Post your top 3 fails

My three biggest screwups over the years:

3. Dumped a bunch of PBW solution into my tray full of Star*San solution without thinking, and continued to use the solution to "sanitize" all my racking and kegging equipment. (Not sure what the pH would have balanced out to, but I bet it wasn't as low as it should be for sanitizing!)

2. Jammed a sticky gum-rubber stopper and S-type airlock onto my Better Bottle for primary on a rye beer. At 3 AM I was awakened to a BOOM! as the stopper went flying. The stopper and clogged airlock was found several feet down the hallway. Little bits of krauesen/trub remain all over the closet ceiling and walls to this day.

1. Tried to drill new holes for the hinges on my first chest freezer conversion. 5 of 6 holes went smoothly. The 6th hit a freon line. SWMBO says she'd never been so scared--I am normally very calm under pressure but I completely lost it and went on a rampage, cursing and punching the freezer until I almost broke my hand.

1 - first all-grain batch: misread my new thermometer and mashed at 115.4

2 - Tried to make a strawberry cider, but didn't read the ingredients of the strawberry juice. Huge xantham gum content. Resulted in viscous swill. Strangely, the syrupy concoction measures 0.999 FG. (?)

3 - TBD

1. Biggest fail to date, failed to tighten/check the MLF connector on a liquid line coming off a keg. Hooked it up to gas in the Kegerator fridge and walked away. Came back the next moring to 5 gallons of beer in the bottom of the fridge and all over the garage floor -- plus an empty CO2 bottle to boot.

2. My first time using whole leaf hops thinking it would be no different. clogged the crap out of my Polysulphone connectors on all my hosing, clogged the plate chiller, clogged the toilet, pretty sure the sewage authority had to get involved. Didn't get but 3 gallons from that 5.5 gallon batch. Never using them again in a BK without my hop spider

3. Deciding to play it cheap one afternoon when all the carboys were full and attempting a fermentation in a blue shaded Nestle 5 gallon water cooler bottle. (had just used the 5 gallons for my strike). Beer tasted more like plastic than beer.

I can only think of one. First brew...Vomit American Wheat. How I learned that boiling hops in high RA water without the presence extract is a very bad idea.

1) Racking my chocolate stout, I filled the racking equipment with sanitizer to start a siphon. I usually siphon it into another container until the beer starts flowing, stop the siphon and then put the tube into my secondary. Wasn't really thinking and siphoned all the sanitizer into the secondary.

2) While having some friends over on a brew day, I was explaining to them what a "hot break" is and how not to get a boil over. I went to put my stirring spoon down, and with an emphasis on not making a mess, my wort boiled over and made a huge mess.

3)TBD

1) Added strike water to mash tun... and then grains... and then realized I forgot to put the manifold in first.

2) Tried to filter wort by putting a coffee filter in the funnel

3) Started heating up a small amount of water to adjust mash temp, walked away and came back to a pot that was boiled dry.

Dumped my entire sparge water in at one time so fast it lifted my false bottom up and flipped it over. That was a 10 gallon mash tun with 24 pounds of grain. Sucked.

Replaced the false bottom with a kettle screen for other reasons, caught the kettle screen in the drill bit and twisted it pretty good.

Got super drunk and decided to brew a clone of double barrel pale ale.

Screwed up every single hop addition, with wrong amounts and wrong hops. Came out fine though.

Holy crap where do I start...

Dropping a 5 gallon glass carboy of yeast starter while a 2 bbl batch sat just chilled ready to pitch. Good to have a friend who came to the rescue with the yeast from a batch he just racked so I'd have it.

3rd degree burns on hand from accidentally pulling the valve off a 60 gallon HLT at 172F, and trying to plug the 1.5" port while it drained on me.

Broke a hydrometer...

Tried to make a licorice stout by melting real licorice candy (not corn syrup candy) in a home made double boiler. The candy didn't melt well at all. The beer came out sickly green and tasted horrible.

Ginger beer. I used a recipe I got here. Maybe my technique was wrong. I think it's so gingery it's undrinkable. Half a one gives me heartburn and I'm not subject to heartburn. One of my friends likes it though because of how gingery it is.

Infected AG stout.

