Stupid things that happen to everyone at some point

[pfgonzo]

Just feeling frustrated. I'm a cautious guy, but sometimes the dumbest things happen, and instead of thinking through the problem for the best solution, I compound the problem.

Case in point: I kegged an IPA this weekend, burst method. Because I shake the keg, I didn't want to add my dry hops (I leave my hops in the keg until it kicks) and end up with a ton of hop particles coming out and floating around. So I hold the dry hops for a day or two, and add them later.

I went to add my dry hops this morning, and when I released the pressure and and unlocked the lid, the large rubber O-ring stayed stuck to the top of the keg. Naturally it fell off, and into the beer as soon as I removed the lid.

Damn thing should float! But it doesn't!

Instead of sanitizing my racking cane and fishing it out (which would have been the smart thing to do... LFMF), I stuck my arm in my starsan bucket for a minute and reached up to my shoulder in my keg full of beer to get the damn thing.

Stupid.

I'm not going to tell anyone I serve it to.

Anyone else do something stupid lately they wish they would have thought about first?

 

[endorphine44]

lol, it's got alcohol in it, it'll be fine. I also assume you weren't sweating profusely when you did this, either way you now have an nice hoppy Armpit IPA to serve your guests.

 

[MindenMan]

lol, it's got alcohol in it, it'll be fine. I also assume you weren't sweating profusely when you did this, either way you now have an nice hoppy Armpit IPA to serve your guests.

That there's funny, I don't care who you are.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I'm not sure that my fat, i mean, muscular arm would fit into a keg.

I had this happen to me and just left it. Obviously this only works if you have an extra. In which case, you should have some extras!

 

[firerat]

I'm not sure that my fat, i mean, muscular arm would fit into a keg.

I had this happen to me and just left it. Obviously this only works if you have an extra. In which case, you should have some extras!

Yeah that's would I would do.

Lesson learned, always keep spare o-rings, gaskets, etc... around for just such occasions.

 

[pfgonzo]

Yeah... I have plenty of rebuild packages actually. Another thing to stop and think about. Never occurred to me to just leave it there.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Just remember hind sight is always 20/20. All will be well, this stuff just adds character and wisdom to a person.

 

[The_Bishop]

I once started racking beer into my bottling bucket when the spigot was still open. Didn't notice until I saw the puddle, then I did my best angry sailor impression.

 

[pfgonzo]

Oh sure. I've also filled kettles with the ball valves wide open. Nothing starts a brew day off quite like wet feet.

 

[2drunk2]

I racked sanitizer into my bottling bucket, which was where my priming sugar was. Nobody noticed

 

[jverlinden]

Oh sure. I've also filled kettles with the ball valves wide open. Nothing starts a brew day off quite like wet feet.

Last week I did this with a MO Amarillo SMaSH. Argh!

 

[Hoppity]

Chilled wort draining into ferm bucket with valve open. Nothing ends a day worse than losing half a 10 gallon batch. Doh!

 

[MindenMan]

I have left the valves open on more than one occasion when racking, and miscalculated the priming sugar amount, both short and heavy. Flat or fountain. Flat is easier to remedy, fill a syringe with your under carbonated beer, shake syringe, and blast into glass of beer. I know, I didn't believe it either when I heard about it. Give it a try...

 

[Braufessor]

hahahahaha....... that is funny.

*I have left the burner on my mash and boiled it.
*I dropped a glass carboy through the bottom of my plastic washtub sink and onto the tile floor - where it exploded.
*I knocked over a fermenting bucket while I was transferring chilled wort from boil kettle..... at least it only had 5.5 gallons in it
*I closed my fermentation freezer on a picnic tap hooked to a keg - drained 2.5 gallons of beer and a 5lb CO2 tank it was hooked to.
*I probably have done a lot of other stupid crap too.......
*I have even had the lid ring on a keg fall into my keg like you.

BUT....... I can say I have never shoved my arm into a keg of beer That one is all yours

 

[smccarter]

Just feeling frustrated. I'm a cautious guy, but sometimes the dumbest things happen, and instead of thinking through the problem for the best solution, I compound the problem.

Case in point: I kegged an IPA this weekend, burst method. Because I shake the keg, I didn't want to add my dry hops (I leave my hops in the keg until it kicks) and end up with a ton of hop particles coming out and floating around. So I hold the dry hops for a day or two, and add them later.

I went to add my dry hops this morning, and when I released the pressure and and unlocked the lid, the large rubber O-ring stayed stuck to the top of the keg. Naturally it fell off, and into the beer as soon as I removed the lid.

Damn thing should float! But it doesn't!

Instead of sanitizing my racking cane and fishing it out (which would have been the smart thing to do... LFMF), I stuck my arm in my starsan bucket for a minute and reached up to my shoulder in my keg full of beer to get the damn thing.

Stupid.

I'm not going to tell anyone I serve it to.

Anyone else do something stupid lately they wish they would have thought about first?

lol.. Not really....

