What mistakes have you made?

I'm a new member to this forum, and I'm interested in getting started. I've been reading some threads, and they've been really helpful and informative. But one thing that I haven't seen is a compilation of mistakes that people make. I've found that knowing what NOT to do can be just as useful as knowing what TO do.
So, for those of you with more experience at this, what mistakes have you made? What equipment did you buy that you never use? What techniques did you try that ended up completely failing? What have you done, and then said to yourself "Well, I won't be doing THAT anymore?"

During bulk aging I let the airlock dry out, letting the mead oxidize slightly.

I've added energizer to an active ferment in a jug without degassing, it resulted in a sweet tasting eruption in my kitchen.

My biggest mistake was on my first mead, it tasted off so I dumped it all out before letting it age past 6 months.

Here's a few. I also have let my airlock drop below the line, various sanitation infractions, bottled one day only to find out i didn't have any zorks, over backsweetened by jugaling the jar of honey...

My worst two:

Racking to a bottling bucket with spigot open. What is that noise the sounds like water running on the floor, oh ****.
Second, before it happens to you (because it will), get a blow off tube for your vigorous fermentations. Beer belongs in the fermenter, not on the ceiling!

Yes. Racking to a bottling bucket with the spigot open. That was a hot, sticky mess. Literally.

For my first mead, I did not understand how yeasts and fermentation worked... it was a recipe for a 5%-ish mead, so naturally the yeast could tolerate a whole lot more than that. So every time I back sweetened the fermentation started again... and again.

Another time, I forgot about a mead and it sat in primary for a year and a half. That in itself wasn't so bad... except the airlock had, for some reason fallen off or something... smelled like gasoline at the end.

Botteling unfinished mead, luckily it didn't exlode. Half of the mead bursted out all over the place though when I opened it.

A mistake a make every now and then, forget to check if a spiggot is closed or not before filling the fermentation/botteling bucket. >.<

my mead mistake, not racking to a clean jug and waiting for all the lee's to drop after racking off the bulk, i racked and bottled and now my first mead experiment is ok until you stir up the sediment that got in the bottles (has a nasty flavor).

It was only my second batch ever of any fermented beverage it's quite the learning experience now i rack off the bulk and stabilize then rack to sweeten then rack to bottleing bucket after making sure no fermentation pops up again if i sweeten

Thanks everyone, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Lacking a blow off tube and not having enough headspace. Transferring to secondary I had sterilized the night before thinking it would be fiiiine. Not labeling bottles, even after sampling one to figure out what things are. Not writing down my gravities in my notebook then losing the random scraps I wrote on. Watching a movie while racking and transferring 5.1 gallons into a 5 gallon carboy. Drinking things that should have been forgotten for another six months. Bottling too early. Renting too small of an apartment. Not keeping an eye on my yeast inventory and lacking a $1 packet that is sortof important. Not wearing long pants and good shoes when collecting wild fruit. Putting honey in the fridge. Trying to brew before other plans the same day. Starting a primary fermentation before a heat wave.

I got Krausen in my blow off tube and It solidified. I didn't learn this however till after my bung flew off multiple times. I cleaned the floor like 3 times that day. I don't know If it's happened to anyone else but make sure it doesn't get clogged if you have a vigorous ferment.

After almost 20 some years of homebrewing I'm pretty sure I have made ALL of them.
Nasty ones where a stuck up blow off tube that blew, still have stains on the ceiling from that one.
Then there was the time I tested all the seals on my keg, forgot to unplug the beer out open line when I started to force carbonate it. A nice stream of porter shooting out of the kitchen into the living room and on my computer. (thankfully keyboards are cheap).
The nastiest was my first brew in the dark ages of using commercial ice to cool my brew by just dumping it in. The beer tasted good for the first couple of weeks and slowly went nasty over a couple of weeks.
The one that still hurts the most was accedently formating the wrong partition and wiping out years of notes on beers made.

-Not finding homebrewing earlier
-Not useing the search engine...

Made this mistake yesterday. Made a braggot. Pitched yeast (doh didnt take og) let's just put the hydrometer in and test it now. I pulled pretty much all my yeast out on the hydrometer.

Kauai_Kahuna said:

After almost 20 some years of homebrewing I'm pretty sure I have made ALL of them.
Nasty ones where a stuck up blow off tube that blew, still have stains on the ceiling from that

Click to expand...

