Do you drink your bad batches?

[Da11en47]

I've made 3 batches now, all from Mr Beer. Pretty much everytime I did something wrong, examples, too much sugar, not letting ferment long enough, or Mr. Beer sucks, I don't know...

Anyways, I still have some left and don't have the heart to just pour it out, I can tell it has some level of alcohol, but the taste is just off in different ways.

Do you drink it, pour it down the sink, give it to the dog?

 

[twalte]

I had one bad batch - 5 gallons - I drank it as punishment for screwing up the recipe and loved (kind of) every minute of it. (It was my first home brew. Boiled off way too much water, so it was very intense with flavor and alcohol, but not foul tasting)

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Let it age. Time heals many bad brews. But, yes I drink it.

 

[ilikeguns]

drinking my worst batch at the moment.. not horrible by any stretch, just not something I would buy again if it were a six pack from a brewery.

I don't know if I could dump a batch.. i'd probably bottle it (i normally keg) and let it sit for a few months to see if it improved.

 

[CatHead]

My second batch is bottle carbing now. My first fermented too hot and came out with a flavor which has decreased with time. I would only dump a batch if it were infected or horrible. If it was just pretty bad I may drink a bottle or two at the end of the night but too much time and money to throw away for semibad beer.

 

[bbrim]

I have dumped 3 or 4 batches. If I wanted to drink sh*t I would just save myself some time and buy Natty Ice. If a batch is a little off I will drink it but I was having a problem with tannin extraction at one point and that was not something I could tolerate. I also dumped a batch that was 100% sour mash. I don't even like to think about that one.

 

[Ostomo517]

Ive had one bad batch but yeah I ended up drinking it, but the aging thing did help with the off flavors diminishing as it got older.

 

[brewde]

I can't speak for everyone, but I never throw out a batch that is even remotely tolerable. I've had 2 go down the drain, but they were barely approachable. But like everyone, I've had my share of sub-par batches. They usually get pushed to the back of my storage area where I find them again after I've gone through another batch. After sitting for sometimes 6 months to a year they can be quite good. I say I can't speak for everyone because I don't imagine everyone has the space to hide several batches of beer for an untold amount of tiime.

As for the Mr. Beer kits themselves, I've brewed several of them. They all seem to share a taste that I can't place. I'm not sure if the malt extract is really that bad, or from their crappy yeast, but I've never been able to turn out an excellent batch with them. However, those batches in particalar are the ones I've found the most gain from forgetting for a while. So good advise IMHO, store it, read up on "How To Brew" (Palmer) to try to find your mistake, try again. Who knows then, you may end up with 2 good batches of beer.

 

[CiscoKid]

I've had some batches come out that had some off flavors that I could tolerate. On the other hand, back when I bottled I didn't realize that a blueberry fragment became trapped near the tip of my bottling wand (after brewing a blueberry ale for my wife). The four batches I brewed/bottled the next month later developed one nasty lactic infection. I stored those in the drain.

As for Mr. Beer - good luck with that. I had no luck with it and if anything stayed away from homebrewing for a number of years after my first exposure via Mr. Beer.

 

[TheWulf]

My first batch didn't turn out too well... not that I was expecting it to. It was a brew kit that someone gave me two years ago and was well expired

I made it anyways. It turned out "ok" and drinkable, but not great. I will drink a bottle once in a while, but I generally just serve it up to people who don't really care what they drink and they love every minute of it!

 

[CDGoin]

Will let you know.. still brewing my first batch.. and expectations are limited right now.

 

[progmac]

it depends why it tastes bad. some flavors (aldehydes, diacetyl to some degree) age out, other flavors don't. life is too short to screw around with bad beer. that said, i have a saison i brewed about a year ago that i don't drink and won't throw out. i went overboard with the orange peel and it tastes bad. it raises to tolerable if i mix it 1:1 with a light beer. this thread has inspired me to maybe pitch it tonight.

 

[WileECoyote]

I use my bad batch for cooking, works great for cooking.

Cheers

 

[captwalt]

I always drink it all as penance for my shortcomings. I also fond it useful to analyze the flavors and see how they come and go and review my notes to figure out what went wrong and study why it happened and work on avoiding it in future batches. I see it as a opportunity for some good r&d don't waste it.