Take a moment.... settle down and take a deep breath. You're going to be fine.

We're not brewmasters, and we're not dependent on our hobby to make ends meet. We're hobbyists. We don't brew to make money, we brew because it brings us happiness.

Keep that in mind the next you're elbow deep in a keg trying to fish out an o-ring!!!!

That's all I'm saying.

 

[psymonkey]

I'm not sure that my fat, i mean, muscular arm would fit into a keg.

I had this happen to me and just left it. Obviously this only works if you have an extra. In which case, you should have some extras!

So this just happened to me as well. Turns out I had a poppet leak. But, while inspecting things I pulled the lid, thought - dude, really, no Gasket? How could you forget, then PLOP, in it went. It was stuck to the inside of the keg.

Anyway, I had another, lubed it up and pressurized. Replaced the poppet and things are holding.

So to those who have left it - any off flavors? This is a special beer to my family and I. I want to fish it out, but keep going back and forth on the risks. I wish I had an empty, but my pipeline be full.

 

[te-wa]

im sure someone else has doughed in with 12 lbs of grain in a 10 gal mash tun, then realized the false bottom is sitting on the counter.. i cant just be me..

 

[beernutz]

if you brew long enough you'll do something dumb. I think that applies to both amateur and professional brewers, and I sure as heck know it applies to me.

 

[Queequeg]

I have connected my hose to my plate chiller without having the drain tubing connected. The cut off for the hose was in the garden. A wet kitchen. Also after I drain my mash tub to kettle and I want to disconnect the pump&grant I always forget to close the ball valve to the tun.

 

[RM-MN]

if you brew long enough you'll do something dumb. I think that applies to both amateur and professional brewers, and I sure as heck know it applies to me.

I had a boss once tell me that if you aren't making some mistakes it's because you aren't doing anything. Just try to keep the mistakes minimum and inexpensive.

 

[watermelon83]

I recently did my first batch in over ten years. Somehow the hot break completely slipped my mind. I have never seen a boilover rise so quickly. I bottled my slighty less bitter Irish Red last weekend.

I also had forgotten how important it is to wipe up malt and hops from a boilover while still wet. I think my arm is still tired from scrubbing.

 

[unionrdr]

Well, let's see...I've left the spigot open while racking to the bottling bucket once. Forgot the ice when I put the kettle in the sink once. Ran out of caps while bottling once. Passed out after the bittering addition once too. ad the power go out during the boil once. Live & learn I guess?...

 

[william_shakes_beer]

...Instead of sanitizing my racking cane and fishing it out (which would have been the smart thing to do... LFMF), I stuck my arm in my starsan bucket for a minute and reached up to my shoulder in my keg full of beer to get the damn thing.

Stupid.

I'm not going to tell anyone I serve it to.

Just paste an arm and hammer logo on the bottle and see who notices first. It's be our little secret.

 

[unionrdr]

Or "armed & hammered"...

 

[mdbrewer1]

I forgot to turn off the burner the first time I used my immersion chiller. It took a good 10 minutes of fiddling with the thing and trying to figure out why it wasn't cooling before I finally noticed that the pot was still steaming and put 2 and 2 together. That's probably the dumbest thing I've done.... so far.

 

[fsr_racer]

I once started racking beer into my bottling bucket when the spigot was still open. Didn't notice until I saw the puddle, then I did my best angry sailor impression.

Been there. I now put an old towel under the bucket regardless of whether or not I check the spigot.

 

[Hello]

The spigot on the bottling bucket or the valve on any HLT/BK/MLT are mistakes I have made more than once. My floor gets abused by the amount of beer/wort/water I dump on it on any given brew day.

 

[MTimonin]

Put my racking cane into overly warm sanitizer, and bent it, slightly... Plus, that pesky tap on the bottling bucket...

 

[iamperplexed]

Yesterday I hooked up a picnic tap to a keg that was already on the gas. Unfortunately, the picnic tap was still open from cleaning and draining. It's amazing how much of a mess a few seconds of free flowing stout can make in the kegerator and on the kitchen floor. My girlfriend came home to a very clean house including freshly mopped floors.

 

[j1n]

that large rubber o ring seems to always get stuck to the top of the keg. Mine is always on there pretty tight though, never had it fall off. It seems to stick more after i lube it up with keg lube.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I recently did my first batch in over ten years. Somehow the hot break completely slipped my mind. I have never seen a boilover rise so quickly. I bottled my slighty less bitter Irish Red last weekend.

I also had forgotten how important it is to wipe up malt and hops from a boilover while still wet. I think my arm is still tired from scrubbing.

Eek. That's no doubt. i've considered using dried wort for a coating for my basement floor. That crap wouldn't ever come off :fro:

 

[JimRausch]

Here's an entry from the bottling crowd:
I use the dishwasher method to sanitize my bottles. Usually I set it on 'delayed start' before going off to work, and when I get home the bottles are ready. Except for my latest Irish Red batch. For some reason, the timer never started. I bottled the entire batch except for 12 bottles, before noticing.
They've been in the bottles for 4 weeks now, no signs of infection, and they taste great. I think I dodged that bullet.