I am lucky after three years or maybe I can just drink anything, so I only have two.
1)Dark Red Irish Block, first attempt to make a big beer, used LME and Extra Dark Crystal, after 6 months in the bottle, well it just never came out right and went down the drain.
2)Big Belgium Blonde, about the same story. Got the clone off Hopeville and think it was overrated. After 4 -5 months in the bottle it got tossed out.
3)TBA

1. Forgetting hops. Epic fail lol
2. Putting down just boiled keggle on that expensive plastic composite board on my deck
3. Having hot wort splash my face/body by leaning over the keggle

Hehehe I've had some good ones

Siphoning my wort from BK to better bottle, kettle almost empty, better bottle not filling past the port...oh that's because the port was open. I'm convinced that would have been a superb brew.

To many yeast stories to recount...the funnier the story the worse the beer...

Screw ups?

1. Thermometer whacked out mid-mash, resulting in a melted grain bag (didn't notice until the boil ), and lousy efficiency.
2. Forgot to recalculate IBUs when rebrewing an extract recipe for the first time as a full-volume boil. Drinkable, but not what I wanted.
3. Brewed an extract stout kit that didn't have enough DME. After a while I dumped the keg, although a few bottles might be hiding out somewhere.

My top fail just happened 5 minutes ago.

I was doing the second half of a partigyle (an IPA). I have a cabinet directly above my cooktop that I use to store spices and an entire box of instant tapioca fell out of the cabinet into the IPA.

Anyone up for 5 gallons of beer pudding?

bassbone said:

My top fail just happened 5 minutes ago.

I was doing the second half of a partigyle (an IPA). I have a cabinet directly above my cooktop that I use to store spices and an entire box of instant tapioca fell out of the cabinet into the IPA.

Anyone up for 5 gallons of beer pudding?

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hahabaha! Sorry to hear it but that is damn funny. Maybe it'll be good?

Grumpybumpy said:

hahabaha! Sorry to hear it but that is damn funny. Maybe it'll be good?

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Yeah, I started laughing as soon as I was done swearing!

I just poured it out. It had started developing this really thick skin just in the time it took me to post this story.

bassbone said:

Yeah, I started laughing as soon as I was done swearing!

I just poured it out. It had started developing this really thick skin just in the time it took me to post this story.

Click to expand...

Aw, I would have removed the skin and let it ride with its fancy fining agent present

1. Biggest fail to date was a few weeks back. Set out to brew a single batch on Wednesday and a double batch on Thursday. On Wednesday I heated up my strike water for the single and mashed in with the double batch grains. It was a "Brew from Hell" as the fermenting chamber died that day too. Found here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/reaganing-313655/ (not trying to hijack)

2. While my buddy was holding the chiller line out in his immersion chiller, Without thinking I turned on the hose and happened to be standing right were he was pointing it. I got burned, Mostly just my arm but it was fail worthy.

3. Recently poured my infusion H20 into the MLT with my thermometer in it. Lead pellet and glass infusion MMMmmmMMm yum.

Back at the beginning I pitched yeast on 100F wort. Then I just let it sit for a week barely fermenting. Thats been my only infected batch.

When I first moved to all grain I tried to use an ultra thin aluminum pot from walmart. towards the end of the boil there was a gun shot type sound that scared the hell out of me. the bottom of the pot expanded and suddenly deformed in a concave position. Also the flame traveled so easily through the bottom of the pot that there was literally 3 inches of ash caked on the bottom. beer turned out undrinkable.

1. When I was young and dumb and stoned bottleing a cherry ale I added 1# instead of 5oz priming sugar. time bombs for days!

2. Learning to drain a keggle I was placing it on top my washing machine to gravity feed. G.F. was losing her grip on the keg so I put my leg to the hot metal and burned the Sh** out of my leg

3.Brewed a high gravity beer and left town the next day. came home to find beer all over the floor after it had drained out the air lock

...only three?

1. Somehow managed to pitch the nutrient, but not the yeast from a slap pack. Had to re-pitch five days later with another strain, but it was too late; after almost two solid weeks of activity in the airlock, the beer came out of the fermenter tasting like carbonated pickling juice and rotten fruit.

2. First AG batch with a brand-new lauter ton, accidentally inserted a "1" in front of the dead space calculation in Brew Smith... Had to boil for four hours to get rid of the extra water (beer came out great though).

3. Left the bag of spent grains open, sitting in a bucket. Went upstairs for bit, came back to find that my assistant brewer (AKA my cat) had eaten his fill before tracking spent-grain paw prints all over the house and furniture.