my biggest homebrewing $crew up to date.

[fluketamer]

my personal best brewday disaster happened yesterday.

after dough in i set the recirc pump going. i have a long silicon return from the pump that i lay in a circle on top of the grain bed. i thought i might change it up a little bit to see if efficiency improved by leaving most of the tube outside the tun and just putting the tip in to spray the water into the center of the bed.

i dont know the gph rating of my pump but i now know it is fast enough to pump all the liquid out of my AIO and onto the floor if the hose pops out of the kettle in the same amount of time it takes me to go from the garage to the house to get my phone charger and back again.

when i came out of the house literally less than 2 mins later i heard the very unfamiliar sound of liquid hitting the floor.

this was at minute 22 in the mash likely about 80 percent converted .

and it was all on the floor of my garage. thank god i didn't brew inside i still know what i would have done.

choice 1 was to put everything away and call it a day.
choice two was to guestimate what i lost which was anythign over the pump return (almost all the liquid) and add more grain and pray that the gravity would be in the ballpark.
choice 3 is what i chose which was to add 3 lbs of DME to what was esentially second runnings in a partygyle with the first gyle on the floor for the mice.

my wort came out to 1.050 which was 3 points over my intended. i have no idea what i gained from what was left in the tun after the drain out so it will be impossible to reproduce this but at least i still made beer.

there were a couple of other mess ups yesterday just to add to it but none as bad as the pump hose failure

live and learn

 

[shoengine]

I haven't lost wort that way (I have lost it on the floor through open valves). I have had filling hoses pop out of the tun and fixed that by using a little plastic clamp.

 

[Halfakneecap]

my personal best brewday disaster happened yesterday.

after dough in i set the recirc pump going. i have a long silicon return from the pump that i lay in a circle on top of the grain bed. i thought i might change it up a little bit to see if efficiency improved by leaving most of the tube outside the tun and just putting the tip in to spray the water into the center of the bed.

i dont know the gph rating of my pump but i now know it is fast enough to pump all the liquid out of my AIO and onto the floor if the hose pops out of the kettle in the same amount of time it takes me to go from the garage to the house to get my phone charger and back again.

when i came out of the house literally less than 2 mins later i heard the very unfamiliar sound of liquid hitting the floor.

this was at minute 22 in the mash likely about 80 percent converted .

and it was all on the floor of my garage. thank god i didn't brew inside i still know what i would have done.

choice 1 was to put everything away and call it a day.
choice two was to guestimate what i lost which was anythign over the pump return (almost all the liquid) and add more grain and pray that the gravity would be in the ballpark.
choice 3 is what i chose which was to add 3 lbs of DME to what was esentially second runnings in a partygyle with the first gyle on the floor for the mice.

my wort came out to 1.050 which was 3 points over my intended. i have no idea what i gained from what was left in the tun after the drain out so it will be impossible to reproduce this but at least i still made beer.

there were a couple of other mess ups yesterday just to add to it but none as bad as the pump hose failure

live and learn

It'll be the best beer ever!!! Mistakes keep you on your toes haha


I always use a clamp to secure the hose for that reason.

A few times i've mistakenly turned on the pump instead of the elements and shot wort everywhere but not much.

 

[Knightshade]

Think of it this way...you'll have some time while it is fermenting to think of a clever name for the beer to capture it for prosperity sake.

 

[mashdar]

I totally commiserate.

I put the spunding valve on the wrong keg post a couple months ago and woke up to a batch of beer on the basement floor. Thankfully it was unfinished concrete, and a 2.5gal test batch of "flash brew".

How did you clean up? Did you have to move a bunch of stuff?

 

[fluketamer]

yeah clip purchased already

I THINK IL

I totally commiserate.

I put the spunding valve on the wrong keg post a couple months ago and woke up to a batch of beer on the basement floor. Thankfully it was unfinished concrete, and a 2.5gal test batch of "flash brew".

How did you clean up? Did you have to move a bunch of stuff?

i cleaned as best i could. i hosed down the floor. thankfully theres a drain in the floor , but theres some wort thats wild fermenting right now under my tool chest that has no wheels and was too heavy to be moved. . it should start smelling nicely in there in a few days. and will likey start attracting friendlies. with the temps outside now its prolly gonna take a while before i can sample it....jk.

some also seeped out of the garage into the yard under some AstroTurf. my mom always taught me to save a little for jesus so that portion is either his or the devils share.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

You really have to control your ego. There are people here whose mistakes put yours to shame. Have some humility.

I made what is sort of a Belgian IPA this year, and I failed to secure all the keg connections. Something like a gallon and a half went into the bottom of the keezer. It went into a mop instead of my mouth.

I had so many infections back in '06 and '07, they were big factors in my decision to quit brewing.

