Let's talk outright frickin tragedies

[mmead]

Along the lines of coming home and seeing your dog has chewed off and pulverized the air lock, plug, along with the first inch of plastic neck on the carboy. Any tragedies in your brewing life?

 

[JoeyChopps]

Did you hurry and transfer the beer? As far a bad stuff in the brewery I dropped a glass carboy and shattered it my first ag brew day. Good news it didn't get me and it only had sanitizer in it.

 

[malweth]

Along the lines of coming home and seeing your dog has chewed off and pulverized the air lock, plug, along with the first inch of plastic neck on the carboy. Any tragedies in your brewing life?

Wow!

One of my first beers, a hefeweizen, exploded the lid off the plastic bucket. It still turned out good (for one of my first 5 beers). I haven't used plastic since and use a 1" blow off on nearly all my beers.

Ironically, the one time I didn't use a blow off (very, very recently - this week) yeast junk has been spilling out the top of my dry airlock w/ carboy cap. I quickly attached a line. I didn't realize Roeselare was explosive (figured it wasn't . . . and was dead wrong). At least everything stayed attached and is entirely salvageable.

 

[whitehause]

Not me, but I remember a story from a member here. His cat used his grain bucket for a litter box when he wasn't looking. Didn't realize till mash in......

 

[Jayhem]

Not me, but I remember a story from a member here. His cat used his grain bucket for a litter box when he wasn't looking. Didn't realize till mash in......

If this is true, this takes the cake! lol. I can't even imagine! "What kind of beer is this?" Oh that one is "Cat Feces Brown Ale" *PUKE*



I've been lucky so far. Worst I've had happen is moths getting into a pale ale as we were immersion chilling it. Still turned out ok though.

 

[unionrdr]

My wife was fermenting a batch of the summer shandy I came up with for her. She was to my right at the comp hutch havin some home brews & watchin videos. So she was nearest to it atm. We raised our glasses to have a drink,& POP! the lid blew off the FV,even with a blow off on it. Luckilly,she didn't get doused with beer.

 

[shutupjojo]

Not me, but I remember a story from a member here. His cat used his grain bucket for a litter box when he wasn't looking. Didn't realize till mash in......

Man, that's funny shyte.

 

[inhousebrew]

This is about the worst I got. Luckily this was after transferring from the primary so it was only the yeast sludge left over. Still, super annoying.

 

[mmead]

These fiascos bluntly remind me to NOT TOUCH any of my brewing stuff when I'm drinking.

 

[malweth]

These fiascos bluntly remind me to NOT TOUCH any of my brewing stuff when I'm drinking.

This.
I (almost) never drink when brewing. If I do, it's one low ABV beer. I usually brew in the early a.m. (sometimes through lunch) -- which doesn't stop me from having one, but it doesn't push me to it.

 

[hoppymonkey]

I had small leak in my kegerator hose and 3 1/2 gallons of one of my best batches leaked out all over the floor of my garage overnight.

 

[unionrdr]

That's alcohol abuse! So tragic to see for one so young...

 

[jsguitar]

I can't say I've had any real tragedies but once, when I had a 'three tier' setup, actually a deck, some chairs, and the ground, I totally goofed. I only had one pot, a cooler mash tun, and collected wort into buckets to transfer back to the pot. I had just doughed in, letting the strike water flow from the pot on the deck to the mash tun, stirred really well, and immediately began to fill the pot back up with sparge water. I was cutting my tap with bottles of distilled water, so it took awhile. Once I put in what I thought was about 7 gallons, I noticed the level didn't look right. It was really low. I forgot to close the valve on the pot! The hose was still running to the mash tun and I accidentally dumped probably 4 gallons of cold water into the mash that just got started.

I didn't have an easy way to heat it back up and the LHBS was actually open on Sunday, so I just went a bought new grains, some more water, and started over.

Everything went well until late that night when I was finally finishing. It was really cold. When I went to chill with my CFC, I found that there was no water flow through my garden hose. It was frozen! (so was I) Later, someone mentioned that I should've put it in the washing machine for a bit. Good tip, but instead I was heating up small batches of hot water on the stove and pouring it on the hose until I could get it to flow. This took probably an hour or more to work.

I finally got it chilled and it turned out great, but that was one of the biggest PIA brew days I've ever had.

