Mishaps Blunders and Accidents

[NBBrewer]

I remember a few years back I tried using a blowoff tube after I had a wild Krausen pop my airlock off. I used half inch tubing connected to the airlock and tightly inserted the bung with tubing into a 1 litre jug. I woke up eexcited the next day and went in to see how it was doing and you guessed it... like a murder scene. Beer dripping from the ceiling and down the walls. Probably a gallon or more. I spent the next few hours cleaning religiously. Didn't get a pic. After that I used tin foil over the mouth of the carboy until the Krausen passed.

Another time more recently I had a hoist with some what I thought was strong enough rope to lift my bag in basket out of the kettle. You guessed it. She let go and hot wort splashed all over the walls my face and even a little on the ceiling. I was devastated but commenced replacing the broken rope with cable and once again clean the walls.

Anyone else want to share their Mishaps blunders and accidents?

 

[bracconiere]

hmm, i think i just lost an ounce of co2 a couple days ago.... my gas tubing was kinda at a kink, and after adding a tee and another shut off valve, for burst carbing reasons....i only had one hose clamp for all the connections, and when i added the length of the extra shut off, the hose was kinda bent on the joint with just bailing wire twisted on.....

thankfully i caught it after just an ounce, and rotated my co2 tank, to give the gas line some space......otherwise i'd imagine a oz a day leak would have drained my tank quick!

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

One of my very first batches (I think #2) was a high gravity Saison. Me and my wife had just moved into our final apartment at the time. I brewed the extract batch on the stove, poured into a sanitized bucket (nearly 6 gallons in a 7 gallon bucket), pitched my massive starter, sealed the lid and set it to rest in the corner of the living room.

We both went to work the next morning and when I came home I found Krausen painted up both walls of the corner, the ceiling, couch and our brand new carpet. I tried cleaning it up before my wife got home but was unsuccessful. She walks in and bursts into tears from laughing at me so hard. Cracking jokes, laughing uncontrollably and then HELPS ME CLEAN IT UP!...We did not get our security deposit back. Blowoff tube every time since then. Whoops!

 

[bracconiere]

We did not get our security deposit back.

reminds me of the used fridge i got for lagers, didn't have the drip tray for the bottom....wood floors....

but it was kinda weird when i moved out, they charged me an extra month rent, told i wasn't alowed to move out with out a month notice, didn't expect to get security deposit back, $1k, but they gave me a month's rent back, charged for cleaning the drapes that i put in and left there.....if would have known, i would have just thrown them away!

(all, in all, it worked out dollar wise the way i expected?)

 

[pvpeacock]

I forgot to take the stir bar out of a yeast starter before pouring it into my conical fermenter. I thought no big deal, I'll just fish it out when the beer is done fermenting. A week later, I went to dump trub/yeast from the dump valve. The trub/yeast was very thick and very slow to come out of the dump valve. Half way through the process, I tried to close the ball valve, but it wouldn't shut all the way. I realized it wouldn't shut because the stir bar was in the ball valve. Oh Sh....... what now?! Fortunately, I had a spare tri-clover ball valve and was able to attach it to the end of the stuck ball valve before the beer started gushing out. Otherwise, I would have had a real mess.

 

[bracconiere]

stir bars are a pain....

 

[Dinadan]

I have not had anything as dramatic as some folks. A few weeks ago I was transferring my beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. I was thinking that it sure was taking a long time for the bucket to fill up...when I noticed that I had left the spigot on the bottling bucket open. About a half gallon of beer went on the floor before I realized my mistake.

 

[bracconiere]

I have not had anything as dramatic as some folks.

LOL, man, when i burst carb my batch of wine yeast brown....you damn well KNOW i'm going to be posting in this thread...if it's even a tenth of an ounce over 1.3oz's!...i'll be all like, "damn it, i shook it 5 seconds too long"....

 

[eric19312]

I was carbing up my beer in my Spike unitank. I attached the carb stone, purged it with CO2, attached my spunding valve to the manifold set for 12 PSI, remembered to point the racking arm up, turned on the gas and heard a nice gurgle. Perfect. Closed up my freezer/chamber and went to make dinner. On my way to bed I decided to take a peek and see how I was doing.

Ooops

Beer on the floor of my garage, beer on the floor of my freezer. Gas hissing out of the top of the fermentor. My gas regulator was at 50 PSI ... I'd been force carbing some sparkling mineral water earlier and forgot to reset it. I blew 10 pounds or more CO2 through that beer and clearly foamed the crap out of it with foam running out the spunding valve. Ended up about 3 gallons shy when I packaged and I'm pretty sure I can taste some oxidation.

