Ever Dumped a Brew? Regrets?

[bracconiere]

1.150, fg was 1.036, for ~15% abv @ ~74% attenuation

damn, how do you stay thin? i'd do it 1.112, and finish it .996.....all those carbs wouldn't have any nutrients with them!

Oh, no, definitely not my beloved 11%+ chocolate stout that I've kept on tap for going on 14 years straight and that a 6 ounce pour kicks my ass into a deep sleep. Nope, not that

LOL, so you don't get a lot a sleep? or REALLY don't drink that much? (mostly i just like using the same ingiedents, never the same recipie twice....my favorite is special b)

 

[Bramling Cross]

I will confess I poured out the last third of my one and only keg of barley wine after a year of it lingering along in my 6 tap keezer. Finally just got tired of it, tbh...

Cheers!

I've certainly done this with regularity. I don't think of it as dumping, so much as evicting a squatter. At the end of the day, I'm much better at brewing than I am at drinking. So while I enjoy brewing a Burton Ale for the holiday months, it's just wasting space by June.

 

[Beer666]

Lost count of the dumpers when i started but i have done over 400 batches so not complaining. Life is too short to drink disgusting beer.

 

[Smudgey]

I knocked the caps off about 4 crates of old fuselagers I fermented too hot and some yeasty stouts and brown ale I gave up getting through and up-tipped them on the lawn. It was bitter-sweet, regret and relief. A year later, there's still a guilty little green spot growing there like a gravestone to remind me.

 

[Mtrhdltd]

Yes, i have dumped in my early brewing days. Forgot about it when life got in the way. Probably 3 months in the primary fermenter, dumped without even tasting. I still regret it. That could have been good and I didn't even know it. Now I have a 2 year old, so money and brew days are less available so I drink it all. The only questionable one is the one I'm drinking now. We shall see if I finish the keg or not.

 

[Rickdude]

I've dumped two, and they were both the same recipe (mild), but not because the recipe was bad. The first time it was 10 gallons of mild. I brewed it with a buddy who was visiting, and I hadn't been brewing in while and, honestly, kind of forgot about it. I remembered it 2 weeks later, but just didn't have time to tend to it, not to mention that I needed to clean up my kegs and keg storage to do it all properly... and then forgot again.

About a month later, I decided that a 6 week old mild sitting on a yeast cake was probably not going to be very good and wrote it off. I finally got around to dumping it about 6 months after that.

I'm back to brewing regularly again, though, and I tried that mild recipe again... and didn't hit my gravity. I didn't even realize it until I was running it off into my primary. So I let it go and, sure enough, I ended up with something that wasn't so hot, but here's the good part: I've recently started distilling and had some feints (the part of the distillation run you don't want to drink, but still has a considerable amount of ethanol it it), so I dumped the feints into the, uh, grain water, and distilled it. The hearts blended well and it's currently got another couple of weeks of oaking to go. I'm really looking forward to this!

 

[tracer bullet]

Bottled an Imperial Stout w/ raspberries thrown in. Let is sit for a month, tasted it and was sure it was bad, and dumped half of the bottles. A year later, when moving, realized half the bottles were still left in a closet. Tasted one just to remember how awful I thought it was, and it turned out superb.

Learned then that some beers need to age. This was like 25 years ago, and so it was before the easy internet searches or recipes to decide what to do. If your friends didn't know, or the guy at the LHBS, you were kind of stuck.

 

[Rickdude]

Tasted one just to remember how awful I thought it was, and it turned out superb.

I've done that, too! The first time was a barleywine, the second was an imperial stout like yours. It's amazing what a year or two can do. And, just like you said, I was just opening the bottle to show someone how awfully it turned out.

