Don't Do That.

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I figure that every time I make a mistake I learn something. I must be getting pretty smart.

I'd planned to brew today, but then realized I'd forgotten to bring the garden hose into the garage to warm up--the garden hose I use to chill. Temps dropped to the upper teens over night, turning that garden hose into a 50-foot coil of ice.

Forgetting to bring in the hose? Don't do that.
 
The other day I brewed a pale ale and got it in the big mouth bubbler for the end of a long day. As I stepped past it I stumbled and stepped on the drain valve causing a slow leak... Not knowing how fast it was leaking I sprinted to get my ten gallon pot to pour the beer into while I repaired the spigot. Had to clean and sanitize the pot lightning fast so I wouldn't lose too much wort. It got done with a small amount of lost wort! Now my only worry is about infection if I didn't sanitize the pot sufficiently. It has a nice krausen layer over 48 hours after pitching.

Stepping on the drain valve... Don't do that.

Oh, well... RDWADAHB
 
it's been one of those days.

don't depress the poppet on a keg pressurized keg filled with hot PBW.

fortunately if it weren't for swapping out contacts for glasses earlier i think i might be taking a trip to the ER. still got in my eyes but not as bad as it could have been.
 
I added a toggle switch to one of my STC-1000 controllers to have both sides of the outlet available for heating. I had forgot to buy a second switch to turn the cooling relay off and on. I disconnected the cooling relay from the power.
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Forgot I reconnected the cooling relay to control two fermentors at different fermentation temperatures. Witbeir had fermented 6 days. Porter fermented 8 days. Both were done so the temperature of the beer being raised to 75°F may not have caused damage.

Second toggle switch is written on my shopping list.
 
Don't get a second hand fridge and use it to cold crash a beer before confirming its thermostat is set to a sane level/working or wiring up an stc1000.

One bucket of frozen beer complete with s airlock containing frozen statsan.

Warmed it up slowly and beer came out alrignt.

Its now fully setup with an stc1000 as a fermentation chamber

On a similar note don't let the temperature sensor for the stc1000 on your kegerator fall out and lay on the floor.
Managed to freeze a keg of beer oops. I'm impressed the kegerator got down to below -4C. The beer survived that episode
 
After cleaning your valves, either tighten them *all* the way down or don’t put them back together again until Brew Day. I checked that the damn valve coming off of the cooler mash tun was closed, but apparently it wasn’t screwed together quite right, and some wort got out... onto the oven floor (yes, oven goes down to 150, makes the mash tun’s job easier...)

Fortunately the self-clean of the oven turned the marshmallowy goo on the oven floor to ash. And the beer turned out okay per hydrometer sample taste. But.. yeah, I’m just gonna leave that apart till ready to use.

Edit: half-a$$ing reassembly after cleaning... don’t do that.
 
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Sparkncode said:
Don't get a second hand fridge and use it to cold crash a beer before confirming its thermostat is set to a sane level/working or wiring up an stc1000.

One bucket of frozen beer complete with s airlock containing frozen statsan.

Warmed it up slowly and beer came out alrignt.
Click to expand...

But did it drop clear? :D
 
From my weekends brew day for a belgium Tripel:

Don't disconnect the output hose of your recirculation pump on an eHERMS with the valve on and the pump running. Sweet Wort Fountain LOL.

Yeah, best not do that!

Reconfiguring to fly sparge and messed up the sequence. Not sure if I was tired or what but that brew day was one of those days where little things went wrong. The beer will be fine. I don't drink till after so that wasn't it.
 
Spend a good few seconds wondering blithely why the sounds of you pouring wort into the fermentor sounds so similar to liquid falling onto the floor before gradually working your train of thought around to the question of whether you closed the tap on the fermentor you are still pouring wort into.
On the plus side the bathroom floor is much more grippy now.
 
divrack said:
Spend a good few seconds wondering blithely why the sounds of you pouring wort into the fermentor sounds so similar to liquid falling onto the floor before gradually working your train of thought around to the question of whether you closed the tap on the fermentor you are still pouring wort into.
On the plus side the bathroom floor is much more grippy now.
Click to expand...

It's a safety investment!
 
Forget (or rather neglect) to check if the water out hose on the chiller has any kinks in it. I had the wort running through the CFC for the last 10 minutes of the boil, so pressure had been building up. As soon as I started the cooling water, a loud bang, a burst hose and hot steam and water gushing against my legs.

Don't do that.
 
Decide to brew two batches in one weekend, and not check the weather forecast. Figured they would both be okay in swamp coolers with a fan trained on them. Got up over 80 that week. Then decide that your lager isn't taking off fast enough and add more slurry. Two REALLY nasty carboys later, as well as airlocks landing upwards of six feet from said carboys from super vigorous fermentations, and some nasty acetaldehyde going on, has me planning on turning my spare bedroom into a fermentation room with an ac unit and my temp controller from the kegerator. Yeah, don't do that. Both of them are salvageable but not what I was planning on.
 
And another one...get super excited that you finally have a chest freezer fermentation chamber, using the temperature controller that was hooked up to your kegerator...then forget to turn down the temperature on said kegerator. Yep, frozen lager, frozen beer lines, and a co2 tank that's just about tanked. Don't Do That.
 
Measure out .25 oz of hops and added it to the boil. Measured out the second .25 oz and added it to the boil. Realized that you've used the entire 1 oz of hops instead of the .5 oz that you should have. Checked the scale and it was set for kg rather than oz. Found out that the scale resets to kg when it powers back on.
Do do that.
 
