Share your mistakes please!

[Mischief_Brewing]

So I now have a larger stainless pot, a banjo burner, a grain mill, kegs, a 3 tier stand and a converted cooler as my MLT, 5 lbs of hops, 100 lbs of base grain, 30 lbs of specialty grains, various other gadgets for brewing and a very lovely and understanding wife.

Holy Visa bill Batman!!!

 

[freudhawk]

One day while distracted by my wife and cute little 14 month-old girl, I forgot to close the ball valve on my MT before I put in the second batch of sparge water. So, a bunch of grain particles and crap ran into my brew pot!

 

[bovineblitz]

One day while distracted by my wife and cute little 14 month-old girl, I forgot to close the ball valve on my MT before I put in the second batch of sparge water. So, a bunch of grain particles and crap ran into my brew pot!

I did that recently on a sparge. I poured the wort back into the mash tun for what was essentially a ridiculous sparge. Instead of my normal 80% efficiency I got 68% which was fine because I was worried the beer would have too high an ABV anyways.

 

[Randar]

One day while distracted by my wife and cute little 14 month-old girl, I forgot to close the ball valve on my MT before I put in the second batch of sparge water. So, a bunch of grain particles and crap ran into my brew pot!

That reminds me of another goof. Siphoning to bottling bucket when the valve was open. I have done this twice. I lost 2+ gallons the first time and maybe a quart the second time.

 

[oceanselv]

Holy Visa bill Batman!!!

LOL. I got lucky and got the kegs, regulator, CO2 cannister and fridge all for nothing. Everything else I have paid cash for.

 

[Mikethepoolguy]

JetSmooth: "do you have a standard format you use?"

I do, I call it a yellow spiral notebook.

My vote is for drinking and brewing. So very hard to avoid, but if you really want to improve, keep them apart.

 

[The_Beer_Gnome]

JetSmooth: "do you have a standard format you use?"

I do, I call it a yellow spiral notebook.

My vote is for drinking and brewing. So very hard to avoid, but if you really want to improve, keep them apart.

I use Randy Mosher's worksheet found in 'Radical Brewing', I just keep them in a 3-ring binder. Way easy and sytematic.

Link to PDF: http://www.radicalbrewing.com/rbws1.pdf

 

[Gfei]

I got married.

She likes BL Lime.

So did mine, now she can't drink the stuff and at least tries different beers. Don't lose hope.

 

[cino101]

Make sure to tighten your shanks around your keezer. Had been running kegs from my keezer for a good 6months when a friend gifted me some commercial beer taps. I installed said beer taps and the weight of them turned the faucet upside down and opened it sometime during the night. I came into my garage in the morning to find everything within a 6 foot radius (including my car) coated in 5gal of beer not to mention a waste of a completely filled C02 canister.

 

[ajf]

If you like ales and have a temperature controlled fermentation environment, then never tell your Coors loving SWMBO that Coors is not good.
I made this mistake, and she said "prove it". So I proved it by making a Bohemian Lager, and for the first time in our marriage, she totally agreed with me.
I've now lost the use of by temperature controlled fermentation environment for 9 months per year. What really hurts is that that environment was my Christmas present from her.

-a.

 

[grathan]

I used a drill that was too powerful for my barley crusher 2 batches in a row now. watching the full hopper get tossed around off from the bucket and seeing that half my grains lying on the floor.

 

[nebben]

I use a glass lab thermometer to verify that my mash temp is correct.

On my first AG batch, I kept reading it on the Celsius side. Uh oh ... What happened was that although I thought I was mashing at 152F, it really was 52C, which equates to about 125F'ish or so.

I boiled up some water as fast as I could (in a hurry who does anything exactly right anyway), and poured in an unmeasured amount to hopefully raise up the temperature. I ended up overshooting the correct temp. Surprise! Ice was introduced to counteract the new boiled water. From dough-in to the last drops of wort being drained out was probably in the neighborhood of 3 hours.

I don't recall how thin the 2nd and 3rd water additions made the mash, but it was thiiiiiinnn. I was appalled at my misjudgment, and resulting thin mash at who-knows-what temperature. I feared the worst, but it is funny how intimidating 10lbs+ of grain is when it is sitting in scalding hot water. I pressed on and followed through with the boil. Not surprisingly, my OG was much lower than anticipated, and I got somewhere between 50-60% efficiency. Some DME was added to bump it up to the desired starting OG, and away it went.

In my history, batch #4 was one of my best tasting ones, and overall crowd pleaser's. Mistakes can be delicious!

 

[petep1980]

Going cheap and trying to jerry rig an AG set up.

I have done a house screen repair kit around a cookie sheet in a cooler as a false bottom. Killer 52% efficiency!!!! Oh and giant husks passing through it.

 

[passedpawn]

My very first batch, I couldn't figure out how to maintain a mash temp. I didn't know anything about insulated coolers, and it did not occur to me to use one. So I just kept screwing with the propane burner to maintain 155. Of course, i went back and forth between OFF and boil. It was a disaster. If only this forum existed back then.

 

[ekranzusch]

OHHHH let's see...

1) brewing in sandals might seem cool, but it's a lot less cool when you burn the crap out of your foot.
2) insulated gloves are good for a similar reason to number 1.
3) make sure your valves are closed. Nothing like doughing in and spraying yourself with some nice hot brewing liqour.
4) take notes. Seriously. I've brewed like 3 batches of my an IPA trying to figure out what hop substitution I made the first time I brewed it but was too lazy to write it down.
5) make sure you have a spare propane tank on hand. 15 minutes into the boil + out of gas = not cool!
6) blow off tube ftw. my first wheat beer taught me that one.
7) use 2 thermometers to check temp when mashing. one might be in a hot or cold spot, or totally suck and make you think you missed a temperature when you actually are fine.

Ok that's all I got for now.

 

[allhandl]

Funny thread.

I just has a Brew Hell Day last week while dealing with the kids at same time.

- Pulled the Hose off the valve... without closing it. Burned hand
- Two Boil overs in BK. Garage was a skating rink now its a massive [insert creature] trap.
- Tried to sterilize my HLT by boiling a gallon of water with lid on. Forgot about poor old sight glass that starts at 3 gallons. It now goes up 6 inches and out 6 inches.

 

[grathan]

went to smack a smack pack of wyeast tonight and watched liquid blast out the side of the pack.

 

[passedpawn]

went to smack a smack pack of wyeast tonight and watched liquid blast out the side of the pack.

Wow, they've integrated the auto-pitch feature. Gotta aim.

 

[grathan]

yesterday I must not have had the bottling bucket all the way onto the workbench, or perhaps I just yanked a little to hard on the tube, what a mess that made...