Beer Brewing Accidents/Distasters

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Well tonight I was siphoning 10 Gallons into 2 Carboys form a 10 Gallon beer bucket. I was tired and While waiting for the first craboy to fill, started finishing my bottle labels for my last batch.

I notice the smell of malt has suddenly gotten stronger. I look over and realize to my horror that the carboy had overfilled and I had forgotten to stick the carboy in an empty canning tub/pot!

Well after major cleanup, hopefully I have not ruined the brand new carpet the nearly 3 gallons of beer managed to travel too. The kitchen area seemed to drain onto a corner of brand new carpet bordering the kitchen.

This brings me to wonder, what other brewing disasters of the third (clean up, etc) kind have accured?

BTW anyone know the best remedy of ketting amber malty beer smell out of carpet???

Oh, And I can save most of the beer. still have 7 gallons left! Of course whether I'll ever be able to brew indoors again is another question.

Denny

 

[Waldo]

You may as well call that expensive restauraunt that SWMBO likes so well and make some reservations, I'm sure you already know the local florist phone number which is good cuz you're gonna need to give them a call too. Oh and while you're on your way to the jewelry store you may as well stop at the local candy shop and pick up some chocolates your gonna need them as well.

 

[justbrewit]

thats funny waldo. i always hear you guys talkin about SWMBO and i'm just glad i don't have it like that. all she told me is "you make a mess, you clean it up" thats about it. she doesn't care if i brew or not or if i make a mess.

the biggest thing she cares about is the cost. but i can usually talk her into quite a bit!!

trying to talk her into letting me get a 15 gal. plastic conical fermenter. i'll let you guys know if it works!!!

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Two words for you: ga-rage. Everybody became a lot less tense once I moved from the kitchen to the garage where I can hose down any errors in judgement. And the 'malt crisp' from my indoor boilover is almost off the stove which would eradicate the last piece of evidence that I ever brewed indoors.

As far as disasters, I think that one has me beat. I mentioned in another thread clogging my carboy with 1/2lb of hops and having to strain it into my bottling bucket (but no hints of oxygenation off-flavors, so I got away with it). I recently had a stuck sparge that I unstuck by blowing into my runoff tube which resulted in a volcanic eruption of hot sticky wort from the top of my MLT and into my hair.

 

[Windaria]

This is why I own one of those bissel steam cleaner things. When you make that huge mess, you just clean the carpet and then she thanks you for the effort. <smiles>

Oh, and this will also remove the smell/etc.

My worst disaster... when doing my hard lemonade I decided that the acidity would likely be too high. So while sitting at my computer desk I added some acid reducer (just doing a 1 gallon batch so I kept it near me with my 1 gallon batch of wine, that way I could watch them, still have them near me). Anyway... I didn't realize acid reducer reduced the acid by causing it to overflow out of the bottle (sure that may not technically be how, but that seems to be the result).

Anyway... let's just say that the carpet cleaner was pretty handy.