulled them to cover the bottles. Only O2 capped beers turned bad).

larkincrain · 09-20-2011, 09:55 PM

My first beer, a wheat beer made from extract, turned out pretty sour. I was completely new, still wet behind the ears. I'm not sure what happened, but I just let me beer sit on the yeast. Bad idea. When I bottled it, the yeast was transfered into the bottles giving it a very cloudy look and creating bottle bombs. Whenever you opened one, a gyser of foam and beer would erupt. Not so fun.

Also, the beer had a very strong yeast flavor.

I guess the moral is to always rack to a secondary so the beer isn't sitting on it's lees.

**builderguy** · 09-20-2011, 09:56 PM

When I first started adding brewing salts for adjusting the water profiles for the mash I thought you were supposed to add to the strike water. I added a BUNCH of Baking Soda to raise the RA for a Black IPA then tested the pH...added 5.2...then more...then more...then more...gave up trying to get it to 5.2 and pumped the water onto the grains and proceeded with the recipe. It tasted like I used ocean water to brew the beer...saltiest taste ever. I did have a friend who liked it...but she's a crazy salt freak.

Surly · 09-20-2011, 10:28 PM

I have had some off flavors. In fact last spring I was becoming frustrated. I may have finally figured it out. I do brew in the dead of Wisconsin winters. And, to pump hot water from my HLT to the Mash tun I have had to get it very hot so it arrives close to the beginning mash temp I want. No science here BTW just a gut feeling that 198F would work. It pretty much did.

But then, I "trained" myself to send very hot sparge water to the mash tun. In the spring, when temps are now much higher I did not adjust my procedure.

I want that grain bed at 168F and no higher.

ceannt · 09-21-2011, 11:30 AM

Only two. Not bad considering I've been brewing since the '80s....
One I made root beer for my kids in my fermenter and brewed the next day.... root beer flavors in a Bitter are just about nasty! (gaak!)
Even worse was "The Great Lager Disaster" of 1989... I have a closet under my stairwell that stays in the mid to upper '30s during the winter.... "sounds like a perfect Lagering cave" I thought. So, I brewed up a Pilsner..... I forgot all about it due to deaths in the family, crazy work schedule, etc.... around July the SWMBO opened up the closet to look for something.... and let loose a blood curdling scream.... the airlock of course had dried out, and nasty looking fungus had come out of the top of the carboy, down the sides, and all over the floor.... looked like The attack of the mushroom people.... to this day I dare not use the word "Lager" around her....

BilltownBandit · 09-21-2011, 01:26 PM

I recently dumped about a quarter of my fat tire clone. It was just too sweet for the style and something else was off. I drank a lot of it but it just got to the point where I had to dump the rest. I also did the drunk brew day

with a dunkelweiss about a week ago and added 2 pounds of honey to my boil. It seems ok but I know it isn't going to turn out like a real dunkel.

shecallsmeblue · 09-21-2011, 01:48 PM

Well, I wouldn't say ruined, but I did mess up two batches, one of which was barely drinkable for about 6 months! My first AG, I didn't quite understand batch sparing I guess, and didn't have enough wort for my boil, but went ahead and figured I cuold just add water at the end. My SNPA clone ended up tasting like Bud Light. Not ruined, but not what I wanted. Then, on another brew I accidentally used about a pound extra of melanoidin malt in a brew, which was WAY too much. About 6 months later, I was able to drink it, but didn't enjoy it. A couple of my friends really liked it though. Most of it went down the drain.

SourHopHead · 09-21-2011, 02:36 PM

I have dumped 2: Stout with a major infection, Honey Wheat that tasted like buttered popcorn. Some infections here and there a few years ago. Recently was Chloramine in every batch till I figured where it was coming from. Had to treat all my water on brewday.