It ain't over til it's over BABY!!!

Didn't want to quote Yogi Berra being a Red Sox fan but anyways...

About a month or so ago I put up a post about having my carboys exposed to direct sunlight. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24340 well.

I pondered scrapping it over and over in my head. I started going back over the the whole brew process and realized I screwed up a whole lot of things on this batch. This was my first batch that I formulated myself. I did all my gravities, IBUs, & ABV longhand on paper. I was so excited about this that I forgot all the other simple things when it was brew-time. Here's the list.

1. I forgot to add Irish Moss to the batch.
2. I forgot to sanitize my wort chiller.
3. Tap water got into the wort during cooling due to a leaky faucet.
4. I used the head off my daughter's snowman to cool around the kettle & while I was stabbing it, all the spray was raining into the kettle (Yes I'm going straight to hell for that one!).
5. Then it got exposed to direct sunlight.

All in all a what NOT to do while brewing. Well I gotta tell ya that this was the BEST FRIGGIN BEER I EVER BREWED!
I put it in the fridge for its secondary and it cleared better than any other beer I did. As far as lines 2,3, & 4, I guess I just lucked out w/ the sanitation thing. My point being of this whole thing is don't ever quit on a batch until it hits your lips cause you may not know what you're missin!!!!

I've had similar experiences during my first couple of brews. Brews can be forgiving. I just stopped and thought how this stuff was made hundreds of years ago before sanitizers, used wooden spoons, etc. etc. and thought that surely I didn't screw it up THAT bad. Ta-Dah!!!! It's all been GOOD!!!

Now you have to recreate it! I know the feeling. I had a brew once that boiled over twice...my chiller was leaking well water into...I tried to tighten the screw at the leak and dropped my rusty screw driver into the cooling wort. One of my best batches!

-Todd

And I've been somewhat anal in the sanitizing department and had issues with some of my batches. Maybe it's time for a change in technique.

BREW IT, DRINK IT, LOVE IT
thats all I have to say about that
JJ

My son Bounced a big ball of silly putty into my boiling pot. What I was able to scoop out was much smaller than what went in. silly putty melts quick BTW

Drinking "Putty Red" right now...yum

McKBrew said:

And I've been somewhat anal in the sanitizing department and had issues with some of my batches. Maybe it's time for a change in technique.

Click to expand...

You sanitized with your anus? Damn, no wonder you have had some issues! (I know I know, a smartass in every crowd. better than a *******!)

I recently brewed a "FrankenBeer" with left over ingrediants and had a mallody of errors and shortcomings, basically it will be a very sweet but strong ale. I just transfered it to secondary and figured, "what the hell", I 'll toss in some left over hops to try out dry hopping. It's so sweet, I'm hoping that it will balance out. You all are giving me hope to see this beer through....(knowing my "lot" in life though, I will be the one to return with a beer horror story)

With fingers crossed....