It's been said before: don't brew drunk!

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I like sampling beer when I'm making a batch and teaching people at the same time. Great fun to quaff about 6 maybe 6 oz samples. More then that, and I'd get trashed and screw something up.
I've always had fun brewing.
 
My favorite, and just like when young, I would build model ships and at the end there was a bunch of important stuff left over. I get done brewing and my Wife says "What is all this?" I had already buttoned up everything and had dreams of bubbling. Oh.....that was the yeast not pitched she was talking about. Hmmmmm........
 
I enjoy drinking on brew day and continue to do so. From milling grains to the fermenter and cleanup it takes many hours of brewing and drinking. :mug: I have learned to make a very detailed list with everything I need to check off as I go. The list also has the exact time to do what and what temps and gravies should be where. I make my recipe before brew day and have a spreadsheet that calculates my water volumes, additives, temps and gravity targets. The idea is with the list it can be done well with little thought or guess work by almost anyone. I have been doing it this way for many years and have been happy with the consistency of the results.
 
krunkpirate said:
I too tend to screw up hop schedules when I've had a few to drink whilst brewing. The worst was when I had a friend over helping with bottling, boiled the sugar and forgot to add it while I was chatting not paying full attention. The same friend helped me drink all the flat beer so it didn't go to waste, never again..
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Ha ha, glad I'm not the only who that's done that. Although I realized it when I was in bed that night. Got up in the morning and opened 48 bottles and added sugar water to each.

Then there was the time my friend and I were brewing. After we finished chilling we put the wort in the carboy and sealed it up with an airlock. Then the person who hadn't brewed before that was watching us said, "So, when do you put in the yeast?"

Still, I'm in favor of moderate imbibing while brewing.
 
I used to find it customary to enjoy some pints during the brewing process, until one day I couldn't figure out why the fermentation hadn't kicked in by the evening of the day after the brew session. Then I noticed the sealed starter flask, sitting in a dark corner on the kitchen counter.
 
Drinking and brewing at the same time - not any more. 20 liters of boiling wort is at least as dangerous as a chainsaw.

Besides, I make enough mistakes brewing sober.
 
I brew in the morning so just want breakfast & coffee. But even if I didn't, I utilize downtime to clean and pick up. Not a whole lot of time for drinking.
 
This happened around 5 years ago, so we can at least laugh about it now! I, like some others here, will always have beers while brewing. It is not as fun during Canadian winters, but any nice spring to fall day brewing outdoors is awesome. We will crack the first bottles around 10, after we have at least started mashing/lautering. Sometimes the beers are past homebrews, but often they skew into imperial territory.

One day with my constant brewing-parter and my brother, we finished two 5 gallon all-grain beers after a long day of drinking. I realized that my friend's batch was not aerated, so he went to fetch his sealed glass carboy. We were wearing shorts and flip flops, we did not have carboy straps, and so as he awkwardly carried the carboy across the concrete garage floor, he let it dip slightly. The tiny touch to the floor not only caused the carboy to explode and spill in the floor drain, a giant piece of glass cut his toe. All the drinking thinned out his blood and would not stop. Thankfully his wife had come home that afternoon and he spent some time at the doctor/hospital to get sewn up.

We wear better footwear now, we have better ways to transport carboys, we still drink. No beer wasted since.
 
CavA3R4 said:
I like sampling beer when I'm making a batch and teaching people at the same time. Great fun to quaff about 6 maybe 6 oz samples. More then that, and I'd get trashed and screw something up.
I've always had fun brewing.
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I do the same thing - the pint glasses don't come out until the yeast gets pitched.

Brewing without drinking seems sacrilegious -
 
Sorry guys, I can't get on board with most of you. I see it as not only my right, but my responsibility as a Fermentation Artist, that I must drink home brew while making beer or wine. It keeps me grounded to my creative home brewing roots. Not to mention it it gives me a good buzz.

Have I made mistakes and forgot stuff? Absolutely. Is that going to change my habits? Absolutely not. I embrace it.
 
Well, this has been entertaining and enlightening... Note that I didn't advocate notdrinking while brewing, I just noted that I personally couldn't handle beer plus wine plus vodka while brewing... I definitely enjoy a few homemade beers whilst home brewing, I'm just saying that for me I gotta watch what I drink and limit it to beer... What makes this planet great is that we are all different. I say go forth and do what's right for you!
 
We all feel your pain to some degree. I recently knocked my brew kettle off my back deck as I was getting ready to chill a 5 gallon batch. I never drink when I'm brewing. Having pots of boiling liquid, glass fermentors, etc... in the presence of alcohol is just asking for trouble, IMO. Just use it as a learning experience.
 
I always seem to have some low ABV homebrew's around and that's what I limit myself to...while brewing.
 
Decimotox said:
I always drink while brewing. I'm obviously in the minority here lol
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You are not alone, we always enjoy some brew on brew day right after the coffee. Hefe weizen is a breakfast beer. Also, we always start very early just like bakers. We have also really screwed up.
Prost!
 
Take comfort in the fact that it will ALL eventually wind up down one drain or another...😱
 
Poured the 165 degree strike water into the mash tun with the drain valve open. On my foot.
Safety first, kids!
 
I got way to many Hops in a batch one time and I could not stand to drink it. What to do with the beer? I distilled it and took off the Liquor. Funny thing was the damn Hop Oils came along for the ride too. Ended up putting it in my gas tank. Boy that sure made my truck hop.

I do all things thoroughly.
Even when I do them wrong,
I do them thoroughly wrong.
 
For me the worst part about being drunk on a brew day is trying to get it all cleaned up once its done. No one is motivated to clean THAT MUCH while drunk...at least no one I know. Then the next time you brew everything is dirty as hell and have been sitting around, or completely disorganized and you can't find the stuff....