To transfer from my lauter to the kettle I need to fill up a bucket and pour it into the kettle. Hmm, maybe it’s time to grab a beer while I have 30 seconds... Time constraints + ADHD = Not good. Got distracted inside the house... I walk out to 4 of my 12 gal of wort soaking into the dirt.

Don’t Do That
 
I have nothing to add....

Not because I haven't made any mistakes. Quite the opposite.
I'm reading through pages and pages of these posts....
Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done ..
 
SEndorf said:
I have nothing to add....

Not because I haven't made any mistakes. Quite the opposite.
I'm reading through pages and pages of these posts....
Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done that...Yup... Been there...done ..
Click to expand...

I've often thought this thread should be a sticky on the Beginners Brewing forum...
 
Get so exited about trying your new grain mill that you leave the chuck key in your Milwaukee hole shooter. Good thing the floor was clean.
 
Leaving chuck keys in power tools is very bad form but on the mill and drill note don't leave your cordless drill attached to the mill thinking that you have left enough grain in the hopper to balance it while you grab the bucket with both hands to top it up. Happend on my last brew day and i lost a cup or two of grain. I replaced the missing grain with ale malt so no big issues but when the hopper tipped it went everywhere over my deck.
I have the mill sit on top of my MT on a couple of aluminium rails but i need to make something more stable so i dont have to worry about it tipping.
 
Sparkncode said:
Leaving chuck keys in power tools is very bad form but on the mill and drill note don't leave your cordless drill attached to the mill thinking that you have left enough grain in the hopper to balance it while you grab the bucket with both hands to top it up. Happend on my last brew day and i lost a cup or two of grain. I replaced the missing grain with ale malt so no big issues but when the hopper tipped it went everywhere over my deck.
I have the mill sit on top of my MT on a couple of aluminium rails but i need to make something more stable so i dont have to worry about it tipping.
Click to expand...

Did the grain fall through the boards? If not I would have swept it up and put it back in the hopper. A little dirt wouldn't hurt you. Might change the chemistry of your mash a little.
 
A bit too much went down the cracks and there was oil and grease from bike repairs made in that spot and since it was mostly ale malt by the look i just replaced it. It went everywhere including under the boards my pots were on so decided new malt. I must havr guessed thd lost amount right as the preboil gravity was spot on and the dark grains did get through the mill mostly so it cane out looking like the porter it is. I only saw about 1 or 2 dark grains on the deck as i didnt mix the grain well so most the dark had already been crushed
 
The day my mom died, I needed to get things in order for me to leave town for a week. Mainly, I needed to brew the batch that I'd been putting off. I read .5oz of NY Nugget hops as 5oz. of hops, making my Bock have 247 ibu's as calculated by Beersmith. Then transferring the wort through my heatx I didn't secure the clamps well enough. Then, I tilted the kettle (because I was using an untested modification to my keggle for the first time that day) to get more wort. Hose pops off the heatx spraying me with boiling wort, at which point my reaction is to drop the kettle, which douses me with boiling wort causing me to head to the hospital with second degree burns all over my leg. So, I got to endure a 15 hour car ride in that condition.

Brewing beer in a hurry while mourning? Yeah, definitely don't do that...
 
Be weighing grain in 4 pounds batches to hit 16 pounds, get interrupted by the neighbor, think you are at 2 as you dump in the third batch so you weigh up 2 more and end with 20 pounds... ABV was a wee bit high that batch... was tasty but not quite what I wanted! I need to get a scale that can handle up to 30pounds and tare a 5 gallon bucket...
 
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Overshoot your strike temp while distracted milling grains. Then wait too long for it to drop and rush to add grains to the cooler mash tun...that doesn't have the bag in place yet. Yeah, don't do that.

On the bright side, I put the bag in a bucket, dumped the contents out of the cooler into said bucket, rinsed out the few loose grains, moved the bag back to the MLT and dumped the bucket contents back in. Then the mash temp was too low so I eyeballed a half gallon into the kettle, boiled real quick and added that to the MLT. Stirred and I was exactly at my desired mash temp!
Not a bad recovery actually.
 
Let a friend who doesn't know how to pull a tap, draw a glass without being supervised because you are happily smoking a hookah in the sunroom. 4 gallons of fine Munich Helles lager (3 weeks lagering) on the garage floor the next morning. Don't do that.
 
Forget to run the ice water through the cooling side of your Therminator while starting to pump hot wort through the other side and into a 6 gallon Italian glass carboy, resulting in cracking the bottom out of the carboy. Don't do that.
 
kh54s10 said:
Takes a long time to cool wort with an IC, if the single handle kitchen faucet is turned the wrong way.
Click to expand...

On the positive side, this will get you some screaming hot water for cleaning, coffee, tea, pasta, canning, potpourri, chocolate fondue, blanch tomatoes or peaches, pluck a chicken, or tons of other stuff!
 
Set your mash tun on the counter with the valve facing away from the sink toward the stove when you're filling with hot water to pre-heat... And forget to close the valve. I was wondering why it was taking so damn long to fill up until I felt warm water touch my toes...

Don't do that.
 
Nokt said:
Measure out .25 oz of hops and added it to the boil. Measured out the second .25 oz and added it to the boil. Realized that you've used the entire 1 oz of hops instead of the .5 oz that you should have. Checked the scale and it was set for kg rather than oz. Found out that the scale resets to kg when it powers back on.
Do do that.
Click to expand...
Yeah... don't forget to wear your glasses when using the electronic scale. Found out that .8 oz is the same as .05 pounds...
 

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