I screwed up on brew day! BUT I did RDWHAHB

[bniesen]

I forgot to add a pound and a quarter to my grain bill but added the amount of water had the grain bill been correct.
grain bill
9 lb 2-Row
.25 lb Black Patent
1 lb Pale Chocolate
1 lb Crystal 80L
1 lb Carapils (left out)
.25 lb flaked Barley (left out)

I was so disappointed I didn't even take any gravity readings. My attitude was exactly "have another homebrew and another to forget about it"

Whats the worst that could happen right? in the end it will still be beer.

 

[JonK331]

I think you will be better off leaving out the Carapils and flaked barley. 2lbs of crystal malt (carapils is essentially a crystal malt) is too much for a 5 gallon batch and would have resulted in a very high final gravity and a sweet beer. Your "mistake" will end up being a benefit!

 

[user 53515]

Unless the OP was aiming to brew a sweet chocolatey beer.

 

[bniesen]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Since you have been so helpful I'll tell of my other screw up. I brewed 2 recipes a porter (previous post) and a cream ale. I did not hit my mash temp. I took precautions by preheating my mash tun and going through all the calculations for water temperature, but for whatever reason lost my temp (after an hour, no conversion and temp dropped to 143 when it was supposed to be 152). I wound up putting in all the water for the total batch in the mash to raise the temp, converted in a half an hour, put in boil kettle for an hour. Not a successful brew day BUT like I said, it still will produce beer.
Lessons learned:
Besides the helpful recipe tip in the previouse post, keep all ingredients together and don't rely on "I'll remember that later".

It is easier to cool your mash water than it is to heat it.

Mistakes like these and you would think I'm a noob. I guess we all have our setbacks.

 

[bniesen]

Unless the OP was aiming to brew a sweet chocolatey beer.

Yes I was aiming for a chocolate caramel porter. I should have added in the recipe that I had a 60 min addition of an ounce of Fuggle hops.

 

[Apendecto]

Yes I was aiming for a chocolate caramel porter. I should have added in the recipe that I had a 60 min addition of an ounce of Fuggle hops.

Sounds good.

 

[bniesen]

Thank you!

 

[bniesen]

Just realized I never gave any feedback on how these turned out. The Cream Ale was a disappointment, I must not have boiled it hard enough as it had a slight off flavor. I had a few bottles left over that had been sitting in the fridge for a few months (6 months after brew date) and they did taste better but definitely not one of the better ones I've made to date.

The Porter was the best out of the two. It was lacking the body and mouth feel I was going for but everyone raved how easy it was to drink and how well it tasted.

So, till next time