Craziest Thing to Ever Happen While Brewing...

I was talking to a business associate the other day about the first batch of beer that I just brewed. He mentioned that he had made a few successful batches, but had a few slipups as well including a slipup which found his cat in a pot full of wort. Unfortunately I didn't get the backstory to that, but it got me wondering:

What is the craziest thing to ever have happened to you while home brewing?

I killed some sheep once...

Ok I have a bunch of friends over for a holiday weekend. They were all gathered around as I mashed in. Well I didn;t see it go into the mash, but as I was stirring I see this huge black thing surface. I didnt want to gross anyone out so I kept stirring. It would surface again every so often.

Well as soon as someone cracked a joke and everyone turned, I quickly grabbed what turned out to be the antenna of the biggest cockroach Ive ever seen. I put it in my hand and made my way to the trash. Oh the joy of telling this story while everyone was sipping on that beer later on.

I called the HBS where I got the base malt from, and they said thats kind of expected in the middle of summer. Oh well.....

Kind of expected? I would find a new LHBS!

nywanna said:

including a slipup which found his cat in a pot full of wort.

Click to expand...

Uh...wow. That's gonna be hard to beat.

nywanna said:

including a slipup which found his cat in a pot full of wort.

Click to expand...

Was it boiling?

Chimone said:

biggest cockroach Ive ever seen. I

Click to expand...

Was is it this bad boy?

Palo Verde bug

desertBrew said:

Was is it this bad boy?
Palo Verde bug

Click to expand...

It could have been, it was from Tucson

I'm guessing the cat was drinking. I have a siamese that steals drinks from my beer when I'm not looking.

I let him sample my first batch just to make sure it was good.

I popped the valve out of my autosiphon right as I was about to start bottling. The damn thing is impossible to put back in. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was 3am. Went to bed. Got up 2 hours later with my daughter. Waited 5 hours. Went to the LHBS to buy a new siphon as soon as they opened. Went to my parents to drop off my daughter. When home and started sanitizing again.

I can't wait until I get to bottle my second batch.

I don't know how the hell that could of gotten in there personally. They got all their grains in 60# sealed screwtop containers and they're way too big to miss when using the scooper to weigh and fill out the grain bill. But the hippie dude who is usually there filling orders isn't the sharpest knife... Think he's gone now.

Sidebar - they changed up for repeat walk-in's such as I where I get to go back in the warehouse area, weigh out my grains myself and use their mill. Just tell them what I got, pay and leave. How cool is that?

I guess my weirdest would be the 40 pound bran muffin. Michael put 4 pounds of rye in a batch instead of one pound. We added the water and about an hour later had a 40 pound muffin. NO run-off at all and the sparge water just sat on the top. We tried splitting it into two pots and stirring in more sparge water, but it had setup. Total waste.

That was before I knew about rice hulls.

I don't really have any crazy stories yet but the worst was below.

First I have a buddy that likes to help me on bottling day. The first time we bottled I made the priming sugar water and after it cooled down I told him "okay, dump it in" (he really likes to participate) so instead of dumping it into the bottling bucket, he dumps it straight down the drain. Luckly I had just enough corn sugar left to prime (whew).

Well, after bottling I cleaned out the carboy, filled it up with cleaning solution (PBW and water). got all the gunk out and poured that water directly into my bottling bucket. I don't know how I didn't notice it, but my spigot was open. Without realizing that I went outside to smoke a cig (bad habbit, yeah yeah) and after some chit chat I came back into the kitchen only to realize that my entire kitchen was flooded with 5 gallons of cleaning solution. After much mopping the floor looked spectacular!

MrEcted1 said:

I don't know how I didn't notice it, but my spigot was open.

Click to expand...

I did the same thing, except I was pouring fresh wort into the bucket. Lost about quart of my 3 gallon partial boil. Thank god I had a towel under the thing.

Well, it's not that crazy, but I was brewing on the stove and had just dumped in my cans of extract and was stirring like crazy to make sure nothing burned on the bottom. Still, within about 20 seconds there was a clear burning smell. I assumed that some syrup had scorched, until I noticed that my recipe had gotten bumped into the burner the kettle was on and had gone up in flames. It's a big canning pot, so it completely hid the recipe, and therefore the fire. I noticed the flame and dunked it in the sink with about 1/4 of the page gone.

Craziest thing?

Not too crazy but oh did it suck.

