First screwed up batch in over 100

[oceanic_brew]

I've been on this forum almost daily for six years and although I've read almost everyone's stories of terrible batches or massive screw ups I've always felt pretty lucky to not have one of my own. Definitely a few that I've poured out as a result of recipe errors but until last night any mistakes I've made in brewing operations have been very minor.

I've recently gotten into water additions to try and up my brewing game and have been very successful nailing my targeted ph and definitely noticing an improvement in flavor.


And then last night happened ....

I made the mistake of trusting my understanding of lactic acid additions without having a lot of experience with water chemistry basics and added lactic acid pre-mash just because it worked once for me the previous brew.

Without getting into too much detail first reading measured a ph of 4.7 so I frantically added 9.6 grams of baking soda....(I know) reading was ph 7.00 then I added enough lactic acid to get back down to 5 after about 25 mins of losing a lot of heat and a lot of stirring. Mash dropped from 154 to 145

Heading to the house to boil it now as I kinda gave up after making so many mistakes.

Hahhaha wow!

If nothing else I've learned a lot!!

Just figured I would share

 

[bobeer]

I feel your pain. Learning is good though and sometimes it costs gallons of beer. I've been brewing for going on 5 years I think now and I just made a really bad batch of beer. Not sure what happened but it's baaaad. Even the pros dump beer so I try to not take it too hard on myself. I'm all about the next batch!

 

[oceanic_brew]

Yeah! Likewise I've been telling people all day how great of a learning experience last night was.


BTW projected OG was 1.039 and I ended up with 1.038. I was very surprised by this since all the temp and ph swings.

 

[foam_top]

So far all my batches have been drinkable but I've screwed up badly many times already after brewing for a little over a year now. I've gotten bleach in one batch, glass in another and I've had one infection. Lately things have been amazingly smooth though. I hope that lasts for awhile.

 

[oceanic_brew]

So the OG on this batch was supposed to be 1.039 and ended up being 1.049.

I'm seriously considering the possibility that I screwed up my grain weights.

I'm wondering if I had way more grain than anticipated I would have way less water in my mash, accounting for missing my temp and adding more acid. then required?!!


So many variables

 

[brick_haus]

The OG went up .011 since your previous post?