 

[JAReeves]

I like to keep some of the bad ones around to see if they change for the better (I've had a barley wine, imperial stout, and some sours get better with age). One of my first beers, an IPA, got horribly oxidized-but with a slice of lime it tasted just like Corona. Tony Romo would have been proud. I have had to move a case into the driveway that got infected and was popping off caps making little stout fountains (to avoid them blowing up in the aging closet). I am currently sitting on a stout that didn't work, it's band-aidey. Waiting to see if it gets better or the keg gets used for something else and the avocado tree gets a 5 gallon shower.

I made an experimental saison with chilis, soy sauce, and buckwheat. It's really odd, I wanted to dump it, but SWMBO likes it so it'll get bottled.

 

[Docod44]

I dumped a batch probably 2 years ago and it still bugs me. I always think....
What if that batch would of conditioned til now ? It still bugs me to this day. I bet it’d be good by now.

I currently have a dumper that I decided to hold on to and condition for 1-2 years just to see what happens. It's not an inherently bad batch, just bland and malty with some acetaldehyde on the finish.

 

[walker111]

On brew number 82 and had to dump brew 78 a few months ago. Was a 3 crop creme ale and love that beer. When I was kegging I noticed a film layer on the top of the surface in the fermenter. I do 10 gallon batches and had to dump the first one. Taste was soso but smell was there. The second one was kegged a few weeks later and had some hints but not near as bad and is in my keezer now.
Not sure of what went wrong to this day. Must have picked up an infection in fermonster is my best guess.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

I think I'm about to dump 5 gallons of cider. I just can not get past the sulphur smell and taste I had such high hopes for this batch, to...

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I dumped some Bud down my throat some weeks ago. I regret that.

 

[bracconiere]

i haven't read all the posts and haven't gotten to the second page......but my god their are alcohlics that would gladly take these dumpers from you, just need to figure out shipping.... a keg weighs ~40-50lb's...flat rate is $35 or so.....i need to try more of your dumpers....call me crazy, i'm curious what you call a dumper?

 

[OzGolfPro]

My first attempt at a marzen. After a series of glorious blonde ales, my confidence was brimming. I’ve never had a marzen/Oktoberfest style beer, I don’t think we have even a good example here in Australia.
I researched the perfect grain bill, ordered some fresh German hops, as well as some authentic fresh Oktoberfest liquid yeast.
Unfortunately living in rural Australia several days transit away from the source I think the liquid yeast was a bit tainted by the time it got here. Also at the time I was naive enough to not really understand pitch rates.
The marzen has since been referred to as the “fart beer”, due to the outrageous amount of sulphurous esters picked up during fermentation. I chalk it up to a learning experience and I definitely learned much from it, however the pain of watching as most of a keg absorbed itself into the front lawn is a constant reminder to not be overconfident and do my due diligence before trekking into untraveled waters.

 

[Beermeister32]

I had a 5 gallon batch of sour I did with Roeselare. Waited 2 years, it never improved, or maybe it was me, just didn't taste like something I wanted to suffer through 5 gallons of. Not even sure I wanted to dump it on the lawn, emptied it behind the building at work...

 

[balto charlie]

I will confess I poured out the last third of my one and only keg of barley wine after a year of it lingering along in my 6 tap keezer. Finally just got tired of it, tbh...

Cheers!

This happens to me on occasion with big beers. I end up bottling the left over beer and stick it in the fridge or basement and taste latter in life. I had a Kate The Great Imperial stout that I drank 4 years later, tasted damn fine too. Nowadays I only brew 3 gallons of Imperial beer, leave the 11 gallon batches for the IPAs, Pales, Amber ales. These get consumed quickly.

 

[balto charlie]

Another thing I have done with mediocre beer is to blend with other beers on tap, works surprisingly well.

 

[Cellar_Dweller]

I always give a beer a fighting chance first but I have no problem dumping a batch if it takes a turn for the worse. I like to brew frequently so there is always more coming online behind it. I try to learn at least something from the experience and then move on.