 

[funkadelicturkey]

I have friends that appreciate all things home brewed. They don't mind off flavors and are happy to take the free beer. I'm happy it doesn't get wasted.

 

[Darwin18]

Life is too short to be drinking bad beer. Dump it out, learn from your mistakes, and brew better beer. Everyone has had a dumper at least once in their brewing career.

 

[TyTanium]

Distill, if legal.

 

[kh54s10]

When/if I make a bad batch I will dump or find another use for it. 34 batches so far and all have been good, some have been excellent.

 

[jerrodm]

Life is too short to be drinking bad beer. Dump it out, learn from your mistakes, and brew better beer. Everyone has had a dumper at least once in their brewing career.

I've never dumped a batch, and I've had some that were mighty close to undrinkable. I would say never dump it until it's sat around collecting dust for at least six months, maybe a year. If you still can't stomach it by then, maybe it's time to let it go. But when I first started out I definitely drank my share of marginal batches, in penance as capt says.

 

[jerrodm]

Will let you know.. still brewing my first batch.. and expectations are limited right now.

If that's your beer in your avatar, I hope you've got it covered most of the time. Beer doesn't like light. Wrap it in a blankie!

 

[pohldogg]

Dink it. Nothing fixes eff ups better than suffering through 5 gallons of mistake. I cured my disregard of ferm temps by drinking 10 gallons of bubblegum belgians. Lately I'm learning restraint in recipe experimentation. FYI, while French herbs in a French beer may sound like a good idea, an herb de provance saison may come out tasting like roast chicken.

The cost of a dumped batch is a quick hit, drinking a bad batch is a long painful reminder to do better.

 

[HeadyKilowatt]

I've only dumped one batch, and I'll admit that I knowingly took some risks with it and it's totally my fault it turned out bad. I used some really old, stressed yeast that I decided to try to give a go. Didn't let my starter go long enough to get them back into proper shape and I got an early Brett infection. Never formed a pellicle, just few spots. I think the yeast eventually took hold enough to inhibit any further growth of the Brett, but not before it made my whole batch smell and taste like band-aids. I tried about one bottle a month for six months, but that flavor just won't go away. Eventually dumped most of it when I needed some bottles for another batch, but tried my best to get it drinkable first.

I still have a 12 pack or so stashed. I'm gonna keep trying it just as an experiment to see if that flavor will ever subside and if so, how long it will take. If anybody out there is very steadfast about the "never dump a batch" philosophy, please come over for a band-aid brew. If you think it's drinkable, it's yours!

 

[AaronM]

If any of you contemplate throwing out a bad batch, please message me and I will give you my address for where it can be sent.

 

[Vuarra]

Thanks to Home Brew Forums, I've never had a bad batch... just a few that didn't quite turn out the way I expected them to

 

[DrunkleJon]

Well. When you are finished with the Mr. Beer ingredient kits and move up to larger batches, at least you have the little brown keg to do smaller test batches in. or start making your own extract/mini mash/smaller AG batches using that fermenter if it makes as much beer as you want.

You can always dress up an extract kit with some specialty grains, I am sure you could do the same with Mr. B as well

 

[grathan]

I plan on dumping batches I haven't even made yet.

 

[fuzzy2133]

My first brew was a Hefeweizen. I had temp issues and combined with being 1 gallon shy of 5 it is very strong in . I only have the room to stash a 12 pack and I will just to see what happens.

 

[IffyG]

I dump quickly and mercilessly. If I don't care for a beer I made, down the drain it goes. Life is too short to drink ****ty beer.

 

[Kate00]

I have only dumped a couple of bad batches. At the point i dumped them, they had sat for several months without me drinking any of them, so they were dumped for storage space of batches that i had going.

I figure if i havent drank one of these in a few months cuz they suck, ill dump.

I've at least learned enough from the couple of bad ones that I havent dumped one in quite a while.

 

[captwalt]

I feel I have to amend my previous post. I made a beer out of very questionable ingredients. It us absolutely terrible. I have a feeling I may have met my match. I will give it another month or so but that is it. Period. Then down the drain.