what was your most dumb move in brewing?

slackerlack said:

10. Left room to get carboy cork and airlock, came back to find dogs tongue down the carboy.

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At least it is better than the dog drinking all your beer.

IrregularPulse said:

Mine was saying "Most Dumb" once instead of "dumbest".

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COOL. GRAMMER POLICE TO THE RESCUE!

Also, my dumbest move was spending a 100 dollar gift card (to my LBHS) on ingredients rather than supplies. I would have rather had things to improve my brewing (hindsight is 20/20)

Had my dial thermometer (round metal dial with 12 inch probe) clipped to the edge of my boil kettle. Hit it with my stirring paddle and knocked it into the boiling wort. Managed to fish it out - it didn't seem to be damaged except for some wort inside the dial, so I baked it in the oven on lowest temp. to dry and it still works fine. Now I don't depend on the flimsy metal clip that came with the thermometer, but use a binder clip to clamp it in place.

I started brewing about eleven years ago. I did two batches and then put the whole thing away for a few years. I came back to it a few years later and did another batch or two.

I went on like this up until this past Fall when I admitted that the only thing about brewing beer I hated was bottling and went and built a keezer and moved everything over to kegs.

That was in November. Since then I have done as many batches as I did eleven years prior, and I'm not showing any signs of letting up.

It was dumb to not make that jump to kegs when bottling was the one single thing that I disliked about the whole process. I kick myself thinking about where my knowledge and education on brewing would be had I made that jump earlier.

joetothemo said:

Thought of another...

Aerating my wort with my floating thermometer still in the fermenter.

2-3 good shakes of the bucket and the glass thermometer a'sploded everywhere.

I totally forgot it was in there. I fermented it out, strained the steel shot and glass and was left with one metallic-tasting Amber ale.

Still waiting to see if that off-taste falls out.

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Are you experiencing hair loss? Caus' that metallic taste could be mercury, and it is poisonous.

Malintent said:

Are you experiencing hair loss? Caus' that metallic taste could be mercury, and it is poisonous.

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LOL! yeah i am going to say that was prob not a great idea...

My dumbest move? Here, goes.

about 10 years ago, while I was still bottling and knew not of kegging beer, a friend was moving out of her house. Her ex-husband had dabbled with brewing and left all of his stuff in her basement/ She had rented a dumpster to throw out a bunch of things. Knowing I was a brewer she offered me all of his brewing paraphernalia. Included in the gear were 2 kegs and a 10# CO2 tank. At the time my wife and I were trying to move also and, not knowing anything about kegging, I only took the carboys and some other tools (kick, kick). I left the kegs and CO2 tank (kick, kick).

A year and a half ago my wife bought me a kegging kit and I instantly remembered the offer I declined.

Yeah, that definitely qualifies as the most dumb move I made, or didn't make in this case.

Malintent said:

Are you experiencing hair loss? Caus' that metallic taste could be mercury, and it is poisonous.

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lol, there isn't mercury in those thermometers.

On my first brew me and the wife were cooling the wort to prepare to pitch the yeast and she yelled, hurry, its at 70. So i run into the kitchen and dump my yeast into the bucket. About a half hour later i look at the thermometer stuck to my bucket at it reads 89 deg. I instantly realize that she got the 70 reading on the way up rather than on the way down.

My very first brew, Muntons premium lager, I thought it was neat to watch the bubbles floating to the top of my new 6.5 gallon glass carboy. So I set it in front of my sliding glass window for a couple of days to watch the fermentation, in direct sunlight. My premium lager turned into 5 gallons of Carona, Drinking skunk pee.... It did tame down after a while in the bottles, but now I know to keep the carboy covered and out of the light....

I did my first AG batch hammered.... yeah... it went about as you would expect.

Homebrewtastic said:

I did my first AG batch hammered.... yeah... it went about as you would expect.

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I did an APA last month being pretty much hammered. The beer is awesome but my Post boil gravity ended up at 1.044...the tripel I spent a month straining over a recipe is being brewed Sunday...I won't be blitzed!!!

coming soon...to a fridge near you!