Mishaps you are embarrassed to admit...but can here, we're all friends.

[Drewch]

New 3 gallon FastFermenter. Several weeks ago I was ready to bottle and when unscrewing the mason jar collection adapter from the valve body the core of the valve also unscrewed letting the ball fall out and my 2+ gallons of ready to bottle beer with it.

Yesterday was another brew day and I had sense enough to play around with it prior to play around with the valve and adapter to see how to avoid having that happen again.

Fast Ferment says to be sure to tighten it enough so the core doesn't unscrew. However elsewhere they say not to tighten the core too much. There is no guidance on what is the proper amount to tighten it.

So from what I found, if you tighten the core too much, the o-ring on the core won't seal to the mason jar adapter and it leaks. If you leave the core loose enough then no leak between the valve body and the adapter. But when you try to unscrew the mason jar adapter which also unscrews the valve core you get a leak. And the valve core has less threads. So it's completely unscrewed before the adapter is.

Which leaves me screwed... so to speak!

Perhaps they should have made their hose barb work with the mason jar adapter instead of requiring the adapter to be removed to install the hose barb.

Sadly FastFerment isn't responding to my inquiry. I guess I'll send them another.

Also not sure if the topic of this thread applies to me or FastFerment!

I just tighten until the red handle is flush with the valve body. Kind of a built-in stopping point.

I only had that issue once: when I had removed the mason jar adapter to dump rather than just the jar. As long as I stick to just removing the jar, I don't have that prob.

 

[wsmith1625]

i drank a michelob ultra at the diner for lunch...


and i tried to look cool doing it, by getting big head on the glass. couldn't pull it off

Please don't make me laugh so hard while I'm at work. Hahahaha!

 

[Spartan1979]

I set up my new BIAB electric kettle with topsflow pump and loc-line coming out under the lid. I was very proud of myself. I was cleaning the system with PBW. I hung the lid on the kettle handle while I was doing other stuff. I switched the pump on to recirculate the PBW through the system and immediately went into the garage to do other stuff. I suddenly look round and there was a flood of water coming from under the door. The pump was pumping all the PBW through the loc-line all over the floor...... another night in the doghouse.

I've done something similar. I run my RO water directly into my HLT with a float valve to shut it off. I learned that the float valve won't shut off the water if I forget to close the valve at the bottom of the tank. My wife was the one who found the water all over the floor!

 

[McMullan]

Well, about a week ago, I brewed a full batch of lager and forgot to attach a floating dip tube to the kegmenter lid. It's been fermenting quite nicely under pressure with freshly harvested yeast. But I can't get the f*cking lid off, to attach the dip tube, without major foaming spraying out of the PRV. I had to re-pressurise and walk away. I'm just going to leave it in there for another week then cold crash down to 0°C and hope for the best

 

[hotbeer]

I just tighten until the red handle is flush with the valve body. Kind of a built-in stopping point

I will have thought so too. However that's not the case with mine. If I want to unscrew the adapter to put the hose barb attachment on for bottling direct from the FV, then I'm SOL as the core will unscrew itself too.

Maybe I got a bad valve.

 

[c.r.martin1227]

So, years ago when I initially started brewing beer, I decided that I needed a wort chiller, because you know, faster chill and everything. I made my own, and it turned out pretty impressive, wish I took pictures. I don't remember exactly what I was making, but I know it was my first stout and I was stoked. So I put my chiller into a bunch of ice and used it like a siphon. The beer melted that ice so fast and when it got into my carboy it was ready to pitch. So, a couple months later when I try my stout it had this yucky metal flavor to it. See, the chiller I made was an insertion chiller, but misunderstood how it was supposed to be used. I was pretty disappointed

 

[friarsmith]

I got a Blichmann Bottling gun soon after they first came out. Maybe 2010 or 2011? I don’t recall.

The first few years of use (Maybe 10 uses) the darned black tip on the end of the barrel wouldn't seal completely when I released the trigger to stop flow. So it was always an overflowing mess and a race to cap each bottle. I watched so many how-to vids and NOTHING worked. So I quit using it.

Fast fwd a few years. A buddy was helping me cap several beers I had to submit for a competition, and he uttered five life-changing words

“Dude, your tip is backwards”

Edit: In my defense, I am positive the tip was backwards/upside-down when I bought it.

 

[NoCornOrRice]

Experiments with different flavours has led to some of my best beers... and some of the worst:
- Garlic pale ale (horrific)
- way too much fresh mint in a stout (drinkable, barely)
- jalapeño dark ale (burned on the way out)
- 30% crystal malt with high mash temp and tons of Citra. (Dumped, couldn't give it away)

 

[Drewch]

I will have thought so too. However that's not the case with mine. If I want to unscrew the adapter to put the hose barb attachment on for bottling direct from the FV, then I'm SOL as the core will unscrew itself too.

Maybe I got a bad valve.

Maybe put food-safe keg lube on the face between the valve core and the mason adapter?

 

[DuncB]

Putting a shiny new ball lock connector on the spunding valve.
Not appreciating the role of the non return ball lock connector I'd just fitted until I returned three days later to find a very tense fermentasaurus gently venting thru the PRV. Pressure was at least 35psi but still chugging away, not such an expressive wheat beer that one.