 

[pvpeacock]

I had a keg naturally carbonating with a spunding valve set at 30 psi at room temp. The actual pressure was around 25 psi when I pulled off the ball lock spunding valve to put the keg in the keezer. Somehow, the poppet got turned cockeyed in the post, and I had a "beer geyser!" all I could do was put my hand over the post and drag the keg out of my garage and onto the driveway with beer spraying everywhere. Lost between 1-2 gallons and had a mess to clean up.

 

[jerrylotto]

Come on, hasn't anyone else tried to fill a spigot bucket with the spigot open? You can close it and save the day, but there is going to be a mess to cleanup in any case!

 

[VikeMan]

I forgot to take the stir bar out of a yeast starter before pouring it into my conical fermenter. I thought no big deal, I'll just fish it out when the beer is done fermenting. A week later, I went to dump trub/yeast from the dump valve. The trub/yeast was very thick and very slow to come out of the dump valve. Half way through the process, I tried to close the ball valve, but it wouldn't shut all the way. I realized it wouldn't shut because the stir bar was in the ball valve.

This is why God created Post-It Notes.

 

[emac813]

Earlier this year, I made a 1L yeast starter from some harvested Kveik in a growler. I had been drinking. When I woke up in the morning, I realized that I had over-tightened the cap on the growler. I tried to ease the cap off, but it shot off and most of the starter was wasted on the ceiling and cupboards in my kitchen. My fiance found it hilarious after she heard the explosion and came down to find me standing on a chair cleaning the ceiling of the kitchen.

 

[seatazzz]

Oh, so many...the most memorable was a couple years ago when I had just started using a pump. Was using it to pump through the IC and of course, one of the connectors popped off while I was standing over the BK. I have some very interesting burn scars on my boobs and belly from that one (was a hot day and was wearing a loose tank top). Sorry guys no pics.

 

[pvpeacock]

Speaking from personal experience, burns are never fun. Sorry.

Before my two sons went off to college, they used to sneak beers from my keezer. Yes, my wife made me get locks for them, but she never made me promise to hide the key which hung on a nail above the keezer. Anyway, one morning I went out to the garage and found a huge puddle of beer on the floor and a completely full drip tray. Upon further investigation, I saw that someone had left one of the flow control beer taps open, but the flow lever all the way in up position. In the subsequent confession I obtained, I learned that my one son didn't understand how to use the flow control faucets. He thought you only needed to use the flow control lever to shut off the beer, not the tap handle. So 5 gallons of beer leaked out drip by drip over the course of the night.

Oh, but it gets better. A few weeks later, I found a large puddle of cider on the garage floor and a drip tray full of cider. In the subsequent confession I obtained from my other son (who likes cider), I learned that he, too, didn't understand how the flow control faucets worked and did the same thing his brother had done. Ugghhhhhh.

So, in addition to teaching both of them how flow control faucets work and buying automatic return springs for my regular faucets, I also bought a floor tray that fits under my faucets with a 5 gallon liquid capacity just in case. https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-1677B-...d-search-11&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=2620840011

 

[NBBrewer]

Speaking from personal experience, burns are never fun. Sorry.

Before my two sons went off to college, they used to sneak beers from my keezer. Yes, my wife made me get locks for them, but she never made me promise to hide the key which hung on a nail above the keezer. Anyway, one morning I went out to the garage and found a huge puddle of beer on the floor and a completely full drip tray. Upon further investigation, I saw that someone had left one of the flow control beer taps open, but the flow lever all the way in up position. In the subsequent confession I obtained, I learned that my one son didn't understand how to use the flow control faucets. He thought you only needed to use the flow control lever to shut off the beer, not the tap handle. So 5 gallons of beer leaked out drip by drip over the course of the night.

Oh, but it gets better. A few weeks later, I found a large puddle of cider on the garage floor and a drip tray full of cider. In the subsequent confession I obtained from my other son (who likes cider), I learned that he, too, didn't understand how the flow control faucets worked and did the same thing his brother had done. Ugghhhhhh.

So, in addition to teaching both of them how flow control faucets work and buying automatic return springs for my regular faucets, I also bought a floor tray that fits under my faucets with a 5 gallon liquid capacity just in case. https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-1677B-...d-search-11&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=2620840011

Nice unit pv.presumably so you can recover the leaked beverage for future consumption

 

[HB2 HughBHomeBrew]

Transferred wort at about 80F into fermentor. Connected glycol to coil. Set temp control to 65F, glycol is running. All is well. Pitched yeast when temp was reading around 68F - about ambient. Slight problem - I did not put the temp probe into the fermentor. So it kept chilling and chilling. Discovered the problem a few hours later and beer was about 45F - which is probably where it was when I pitched. Didn't help that it was a new "smack pack"/ no starter. Fermentation got going eventually but finished result was nasty, phenolic undrinkable. (I guess I should cross post to the "what batches have you dumped").