 

[MagicRat]

I dumped my third batch, an all-grain hefe. It was also the last batch for which I did not take OG/FG readings.
I don’t know what went wrong to this day. My process has changed very little except obviously I can tell that fermentation has actually occurred without relying on simply the passage of two weeks.
Every bottle gushed like a volcano.
I’ve made 3 or 4 that I wasn’t exactly pleased with but still drank them. One was an ESB. Another was a red IPA. Nothing wrong exactly, just chalked up to poorly conceived recipes that looked good on paper but not in practice.

 

[GansBrew]

I know this is a somewhat old thread, but it’s what I needed to see.

Thinking about dumping a batch, which would be the third batch I’ve dumped. First was a wheat ale I tried adding blueberries to, didn’t let them ferment out, or it soured and ended up with gushers. Second was a lacto infected (I think) milk stout.

This one was my first attempt at a holiday spice beer. Brewed 3 gallons of a doppelbock (which was also my first attempt at a lager) and added WAY too much cinnamon (now I know you just need a sprinkle), so it has this odd cinnamon flavor, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t pleasant. The beer is drinkable, but not particularly enjoyable. Biggest issue is I currently only bottle condition (don’t have the space or $$ for kegging right now, can’t wait until I do though), and need to free up bottles so I can brew more. Maybe I’ll do what some have suggested and save a few bottles and let them age awhile and dump the rest.

 

[day_trippr]

I wonder if a beer like that would be enjoyable hot - like mulled cider or wine.
If it's cold where you are you might give that a try, you never know. The cinnamon would fit right in

Cheers!

 

[Jag75]

I've dumped a pumpkin ale . I couldn't stand it because it was super dry. I also dumped a lemon Shandy kit I made for my wife. She wasn't drinking it so I dumped it because I needed the bottles .

Not too long ago I got crappy conversion out of a hefe so instead of transferring to the fv I transfered to my sink because I was so ticked off . No regrets ....life is too short to drink crappy beer . I still don't consider Shandy a beer

 

[zacster]

My last batch got accidentally dumped It was in the keg in the fridge with the lines hooked up but the connector was slightly loose on the liquid side and with the gas under pressure it all just came out when I wasn't watching. It leaked through the pantry floor into the basement but no real damage was done.

 

[Transamguy77]

Over the past 10 years I’ve dumped several gallons of beer, first several was an airborne infection I was battling with in the old house I was living in at the time, second round was when I lived in Ca and I had to play with water chemistry and it wasn’t going well so I dumped like 8 kegs in one shot.

I have also had a beer in a keg for like 2 years, it was a pumpkin ale and I didn’t like how it tasted and I put it aside and forgot about it until I needed a keg which also happen to be like a year later and it was much better so we ended up drinking that one.

 

[BrewZer]

I almost dumped my first batch in my HDPE conical fermenter. The kreusen had gotten really thick, and on top of that was a shiny gunk that looked like brown plastic... I was sure it was infected, but the gravity sample still tasted OK, so I went ahead and decanted it to the bottling bucket then bottled it.

turned out drinkable, not great, but what I didn't know was that the local water system had recently switched from chlorine to chloramines...

Killed a couple of fish the same way.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

Haven't had any batch dumps yet. *Knock on wood*
I've got a 3 gallon batch of dry hopped cider that initially, some of us probably would have dumped. I over-hopped and boy it was green. Its been conditioning for over seven months now and is getting better every time I crack one open. I noted in that recipe, half the hop charge next time. LOL Also, on a good note: if you think your batch sucks, fridge it or hide it somewhere(date the cases/keg) and forget about it and try it again in three months, if getting better. Forget about it for another three. You might be surprised.

 

[dchmela]

After brewing for years, I got my first infection and lost 2 batches. I had to go through everything and found that my chiller had something growing in it. Rookie mistake! Infection got to my kegerator, so after thoroughly cleaning the chiller and buying all new lines for the kegerator I am back. Totally infuriating, because the beers I made were going to be some nice IPA's. It was good to run into a problem and problem solve, plus made me go through my system and look for any weak links.

 

[grampamark]

 

[Jag75]

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Not even 1 letter ??? Lol