Do not dump your brew.

While brewing my 3rd batch over the weekend I dumped most of my 1st batch. It fermented at around 84 degrees, I rushed it to the bottle and it had some off flavors (kinda sour soapy taste). I held back a few bottles to see if they would get better with age. Well my roommate came home last night and opened one of the bottles from my first batch and liked it. So now I know even if the batch sucks someone will drink it.

bashe said:

While brewing my 3rd batch over the weekend I dumped most of my 1st batch. It fermented at around 84 degrees, I rushed it to the bottle and it had some off flavors (kinda sour soapy taste). I held back a few bottles to see if they would get better with age. Well my roommate came home last night and opened one of the bottles from my first batch and liked it. So now I know even if the batch sucks someone will drink it.

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Yep! that's why you should always see your beer through to bottle conditioning, unless you are sure it's infected...or as I think it was Evan who coined it; "It tastes like Satan's Anus."

Firstly, it is really hard to ruin beer...Your beer is hardier than you think it is...

Secondly the yeasts are remarkably adept at cleaning up after themselves.

Thirdly, carbonation and bottle conditioning also does a great job of cleaning up.

Fourthly, most inexperienced brewers don't know the difference between ruined beer and "green" beer...Most diagnoses of bad beer is really just that it is too young and will improve in a few weeks.

Fifthly, see reason number 1.


If you look through here you will see plenty of instances where people thought their beer was a lost call, but they waited, sometimes even a couple months, forgetting about the beer....and they re discover it, and it turns out to be their best batch ever.

With everything from Coors Light to EKU28 on the market, and selling, it's a pretty safe bet that you can find SOMEONE that will like whatever you brew.

After my first attempt at following a recipe (as opposed to a kit), a Red Ale, I noticed an off flavor that I can only describe as an iodine-like taste, which made it almost undrinkable to me. However, when I brought it out at a cookout, my friends sucked down almost all of it ! Even the people who normally drink Bud Light(shudder!) said that it was a great beer.

NEVER underestimate the power and attraction of free beer !

The only beer I dumped was my first. After 6 months.

It was a Coopers lager (the kit they give you), brewed with 1 can, 2.2lbs of "brewing sugar" and fermented at a healthy 78F.

I followed the instructions, and it gave me a cidery fusel heavy brew. I did try one at 6 months and it still tasted the same....and I needed the bottles

kjung said:

With everything from Coors Light to EKU28 on the market, and selling, it's a pretty safe bet that you can find SOMEONE that will like whatever you brew.

After my first attempt at following a recipe (as opposed to a kit), a Red Ale, I noticed an off flavor that I can only describe as an iodine-like taste, which made it almost undrinkable to me. However, when I brought it out at a cookout, my friends sucked down almost all of it ! Even the people who normally drink Bud Light(shudder!) said that it was a great beer.

NEVER underestimate the power and attraction of free beer !

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Free (as in beer) is one of the great myths of male adulthood. Getting free beer is kind of like getting laid after a really long Dungeons & Dragons session. Not only does it feel great doing it, but you feel like you're cheating the natural order of the universe.

neilb said:

The only beer I dumped was my first. After 6 months.

It was a Coopers lager (the kit they give you), brewed with 1 can, 2.2lbs of "brewing sugar" and fermented at a healthy 78F.

I followed the instructions, and it gave me a cidery fusel heavy brew. I did try one at 6 months and it still tasted the same....and I needed the bottles

Click to expand...

Yeah, I read the instructions for my first can o' non-boil extract (have yet to make it still) and really just passed. They wanted me to pour 3 pounds of table sugar into the wort, which even in my amazingly newbie state I realized was insane.

I have 3 pounds of DME now to try the kit, but I have so many other yummy things I'm trying I'm not worried about it.

so far I've only dumped 1 batch (my second batch that I brewed) -- a Cherry Wheat which was simply a Coopers Wheat canned kit + cherry extract at bottling. This beer always had a very sour taste that just didn't seem to improve.. After a good 2 months in the bottle without any noticeable improvement, I dumped it.

Get a better roommate! LOL!!!

My only dumper was an Irish Red. When I started brewing, I would cool to like 80F and then pitch, knowing that by the time the yeast were multiplied and "ready" to start fermentation it would be cooled dwon to a nice 68F. Only problem was this was the first time I pitched a starter. I pitched a nice healthy 1/2-gallon starter into a 1.047OG wort at 78F. It lit off within 45min and the exothermic fermentation climbed the temp to about 82F.

Even 8 months int he bottle couldn't tame that beast and down the drain it went....two agonizing cases of belgian bottles corked with care....

I now try to overshoot my fermentation tmep regardless of the starter or not.

-Todd....who only made that mistake once......

I havent dumped any, and my first batch which was an extract kit turned out horrible, mostly flat, but in the end it served a great purpose as snail bait in the garden...

Luckilly I havent had a dumper yet - if I ever do I wll probley cry seeing all that beer go down the drain!

Many years back, when I had zippy clue what I was doing, I was... ummm.... completely pulverizing my specialty grain in a coffee grinder. Then, I would steep those grains until the boil started. Needless to say, there were tons of tannins.

I left the keg alone for 3 months, and lo and behold, it was an excellent brown ale!

I've never dumped a batch, and I doubt I ever will.