Ever just have a bad feeling about a brew?

[McHaven]

I brewed a black ale last night with the Austin Homebrew extract kit. (my 3rd brew). I decided to brew at about 3pm and got off work at 5 and started brewing. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been and feel I made a lot of dumb mistakes. (accidentally used unsanitized spoon, got tap water in the wort during cooling, etc etc). Now I'm quite worried I'll have an infection. It's also my first time using a swamp cooler to maintain temperature, so I've been worrying about that.

I pitched the yeast last night around 9 or 10. When I woke up, I had no signs of fermentation, but its now going pretty regularly, but no thick kreusen yet.

Hopefully it will all go all right, without too many off flavors or infection.

I know I know, I need to relax and have a homebrew.
But have you ever just had a bad feeling about a brew?

 

[asidrane]

During my second batch, my floating thermometer broke in the kettle. I let it settle overnight and then racked to the fermentor in the morning. It turned out to be one tasty brew. I'm sure your beer will be fine.

 

[Turner5]

got tap water in the wort during cooling

I top all my beers off with tap water so I wouldn't worry too much about that part.

 

[ceannt]

I wouldn't worry about it too much.... I've dropped all kinds of things in chilled wort that were far from sanitized, and have yet to get an infection... including a ball my dog decided to flavor my beer with! (OK, that one had me worried!) I used to top off with water straight from the tap back in the old days of Partial mashing without any problems. I think most of us are just a little too OCD about sanitation.

 

[McHaven]

And I left the kettle uncovered while I was trying to bring temp down. Stupid cat distracted me.

 

[blackbear219]

I've had a bad feeling about a bunch of my brews...then they came out AWESOME.

 

[Goaltender66]

Throughout history humans have been brewing good beers in conditions much more primitive than what we enjoy today. You'll be fine.

 

[unionrdr]

Just chalk it up to newb nerves that we all go through. Infecting a beer is harder than you think,& kind of rare. I try not to let anything distract me when I'm in the middle of brewing. I need to focus on hop addition times,etc. 9 times out of 10,it'll be fine.

 

[McHaven]

Throughout history humans have been brewing good beers in conditions much more primitive than what we enjoy today. You'll be fine.

That's what I've been reminding myself. "Hey at least I'm not in the barn next to the stables, in a wooden tub with spiders hanging over it."

 

[twelvelookslikex]

I sneezed into my cooled wort on my second brew

Turned out fantastic

 

[unionrdr]

I sneezed into my cooled wort on my second brew

Turned out fantastic

Snot rocket IPA?

 

[twelvelookslikex]

Haha Double Snot rocket Stout.

 

[LVBen]

I've got a bad feeling about the ESB that is sitting in one of my buckets right now. I pitched an iffy WYeast smack pack. Very little activity has been going on. I have another beer that was made the next day with two packets of dry yeast and it is so active that a little bit of it spilled out of the airlock.

 

[WhineinAlbany]

I'm always having issues with my autosiphon and I was quite worried the first couple times that I oxidized it. Of course, they came out just fine. My first batch, my husband was adding ice to the sink to chill the wort and a couple ice cubes fell in. That batch was fine too.