But this never happened to me, I just heard about it on the forums. :ban:
 
IndyBlueprints said:
Sorry guys, I can't get on board with most of you. I see it as not only my right, but my responsibility as a Fermentation Artist, that I must drink home brew while making beer or wine. It keeps me grounded to my creative home brewing roots. Not to mention it it gives me a good buzz.

Have I made mistakes and forgot stuff? Absolutely. Is that going to change my habits? Absolutely not. I embrace it.
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Oh, thank God!!! I was starting to feel really bad about myself, reading this thread. My motto has always been, "To make beer, you must drink beer!". That said, there have been times when I woke up the next morning and wondered whether or not I had remembered to pitch the yeast. But, change? NEVER!:tank:
 
I like to go hard when I brew. I've done a few Friday night brew sessions where I'm not pitching the yeast until around 2am, 8+ beers quaffed. I wake up the next morning and can hardly remember anything after flame out. But the bubbling carboy always reassures me.
 
BeerAddikt said:
I like to go hard when I brew. I've done a few Friday night brew sessions where I'm not pitching the yeast until around 2am, 8+ beers quaffed. I wake up the next morning and can hardly remember anything after flame out. But the bubbling carboy always reassures me.
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I brewed a Hefeweizen once and did a single decoction (15gal). I woke up in bed about 8 pm and hollered ****!!! Ran outside to the patio and there was everything. The opened yeast packs in a bath of vodka, hop packs empty, checklist completed, everything done except clean up. I ran to the garage and there in the fridge were the three carboys with blow-off tubes and all. I even finished my cigar. I don't remember a damn thing. I told my wife and brew buddy, I now know I can brew drunk. The hefe got a 3rd place in the Bluebonnet Brew Off. Not bad.
 
On some of those Friday brew nights I've been on the brink of blackout drunk but I check in the morning to find out I took notes with pitching temps, gravity readings, etc. I don't remember doing any of it and the hand writing is a bit sloppy but I'll be damned, I took excellent notes.

I guess I'm a functional drunk...a very helpful trait if you drink and brew. :D
 
treacheroustexan said:
I'm gonna drink 4 bourbon counties when I brew on Sunday. wish me luck.
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Good luck!

I brew early AM. On the coffee. So relaxing sitting on my patio in the dark AM drinking coffee during the mash or boil. Dog wanders out when the sun comes up. I put on Turner Classic Movies on the outside tv, low volume so my wife doesn't wake up. Many are turds, but there are surprises - it's just background noise anyway.
 
1:30 in the morning.

testing new equipment.

forget to close a valve on a bucket.

200* water on the floor and in my socks.

zero ****s given. thank you Christmas Ale
 
My 2nd brew will be happening today in about 12 hours. My first batch is in bottles and not quite done, but I may have to sample a bottle or two while I'm brewing later, just to ensure the spirit of brewing! At least that's what I'll be telling myself...lol.
 
Yeah, I am just getting back into brewing but can see myself doing the same things. I am going to try my first brew this weekend. Plan to start Sunday morning. That way I will hold off drinking till finished.

Like that will happen, lol
 
Just yesterday afternoon, I started filling my carboy through my chill plate.After running it for a minute or two, I look over at the carboy and think, "wow, I've transferred a lot already!". Well then I realized why it looked like that. I forgot to dump my sanitizer out of the carboy before filling. So I ended up dumping at least 1.5 gallons of good wart mixed in with the sanitizer. I am glad I caught it when I did because I was able to still salvage about 2/3 of the batch.

Damn brew-day beers got me.
 
BassElement said:
I just brewed up a beautiful 2.5 gallon batch of IPA, and was enjoying a few home brews while doing so. I recently switched to a ported carboy, and unfortunately while I was filling it after cooling I didn't realize the valve was open and my wort was flowing into the sink while I was filling it... so I now have maybe 1 gallon of wort fermenting in my basement instead of 2.5 :mad:. All that work (wort) literally down the drain. So listen up when we say it kids: do not drink too much while brewing, and always pay attention to the moment, it can make the difference between a full case and a six pack. I learned my lesson the hard way, I hope you can learn from my mistake.

On to the next recipe - older and wiser.
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Hope you drank whatever was still in the trap in the sink! :p

It´s ¨don´t worry, relax, have a homebrew,¨ not ¨don´t worry, relax, have a six pack!¨... I´ve been know to (routinely) drink a few during the process... So far I have averted disaster for a decade (well not entirely, but it was never due to intoxication). :)
 
mr_y82 said:
Hope you drank whatever was still in the trap in the sink! :p
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Yep- was finally able to re-use that costly and highly specialized drain removal tool that I bought for a single use years ago and for which I got lots of grief from my wife - at least I could show her I actually used it twice :mug:
 
Had one Tripel to many and the end of brew night is pretty fuzzy. I’m pretty sure that among other mistakes, I forgot to sanitize the carboy. Been fermenting for three weeks. Strong cidery smell and krausen hasn’t dropped. Gonna wait another week before taking a reading. Lesson learned.
 
i had a nap once and scotched my wort. it tasted alright till it fermented, then it was straight up burnt popcorn lol. I usually mess up with my equipment profile and end up with way to much hops.
 
Tonight will be my first brew since I reorganized my garage into more of a mom-cave. Set up the laptop with some good speakers for tunes & YouTube, everything clean and in its place, 50 pounds of 2-row just begging to be brewed, and plenty of beer in the kegerator. Can't wait. I've always had a few while brewing, only screwed me up once. Fell asleep during what was supposed to be a 90-minute boil, that turned into what I think was a 160-minute boil, losing a gallon more than I intended. Beer turned out great if not as much as I hoped for, as well as a LOT higher ABV.
 

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