Brewing Disaster

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mamies

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Hi All,

Just having a little vent. Everytime I brew a specific recipe it just ends in disaster.

I have been brewing for roughly 5 years now and 2 years of them have been only brewing all grain so I have the procedure down fairly well on my equipment.

My 3rd AG brew in I decided to try to make an IPA (some of my favourite brews are IPAs). Anyway I got the grains in the mash tun when my thermometer went all screwy and was displaying temperatures of 500 and 600 C. Needless to say the water temperature was wrong and it left me with an extremely bitter beer that was a little terrible. I scratched this up to a rookie error.

After another 5 or 6 brews I thought I would give it a go again. This time the brewday went well and it was fermenting really well. I added my dry hops a couple of days in and all seemed fine. When I went to check on the beer next time there was barely any more beer left. I had somehow cracked where the spigot cobnects to the fermenter. I was however able to bottle 2 longnecks out of the whole batch.

The 2 longnecks were extremely tasty and some of the best beers I have ever made.

So I decided to brew this brew again today. As I got it all into the fermenter and as I was carrying it to my fermenting fridge, I tripped spilling roughly 10L onto the floor. I was able to quickly pick the drum back up saving half of the batch.

Anyway I am hoping that this batch goes alright from now on.
 
I've been brewing for 2.5 years mostly all grain, I probably brew 1 or 2 times a month. I've tried to brew Rogue Dead Guy clone several times, all unsuccessful. 1st got infected tasted awful, 2nd I harvested Pacman from another rogue beer and stepped it up a few times and the result was a terrible beer -- I've stopped trying after that second attempt as my taste for beer has evolved and I'd rather brew other styles.
 
Change the recipe by 0.5oz of hops or something and call it a new recipe before you brew it again
 
Back up thermometers, fermenters without spigots....

Can't help with tripping......

Knock on wood, I have not had any problems like these. In about 60 brews I have never had a disaster and all the beers were drinkable, a couple of experiments were OK but not great.
 
A string of bad experiences like that can really be discouraging. I find having a homebrew or two really helps my outlook. If no homebrew is to be had(things are going REALLY bad), commercial brew is an acceptable substitute. Things could always be worse, i.e. the 1814 London beer flood.
 
I had the best IPA I had ever made one time. It fermented perfectly at the exact correct temperature, I actually measured and timed all my hop additions to an exact T. I had not been antsy and waited 3 week for primary to finish, dry hopped for another week. The beer looked, smelled, and tasted BEAUTIFUL!!! While moving my carboy to the kitchen counter to start bottling, I dropped it on the floor and it shattered everywhere.

I tried brewing the recipe again a second time. I was a little less neurotic about measurements and temperature this time, and the beer turned out much worse, it had a oily texture and too much estery yeast flavors, not enough clean hoppyness. It's amazing how little attention to details and perfectionism can create a much better beer. So, I will be making attempt #3 sometime soon on this recipe. I feel your pain.
 
So let me get this straight:

First batch yeilded zero
Second batch yeilded 2 bottles
Third batch yeilded half a batch (1 case)
keep going, man. You'll soon be geting 20 gallons out of a 5 gallon batch. Now that's brewing effeciently!!! ;)
 
Well Blizz81 has it, reduce the hops by half an ounce, it will be lighter to carry to new location .
 
We have one brew we've done 3 times with disasterous brew days. First one the bag burned, the hops boiled over onto the driveway, the smack pack didnt swell...ended up delicious. 2nd the dogs got into a fight and knocked over the mash tun...grrrr. 3rd the bag burned again, ran out of propane, hop bag broke....waiting on results but it seems like theyre gushers... i think i may just quit on this one. Sucks because it was DELICIIOUS...hoppy american goodness. Even threw out the 'beautiful disaster' name...seems like the brew gods say no to some brews :( feel your pain!
 
Atleast I am not the only one. Just a pain in the arse since I spend alot of time to do small batches when I loose it.
 
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