Back in the old days, I didn't have a temperature display on my indoor keezer, and when it failed, I had no idea. The beer got hot, and when I opened the keezer one day, it was like a beer aquarium. The pressure had risen and blown it out.

Spilled wort is a nightmare, at least where I live. Huge roaches are indigenous here. Any spill they could get to would be an invitation to invasion. If I were in your shoes, I'd invest in some bug spray.

 

[Bobby_M]

Jeez, I think I have a few from this year to compete.

Heated up a little too much strike water so I took my recirc hose off the lid, dropped it into my sink and turned the pump on to drain like .75 gallons out. I carefully shut the pump off at the exact right measurement on the site glass, walked away, and then realized I forgot to shut the valve. It gravity drained down to 2.5 gallons and the element was sizzling and nearly self destructed. It's just water but that's RO and it would take another hour to collect enough.

Different batch, I was done with the mash and about to pull the grain bag out. I took the lid off and laid it down in the sink so I can get my bag onto the pulley. I again turned my pump off but didn't shut that valve. I dumped about 2 gallons of wort down the drain before I caught it.

Experimenting with fermenting in the 2 gallon Oxebar kegs required a gas QD attached to be the blowoff/airlock. Attached 3 of them correctly but the fourth fermenter got the blowoff hose attached to the liquid side and fermenation pushed it all onto the floor and pooled it under my stacked fridges.

That's just this year. Imagine what I've done since 2006.

 

[fluketamer]

Jeez, I think I have a few from this year to compete.

Heated up a little too much strike water so I took my recirc hose off the lid, dropped it into my sink and turned the pump on to drain like .75 gallons out. I carefully shut the pump off at the exact right measurement on the site glass, walked away, and then realized I forgot to shut the valve. It gravity drained down to 2.5 gallons and the element was sizzling and nearly self destructed. It's just water but that's RO and it would take another hour to collect enough.

Different batch, I was done with the mash and about to pull the grain bag out. I took the lid off and laid it down in the sink so I can get my bag onto the pulley. I again turned my pump off but didn't shut that valve. I dumped about 2 gallons of wort down the drain before I caught it.

Experimenting with fermenting in the 2 gallon Oxebar kegs required a gas QD attached to be the blowoff/airlock. Attached 3 of them correctly but the fourth fermenter got the blowoff hose attached to the liquid side and fermenation pushed it all onto the floor and pooled it under my stacked fridges.

That's just this year. Imagine what I've done since 2006.

i was going to say you prolly brew a lot more than the rest of us so statistically you should have more stories. lol

 

[Tony B]

Shouldn’t this post be in the extract forum?
Great job of making lemonade from the lemons.
I hope the batch turns out surprisingly delicious.

 

[day_trippr]

It would reside comfortably in the epic Don't Do That thread, but it's all good here...

Cheers!

 

[tracer bullet]

That's even better than me filling a boil kettle from a mashtun, and realizing by the sound a minute later that the boil kettle's valve is open.

 

[Knightshade]

So....I feel like I could have lost an eye last night. I was in the cleanup phase of a brew day late yesterday evening, definitely over it because it was freekin dark outside and cold and blech...my wife comes out to the garage and says dinner is ready, sees that I'm cleaning the Foundry and says that they can wait if I'm almost done. I say maybe..15 minutes.

So..I start rushing, almost done. Only thing left is a bucket which I've dumped the Riptide pump head and hoses into. Figure I can do that after dinner, no big deal. Go inside...one kid in the bathroom, other is pressing out more cookies and I go...well, I'm not completely done so I can come back in 5 or so if you're not ready just yet? Get the nod, yep I'm doing that.

So my garage kitchen sink has a cam lock fitting on it. The pump head still has both hoses attached, some PBW residue from the Foundry cleaning cycle so I run hot water through one end (the inlet) for a bit, detach the pump head side and keep that short hose connected to the sink. I'm now still running hot water through it to rinse off the various other parts, to include the metal bucket.

Yeah..I'm rushing because I said 5 minutes.

I turn off the water, connect the outlet hose to the sink cam lock. That hose is still connected to the pump, because I want to run hot water through that side as well, so I turn on the water full blast and I see the hose start to balloon, think OH S*, look down, realize the valve is closed and start to reach down to open it and I hear a loud pop, a slight bang, very hot water splash my entire torso and a small metal on metal sound to my immediate left. These cam lock fittings have very large key rings, from which cotter pins hang. I've always left them attached, one on each side because although I don't use them very often, I don't know where else I would put them where they wouldn't get lost. Like this.

Somehow, the cotter pin from one of those sides came off the key ring, and I'm assuming banged off the cabinets which hang above the garage sink and landed on the chest freezer to my left within arm's reach. As I turned off the now blasting water, take notice of the burst hose I think "Geez...do I need to start wearing safety glasses to freekin wash stuff now or brew or?"

No, just slow the F down ya idgit.