Further note to self asking the brewers assistant ( wife ) to check the above fermenter whilst I was away and not appreciating she couldn't notice the spunding valve needle had gone all the way round to rest against the gauge stop, so it looked like no pressure at all.

Open a pressurised fermenter and put the hops in and turning away whilst the nucleation ensued and then trying desperately to get the lid back on and repressurise the volcano.

Otherwise all going well.

 

[NoCornOrRice]

Open a pressurised fermenter and put the hops in and turning away whilst the nucleation ensued and then trying desperately to get the lid back on and repressurise the volcano.

I did that once... I was like a sticky volcano.

 

[robertkerr79]

I once innocently turned on my electric 35L kettle before adding any water. That was the day I learned that the heating element will immediately start smoldering if not fully submersed. It imparted a smokiness to the Belgian Blonde that people were very polite and encouraging about. It wasn't terrible, but it was unplanned and it took a lot of scrubbing to get the element clean.

 

[CanaHomebrew]

The amount of times that I've tried to hook up new kegs to my kegerator and forgotten to turn off the CO2, depressurize the kegs, or not had the beer and gas line both connected when I turned on the gas is just embarrassing.

So much good beer on my brew room floor, and consequently, all over me.

 

[passedpawn]

I once innocently turned on my electric 35L kettle before adding any water. That was the day I learned that the heating element will immediately start smoldering if not fully submersed. It imparted a smokiness to the Belgian Blonde that people were very polite and encouraging about. It wasn't terrible, but it was unplanned and it took a lot of scrubbing to get the element clean.

Ironically, that's exactly how I clean my elements.

 

[Heinz]

I had dead mice in the well water. Made beer with it. The beer went bad. So the "I have had no infections" badge got dumped with the beer.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

I had dead mice in the well water.

Ewww

 

[JaggersBrewingCo]

On a couple occasionss I've gone and dumped the 60 minute hop addition at the start of the boil…. On 90 minute boils…. I know they say bitterness pretty much maxes out after 60, but it still makes me feel stupid when I do it! I've also found I am far more likely to miss steps when I have a brewing assistant, I am far more slow paced and methodical when brewing on my own…

Ain't that the truth... anytime I have someone over it doesn't look like I know nearly as much as I do. One time someone that is far more experienced then I came over and all he said well that's a nice boil... only brewing comment he made the whole time.

 

[JaggersBrewingCo]

I chased lower then expected ABV problems for about 6 months. I was about to give up brewing - My 5% Beer tasted like 5% not 3 after all... Someone finally asked if I was using my 6 month old refractometer... I was in deed using said item to find my final gravity... I have sense wised up!

 

[Callacave]

Don't hold an Imperial Yeast pouch by the top, and cut below your fingers. gravity did the rest!

 

[passedpawn]

Man, stainless steel seems SO impervious to everything. Bleach, not so much.

I had a sour beer in a keg, and wanted to go nuclear on cleaning so the next contents didn't go south. Put some bleach in there, shook it up good, then walked away for a few days.

About a month later, I noticed that one of my kegged beers was leaking. Man I could not find the leak. Turns out that there was a pinhole leak in the bottom of the keg and it was leaking into the rubber bottom of the keg. The dip tube was also eaten away.

Below, you can see the view into the keg, with bright light behind it. Holes down there.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Well I just Effed up my new th 310 by dropping it in the mash, but it's ok to admit that here guys?
Note to self: don't stir and take temp readings at the same time...

 

[lumpher]

I yeasted my APA. Got busy and didn't put it in the ferm chamber, so it fermented in a 75 degree room. Cellar Science Cali yeast does not do well fermented that warm...

 

[McMullan]

I moved to Norway. With the luxury of hindsight, the worst decision of my life. And I'm being very kind.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

At least now you actually get to see snow during winters and not just 6 months of rainy sludge...
@McMullan

 

[McMullan]

Rainy sludge makes me feel quite nostalgic

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Tbh, I could never imagine living somewhere where there is not actually winter during winter... Any place not seeing at least -20c and a meter of snow can just F off!

 

[McMullan]

But every year, on the dot, for six months? In the dark. With Norwegians. The novelty wanes after a week or two

 

[franknbeans]

My best brewing flop was last summer. I made an IPA right at the beginning and ended up being sent out on a big fire by Tahoe for close to two months. The airlock dried up on my conical and ruined the batch. It made the whole house smell like stagnant waterlogged cardboard that took forever to air out.. just gross.

 

[Protos]

For the last 20 batches, I get slight Lactic infection in every other batch.
IDK WTF. I nuke all my brewing gear with industrial-grade Peracetic Acid. And still I have this mishap.

 

[McMullan]

For the last 20 batches, I get slight Lactic infection in every other batch.
IDK WTF. I nuke all my brewing gear with industrial-grade Peracetic Acid. And still I have this mishap.

Interesting pattern. Associated with a specific FV or keg? I had an issue that I managed to trace back to a specific corny keg. I think it might have had an infection source lurking in the bottom seam that even survived iodophor. Gave it a good scrub with a stiff brush in hot PBW. Problem disappeared. One of the reasons I started switching over to slimline sankey kegs is they don't have seams inside.