Kahuna I got some on my ceiling too will it come off? Just noticed it the other day.

I put 8 cinnamon sticks in a 1 gallon batch of buckwheat/apple cider... my first mead and 30 dollars worth of awesome honey ended up tasting like a Smokey bigz red. I later learned making a jaom that 3 cinnamon sticks in 3 gallons is almost more than plenty. I now stick to recipes and use cheaper honey

Missed sterilising some instruments at bottling and came back a few months later to find my bottles taken over by mold. Also leaving my mead on the yeast cake for too long, seems to have ingrained a yeasty taste in it which aging hasn't removed (yet).

I like the idea of this thread, should be good for all people new to brewing mead/brewing in general.

My mistakes go back to early days of fermentation and thinking that I was the master recipie creator and like the OP going overboard on some ingredients and making undrinkable stuff.

Take very detailed notes. My biggest rookie mistake.

Detailed notes is important if you ever want to recreate (or avoid recreating) a particular mead.

When I first started I only made traditionals and only one at a time. However, when I started making multiple batches concurrently I had trouble identifying which notes corresponded to which batches. Now I use blue painters tape to ID the carboys and jugs.

I enter info in my logbook and also keep a basic outline on the carboy itself ie. "Montmorrency Mel. Pitched 6/26/12, Montrachet, Racked 7/25, Racked 9/23"

When I rack my mead I just peel the tape off and stick it to the new vessel.

1. Blow off tube, even if the past 4 batches didn't need one. The one time you leave town for a few days with no blow off tube is the day your fermenter explodes!

2. Fermenting too warm. Most new brewers make this mistake. The beer will be up to 8 degrees warmer inside the fermenter than the ambient air around the fermenter so putting it in a room at 70F will actually be closer to 80F fermentation temp and create off flavors.

3. Always having a backup plan for your boil; If you use an electric range, what will you do if you lose power half way though the boil? If you use gas or propane, do you have a backup in case you run out of gas?

4. Drinking while brewing! It's easy to lose track of which hop addition you are on if you are drinking homebrew heavily while brewing! I like to have one brew while brewing but save the partying until the fermenters are pitched and put away!

Back in the old days, I was transferring to my primary, had a good siphon going (before a pot with a spigot) and turned to do something else and kicked the bucket away from my hosse. That in itself was bad, but instead of stopping the siphon I chased the bucket. I no longer do things that way.

Turning around to set glass carboy on cement steps and not realizing they were closer then I thought. Five gallons of brochet all over the basement floor, and a broken carboy. I cried for weeks.

1. Not securing the racking tube...imagine the garden hose wriggling in the air spraying water...only this was raspberry mead.

2. Not dating my additives upon opening...things DO expire. IE sorbate...was not a matter of not enough, not adding in combination with k-meta, it was too old. Can even happen when purchased at LHBS.

3. Never purchase corks that are repackaged. For example, your LHBS buys in bulk and sorts them by 30s and puts in ziplock bags, or even worse just in a plastic bin on shelf. Bad idea. Good thing I knew not to buy those!

4. When working with fruits other than grapes, it is best if you use sugar in the form of invert syrup (honey excluded). Grapes have invertase in their makeup, other fruits do not. Invertase helps convert sugars and less stress for yeast. 1 part water, 2 parts sugar plus citric/tartaric acid brought to just below a boil while stirring, and hold for 10 minutes,.stir often. Easy to make in increments of1000gm sugar, 500gm(or 500ml) water and 1 gm citric or tartaric acid. FYI: the use of gram equals same in milliliter only applies to water, no other substance

5. Always indicating on label the type, start date and O.G., if room add any dates of additions, rackings, and S.G. readings along the way. I also keep computer records of my recipe and notes...and I back those up to a thumb drive in the event my computer crashes. I happen to have backup to an offsite server, but the thumbdrive allows me quick access on one of the boy's computers if mine is down, or if internet is down and I cannot access offsite backup. The computer record allows me to quickly and easily share info with others, instead of typing it all out, good old copy/paste!

6. Lastly, time will change a wine. Even at one year if you are not sure, just continue to age...you may be quite shocked. Worse case scenario cook with it, blend with it, turn to vinegar, or make a sangria....get taste opinion of others before you pour out.