 

[cernst151]

Of course I've left the bottling bucket open once like almost everyone. My saddest careless mistake was recent though. I was over ambitious and my wife and I bottled 4 batches in one night. Since we knew it was going to be a long night we decided not to sanitize the bottling equipment between batches since none of them looked like they had any infection. We bottled an IPA, Red, Stout & a parti-gyle in that order.

We couldn't figure out why we started having bottle bombs in the stout and parti-gyle and I eventually poured out the remainders of those batches when a flip top bottle blew to bits. It was another user on Homebrewtalk that figured it out. The IPA & Red used a highly attenuative yeast while the others used a low attenuative yeast. We infected those 2 with the more aggressive yeast which quickly went to work on all those leftover sugars and ... boom! Very sad.

 

[TAK]

I had a boss once tell me that if you aren't making some mistakes it's because you aren't doing anything. Just try to keep the mistakes minimum and inexpensive.

This is a great quote.

I've...
- Drained my hot liquor into the mash tun with the valve open.
- Drained wort into my kettle with the valve open.
- Racked wort into a carboy with at 1/3 gal of StarSan still in it.
- Left my O2 tank open and drained it. Apparently flow regulators don't really hold at zero. I wonder if the household was super alert that day, with the extra O2 in the air?
- Hooked up a tap line with the faucet open.
- Dumped cold water all over my feet in the middle of the winter while cleaning my mash tun (probably x2 or x3, I never learn.)
- Almost dropped a carboy while sloshing StarSan around in it. Seriously, it was up in the air, bounced in and out if my hands a couple times before I got a grasp on it. Holy exploitive that's scary. Juggling chainsaws is one thing, but I'd like to see someone juggle 6.5 gal carboys.

 

[feinbera]

I also had forgotten how important it is to wipe up malt and hops from a boilover while still wet. I think my arm is still tired from scrubbing.

This! Took me until my fifth batch with my wort chiller to realize that it really pays off to at least rinse the dang thing down immediately after I'm done chilling, instead of just letting the hops goo drip-dry until I'm ready to clean everything else up, often not until the next morning...

My favorite was putting the stopper into the fermentor before I put the airlock through the stopper – although I did learn that "dry stoppering" in the primary contributes very little flavor to the finished beer, so, I got that going for me.

 

[mdbrewer1]

This! Took me until my fifth batch with my wort chiller to realize that it really pays off to at least rinse the dang thing down immediately after I'm done chilling, instead of just letting the hops goo drip-dry until I'm ready to clean everything else up, often not until the next morning...

My favorite was putting the stopper into the fermentor before I put the airlock through the stopper – although I did learn that "dry stoppering" in the primary contributes very little flavor to the finished beer, so, I got that going for me.

If you're using an IC and have a spare 5 gallon bucket, fill the 5 gallon bucket with hot water from the output of the IC (if you're not recirculating) and just plop the IC in there when you're done. You could also put some PBW (or the cleaner of your choice) in that 5 gallon bucket and have a headstart on cleanup.

 

[PaintedRat]

My stupid top 3
1. Trying to rinse my autosiphon in recently boiled water.
2. Doing two different starters at the same time and not labeling them.
3. Cooking a bochet during orange blossom season.

Bonus stupid: Failing to make kitchen reservations with SWMBO.

 

[CJ1]

I melted my auto-siphon with boiling water.

Had a party tap fall down in the kegerator and land with just the tiniest leak. That wasn't fun to come home to.

 

[normonster]

I bottled up some beer with bottles I'd cleaned earlier in the month after having only dipped them in sanitizer before filling. A few weeks later I discovered that several spiders had taken residence in a good handful of the bottles and were now dry hopped in my bottled beer......made them harder to drink but didn't affect flavor I don't think...lol

 

[jbaysurfer]

I've done this with a different item (I actually have forgotten now, it was 2-3 years ago) and it was pre-pitch. The beer still turned out great.

Other dumb stuff I've done: Pitching my stir bar into a carboy. Finding it afterwards is a mess. Super strong "getter" magnets are the answer to this particular gaffe.

Trying filtering once without flushing the filter with CO2. I oxidized the whole batch.

Not checking that my corny posts were tight after racking and pressurizing my first batch of sour beer ever. I proceeded to lose half the keg that night into the floor of my kegerator.

Pitching yeast into 100F wort because I figured my new plate chiller had cooled it enough and didn't take the temp until it was too late.

Assuming that I could make a double IPA the first time I tried to whirlpool and get a "cone" of trub and hop debris and I wouldn't clog my pump up all to hell.

Using my pre measured Janet's Brown Ale grain bill to make what I thought was an imperial porter and wondering why I came up 16 pts low on OG.

Not watching my toddler while I was brewing for just long enough for her to pooh in the trainer toilet and smear it all over the bathroom walls.

There's more, but that's enough rehashing for me for the moment.