 

[nsrooen]

Wife accidentally hit a tap open with a laundry basket as she was leaving the room and didn't notice. Got home to 5 gallons of freshly kegged cider all over the laundry room. I almost cried.

 

[Majafoo]

First ag, just moved into a new place. My room mates didn't tell me that the table top wasn't attached to the base, a full cooler mash tun full of hot ass water and grains fell and exploded hot ass water and grains all over me and the ceiling, walls, curtains and door. So many burns....

 

[naiek]

I had small leak in my kegerator hose and 3 1/2 gallons of one of my best batches leaked out all over the floor of my garage overnight.

The thought of this has gotten me up in the middle of the night to check my taps

 

[meadmazer]

Mine was a 6 gallon batch raspberry light ale with about 5 lbs of berries, didnt have blowoff tube, just lighty sat bubbler on glass carboy. Doing fine first day, next bubbler had slowed down alot. Thinking it may be clogged I leaned over slowly removed bubbler from stopper, and pop out came the whole stopper, there was about half a carboy of a nice red chunky mess all over my face, the ceiling, walls, carpet. Wife at first wondered how I had seriously hurt myself except I was naked from leaving all my clothes at the laundry before I went upstairs to take a shower, and I was LMAO. Then I had some cleaning up to do.

 

[jsguitar]

Wife accidentally hit a tap open with a laundry basket as she was leaving the room and didn't notice. Got home to 5 gallons of freshly kegged cider all over the laundry room. I almost cried.

That sucks.

This reminds me of something. Same house (rental) the landlord hired an electrician to do some work. Somehow, he managed to cut the top off of my favorite fishing pole, climed on and dented the top of my newly built keezer, and when I went to complain about those things, my landlord said "Oh yeah, I accidentally knocked a tap open and spilt some beer, sorry", I guess he was there 'helping'.

 

[scottland]

http://bertusbrewery.blogspot.com/2012/09/2012-nuclear-penguin-rip.html

I had to dump a 14-16% ABV IPA with over a pound of hops in it. I wanted to cry. (mini fridge died)

 

[johngaltsmotor]

Not me, but I remember a story from a member here. His cat used his grain bucket for a litter box when he wasn't looking. Didn't realize till mash in......

(Unfortunately) this reminds me of the BW's commercial about the guy who brews his own beer.

 

[bja]

http://bertusbrewery.blogspot.com/2012/09/2012-nuclear-penguin-rip.html

I had to dump a 14-16% ABV IPA with over a pound of hops in it. I wanted to cry. (mini fridge died)

The fact that you dumped it so soon is the tragedy.

 

[AmandaK]

Does using a new mash tun for the first time and dumping 154* wort all over your pants and then ripping off your burning hot pants count? 'Cause that was pretty terrible...

 

[AmandaK]

The fact that you dumped it so soon is the tragedy.

Seriously. I would have rode that one out longer than 24 hours, but that's just me I guess.

 

[bja]

Does using a new mash tun for the first time and dumping 154* wort all over your pants and then ripping off your burning hot pants count? 'Cause that was pretty terrible...

Pictures or it didn't happen.

 

[scottland]

Seriously. I would have rode that one out longer than 24 hours, but that's just me I guess.

I know WLP007 too well. The esters it throws at 75+ aren't pretty.

 

[bja]

I know WLP007 too well. The esters it throws at 75+ aren't pretty.

With a pound of hops I doubt that you would've noticed many esters.

 

[scottland]

Esters, fusel alcohols, phenolics, you'll notice. Aside from that, the time and energy commitment for that beer is insane. I wasn't planning on nursing a beer for two full weeks knowing it was probably going to be crap.

 

[mmead]

Home brewers who've shattered glass carboys full of thick rich stouts on a carpeted floor have obviously abandoned hope and with tales never told are no longer contributing to this forum.

 

[terrapinj]

Not me, but I remember a story from a member here. His cat used his grain bucket for a litter box when he wasn't looking. Didn't realize till mash in......

simcoe SMaSH?

 

[acidrain23]

On my second ever brew (beer anyway), I had my steeping grains draining in a colander over the nearly boiling (thick) wort. I decided it was a good idea to press down on the grains to get all of the wort out (I know, don't squeeze! ). Unfortunately the strainer was not as stable as I thought and the whole thing plunged to the bottom of my kettle spraying hot wort all over the ceiling, walls and myself. Ended up with some bad burns from that one. Not fun!