Added 4/12 gallons of cooled wort to the carboy, pitched the yeast, put in the bubbler and let it go.

Noticed activity after 2 hours, I was so impressed at how vigorous it seemed.

Went to bed after checking one last time.

Awoke in the morning to discover that hops had clogged the bubbler and the pressure got high, blowing out the entire bottom of the carboy.

Do you know how much of a mess 5 gallons of wort is?

I estimated it at about 250 to 300 squre feet of beer all over the kitchen and dining room.

That house reeked of beer until the day we left.

Glad it was a rental !

Cheers,

knewshound

knewshound said:

Craziest thing?

Not too crazy but oh did it suck.

Added 4/12 gallons of cooled wort to the carboy, pitched the yeast, put in the bubbler and let it go.

Noticed activity after 2 hours, I was so impressed at how vigorous it seemed.

Went to bed after checking one last time.

Awoke in the morning to discover that hops had clogged the bubbler and the pressure got high, blowing out the entire bottom of the carboy.

Do you know how much of a mess 5 gallons of wort is?

I estimated it at about 250 to 300 squre feet of beer all over the kitchen and dining room.

That house reeked of beer until the day we left.

Glad it was a rental !

Cheers,

knewshound

Click to expand...

haha, that one's pretty good actually!

Well there was the time I almost ruined our stovetop: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=10928

Post brew incident. I was tapping my nitro Scotch Ale with the wrong coupler. At almost 40 psi, it blew my hair back, covered the walls, ceiling, curtains, floor, and actually made it into the formal dining room which was across the room and behind me at the time. I was impressed... the wife wasn't.

Nate said:

Post brew incident. I was tapping my nitro Scotch Ale with the wrong coupler. At almost 40 psi, it blew my hair back, covered the walls, ceiling, curtains, floor, and actually made it into the formal dining room which was across the room and behind me at the time. I was impressed... the wife wasn't.

Click to expand...

This gives me an idea for a competition...we just can't tell the wives.

I'm game... I've got more practice than most of you.

knewshound said:

Craziest thing?

Not too crazy but oh did it suck.

Added 4/12 gallons of cooled wort to the carboy, pitched the yeast, put in the bubbler and let it go.

Noticed activity after 2 hours, I was so impressed at how vigorous it seemed.

Went to bed after checking one last time.

Awoke in the morning to discover that hops had clogged the bubbler and the pressure got high, blowing out the entire bottom of the carboy.

Do you know how much of a mess 5 gallons of wort is?

I estimated it at about 250 to 300 squre feet of beer all over the kitchen and dining room.

That house reeked of beer until the day we left.

Glad it was a rental !

Cheers,

knewshound

Click to expand...

Bye, bye, security deposit! Good knowing you!

Im not sure how crazy this is, more stupidity than anything else.

I was at a brewery the next town over helping bottle some beer. Goal was to bottle 500 gallons. Well the head brewer was so drunk even before we started, that we ended up bottling 200 beers before he realized we were bottling the wrong one. He then got mad and kicked a bucket which knocked a hose off spraying about 50 gallons all over the floor before we got the pressure turned off. I couldnt help but LMAO.

Was that at your new job? Is this the guy you are supposed to be learning from?

the_bird said:

Was that at your new job? Is this the guy you are supposed to be learning from?

Click to expand...

Lesson 1 - Don't get drunk BEFORE bottling

the_bird said:

Was that at your new job? Is this the guy you are supposed to be learning from?

Click to expand...

Momma always told me that if I can't say something nice about someone, then not to say anything at all.

Hes living exactly the way he wants though. Drunk, making beer, and rebelling against the man (and distributors).

I brewed a Imperial stout about 10 years ago. I had a bad cold and I could not smell anything. I was using 15 lbs of LME. Well I added the malt extract to the boil, added the hops, boiled cooled the wort and pitched the yeast and stuck it in the fermenting fridge. Well the next day I opened the fridge to check on it and I had one hell of a mess.

I use a blowoff tube, but this thing had blown out about 1/3 of the wort. WTH? I scratched my head and cleaned it up and accepted the loss.

Two days later, my Father in law came by and asked me if I could use the Sorghum Syrup that he left me. WHAT? He had left a container of sorghum syrup that looked exactly like my LME container. I picked it up and used it in the beer instead of my LME. I could not smell the difference and it looked identical.

Not very good beer to say the least. But , yes we drank it!

These are great stories - makes me feel better about possibly screwing up. :cross: