Ever Dumped a Brew? Regrets?

[grampamark]

Not even 1 letter ??? Lol

Noep

 

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

Dumped my first one last night. It was a 3g BIAG pale ale. Frustrating as it was, it was doubly frustrating as I felt I'd finally dialed in my equipment and hit all my numbers. Problem was the blow off tube fell out of the water bucket and my nice, golden pale ale turned a deep, rich, dark, oxygen-rich brown color.

 

[Dinadan]

Well, I actually have a batch that needs dumping. Nothing special, a dark extract brew. One week after bottling it was fair. Two weeks after bottling, good. Three weeks after bottling, fair. One month: poor. Two months: awful. Three months: indescribable. It just got more and more sour. First time that has happened to me. As far as I know my process was the same as always, but clearly some kind of infection got into the beer.

 

[J2W2]

I had wanted to brew a brown ale, so I ordered an extract kit for one a few years back. I was concerned from the start when it only contained something like 10 or 12 ounces of specialty grains. I steeped it longer than the recipe called for and rinsed the grain bag a number of times. Took it all the way to having it on tap, but it was just a weak, pretty tasteless brew.

When a couple of my buddies, who drink about anything (like the very last glass from a keg, sediment and all), avoided that tap, I knew it was toast. Dumped the entire keg down the drain. I have a nut brown ale that I brew now as a partial mash - 4.5 pounds of grain and absolutely 180 degrees from that sorry kit!

 

[10_degrees_play-doh]

You're gonna want a homebrew in your hand for this... I've brewed some kooky beers in my time and some have been surprisingly good (bread yeast beer, all wheat grainbill, etc). Others have been a bit tougher to characterize (wild fermented perry barleywine, anyone?). Only a few have been disasters.

The worst? Saliva-mashed potato ...not beverage (like Chicha, the Peruvian saliva/corn beer). I suppose its not surprising that this was a flop. I shed no tears dumping it beyond wasted time and effort. To be honest, I've forgotten/blocked out at what point exactly I quit that one, I think after failed fermentation. Second worst? For some reason, I was still determined to turn potato starch into beer sugar and made another potato beer using barley and potatoes. This one was awful. Not completely undrinkable, though. I forced myself to get through it and (in great damage to my reputation) convinced some friends to drink some. It tasted, not surprisingly, like potatoes and hops. Hops don't go well with potatoes, in case anyone was wondering, which I'm sure you weren't.

The last one, though, was the most painful: I made what should have been a magnificent pale ale with the entirety of a 4-plant fresh hops harvest. I tried fermenting it in my new (at the time) FastFerment conical, which I still wasn't all that familiar with the nuances of. I pitched with a healthy starter of recently harvested English ale yeast. The first day, my entire basement smelled like heaven. It never looked like there was a whole lot of airlock activity though, which to that point in my experience had always been a reliable indication of good fermentation. I assumed there was something wrong with my harvested yeast and re-pitched. Some time later, I still hadn't really seen any airlock activity and I think I re-pitched one more time. Nothing. I was so disappointed that I just let it sit in the fermenter for a few more weeks before finally deciding it was time to reckon with it once and for all. I opened it up and before I dumped it I decided to take a gravity reading (mind you, I was convinced that the airlock activity was so minimal that it couldn't possibly have fermented)... and it was done. The trub trap was full. It smelled like done beer. Exactly like I expected it to smell to begin with, which was fantastic. I decide to taste my gravity sample... autolysis. Ruined. Undrinkable. A year's worth of hops growing and hours of harvest, down the drain. That's one I still feel bad about. Turns out, the FastFerment is notorious for lid sealing issues usually related to the gasket and/or the seal around the seam on the threads, so air was bypassing my airlock and in all reality my beer was probably done within days. Ugh... so those are my beer disaster stories. Those who've read this far, sorry for rambling, thanks for listening, those who skipped it... I understand.

Cheers, all!

 

[corkybstewart]

My brewing partner and I decided to brew 4 10 gallon batches in one weekend so we would both have kegs of 4 different beers. The first went into my temp controlled conical, turned out great. The second went into Tommy's fermentation fridge, turned out great. I made room in my spare garage chest freezer, hooked up a temp controller and fermented a great beer. But I didn't have any place to put the 4th beer, so I went with wet towels, frozen bottles and a fan. At some point that week the fan died, I couldn't get away from work to change the ice bottles and the beer got hot. Tommy tried for a couple of weeks and finally dumped his keg-it was pretty bad, full of fusels that none of my tricks would touch. I drank the whole keg, one pint at a time to pound into my brain that there's a limit to what can be done well. The tap handle read PUNISHMENT, and it was.

 

[corkybstewart]

I once brewed a pale ale with WLP 007, a 10 gallon batch. When it was done I tapped the first keg and nearly choked-it wasn't infected, the hops were good, but it had a lingering taste I hated. A gallon into it I gave up and turned it into 4 gallons of excellent malt vinegar, and i went about my business. A year later I was doing an inventory of my 2 kegerators and found the second keg of that batch hiding in the back corner of my fridge kegerator. I hauled it out to the yard immediately and got ready to pour it in the ditch, but then I figured I should at least taste it before I poured it, and it was delicious. It was the yeast that had not settled out in the first keg that tasted off to me. Had I been more patient I would have saved that beer. OTOH I would not have had 4 gallons of excellent vinegar. I never used 007 again.

 

[MicroMickey]

Some years back, I dumped a Helles. It was a wonderful beer and the first few pulls from the keg were great. After that, it started taking on a bad flavor and aroma. Every day it got worse so I decided to dump it. In cleaning the keg, I removed the "beer out" post and it was nearly clogged with what looked like kidney stones. This gunk, once mixed with the beer, caused an infection which ruined the whole batch. It hasn't happened again as I check both posts now as part of the corny keg cleaning ritual. In retrospect, I should have know better.

 

[Gusso]

I've never dumped one BUT, I just recently brewed a case for my niece's 21st birthday. Since I only bottled the one case, I put the rest in a 3 gallon corny. That keg had been sitting for almost 10 years with the remnants of Apple Butter Cyser. The keg was gnarly, I thought I cleaned it well. The bottled version was excellent. The keg? Not so. It tasted odd from the gitgo. Even visually, it looked different side by side. I might give it one more glass but I think it's best to admit defeat and dump it. And boil that keg, then bleach the bastard!

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Dumped a Brown ale in the fermenter where I had forgot to check the boil off in a new kettle and ende up with a OG of like 025, decided after a couple days it was not worth it. Also a Porter that stalled at 023 and I thought it was done, ofc started to ferment agian in the bottles and I had to dump about 25 gushers smelling stale butter and sulphur.
That was a couple batches ago, now with some more experience of the process and temp controlled fermentation my beers are actually starting to taste pretty decent!

 

[corkybstewart]

Here's one I didn't dump that turned out great. First time I brewed a wit with dried orange peels I had no idea what i was doing. I had a wedding to go to at 4 PM so I started early. Everything was going great, I dumped the orange peel in the kettle at 9 AM for 5 minutes, whirlpooled and started pumping the wort through my counterflow chiller. The peels plugged of the valve on my kettle and my chiller so I had to remove all the wort(11 gallons), clean every thing out and re-boil. By then all my cooling ice had melted so I had to drive to the convenience store 10 minutes away. By now it's almost noon and my wife is screaming at me to just dump it in the ditch and start over next week. By 2 PM it's in the fermenters(2 buckets) and we made it to the wedding(my brew session lasted almost as long as the marriage, but I took 2 cornies of homebrew so the reception was good). The next day the lids of both buckets have blown off, there's crud all over the walls and ceiling in the garage room, the buckets have been open for at least 12 hours so my wife is telling me again to dump it and start over. Eventually it turned out to be my best wit ever.

 

[corkybstewart]

Dumped a Brown ale in the fermenter where I had forgot to check the boil off in a new kettle and ende up with a OG of like 025, decided after a couple days it was not worth it. Also a Porter that stalled at 023 and I thought it was done, ofc started to ferment agian in the bottles and I had to dump about 25 gushers smelling stale butter and sulphur.
That was a couple batches ago, now with some more experience of the process and temp controlled fermentation my beers are actually starting to taste pretty decent!

Stick with it. I think back to my first beers and it's a miracle my wife encouraged me to keep going.

 

[Electric Brewer]

I've dumped my two first all grain, few months nths ago.

I make white beers only for now.

First one I messed up by not having all of the hardware. Missed two clamps for the chiller. Didn't also know the importance of fast cooling. I also let the fermenter way too close to a sunny window. Ended up bitter, in a bad way.

Second one, I made beer bombs. Tried to carbonate at 3.5. One exploded in the closet and I'm still ptsd from opening the others. Half of them popped to hard the caps went flying all over the place. Now I'm a bit scared and pull my head backwards when opening my homebrews lol.

Third one has yet to carbonate after ten weeks. I'm massaging it regularly. Maybe it'll turn out fine. I hope because it taste good.

For the record, the fourth is great and almost gone. Fifth is ready and exactly how I wanted it. Six is almost carbonates and already good. Seven and eight in the conicals now.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Stick with it. I think back to my first beers and it's a miracle my wife encouraged me to keep going.

Thank you, I notice improvement in every batch now, my latest ESB is actually where I could probably tell people it is store bought beer.

 

[Iowa Home Brewer]

Ok so I dump 2 ,5 gallon batches. One Octoberfest, one stout.
I kept getting a metallic mineral taste that I couldn't figure out.
So next night I'm smoking another Cuban cigar that I smoked the night before.
This time I'm not drinking any beer. Yup, you guessed it.
There is that mineral taste.
Needless to say, I cried the whole night long.
And promptly ask the beer gods forgiveness.
Live and learn. What an idiot

 

[Beermeister32]

I had a string of 3 dumpers once. Somehow in my head I figured I’d save time by heating the sparge water up to boiling, so I could more quickly go to boil. Mistake!

I ended up extracting tannins in all 3 batches due to the excess heat, causing extremely phenolic beer. I’m using cold sparging these days with great results. Really an education when you’re dumping those kegs on the front yard!

 

[Zymurologist]

Once, tasted kinda funky (rubbery garden hose) at bottling but forged ahead anywho, after giving it time to age I popped a top and tried it out, the taste matured to rubbery radiator hose and never got any better, only time I ever tasted a beer that was not palatable. Figured out that while I was at work the closet door was opened during the morning which put direct light onto the carboy.

 

[43North]

Ever brew a beer that you decided to throw out? Have you ever grinned and beared through a bad brew? Are you a perfectionist that you will cast aside less than awesome brews?

I dumped a batch for the first time this week. I brewed a black IPA a few months ago, splitting the 5 gal kit into 2 x 2.5 batches brewed one day apart. I prime and keg. I had brewed a Stone clone in between so the rotation into the kegerator was the first black IPA, then the stone and then the second black IPA. The keg was stored at room temp for a week or two before being moved to the fermentor at 67° for more weeks before getting taped at 44°,

Way too sour. My suspects are as follows: missing gasket on BrewDeamon conical lid, air getting sucked into transfer tub at spigot connection. Too long at room temp and then when I cleared out the fermentor, didn't cold crash and hold it there and instead just left it at 67. I am pretty sure my sanitation is good, I clean and soak every thing in beer products manufactured for hime brewing (which BTW oxy cleaners are what hospitals use to sanitize) and use a commercial food grade contact spray sanitizer (nu-foam) on everything (thus my focus on infection during fermentation and kegging)

I had a friend who really liked the sour and I suspect I might be patting myself on the shoulder if I had set out to make a sour beer.

I bit the bullet and dumped it. Then I took a 1.5 gallon mini keg to the growler station of a distributer and filled it with Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Ale from Non Sequitur Project. (they operate pop-up tap rooms in NYC and use existing breweries to make their beer- tying them to various charities). This is a beer I could have probably never tried, but the empty kegerator gave me the opportunity to go outside my comfort zone and try something different. I am glad I did and now am looking at watermelon recipes for a summer beer for next year.

So, I think cutting my losses on that black IPA opened a new door in my homebrew journey.


Share your Dump or No Dump stories.

Dumping 40 bottles this weekend. Boiled a lid that fell off a can of DME for an hours. Imparted a horrible metallic taste. Nu trine I will completely cut away the lids before pouring into pot.

 

[Mutant]

I often brew batches just as an experiment. My last experiment was three 4.3 gallon batches using 'Red-X'. These experiments were basically derivatives of other successful recipes. After extended lagering (requiring 1 of 5 kegerators), I sampled it, shared it for review by others, and just dumped them. My score for all three variations would have been between 25 and 30. I have no interest in drinking lame beer.