Stupid things that happen to everyone at some point

[NickTheGreat]

I recently did my first batch in over ten years. Somehow the hot break completely slipped my mind. I have never seen a boilover rise so quickly. I bottled my slighty less bitter Irish Red last weekend.

I also had forgotten how important it is to wipe up malt and hops from a boilover while still wet. I think my arm is still tired from scrubbing.

Eek. That's no doubt. i've considered using dried wort for a coating for my basement floor. That crap wouldn't ever come off :fro:

 

[JimRausch]

Here's an entry from the bottling crowd:
I use the dishwasher method to sanitize my bottles. Usually I set it on 'delayed start' before going off to work, and when I get home the bottles are ready. Except for my latest Irish Red batch. For some reason, the timer never started. I bottled the entire batch except for 12 bottles, before noticing.
They've been in the bottles for 4 weeks now, no signs of infection, and they taste great. I think I dodged that bullet.

 

[cernst151]

Of course I've left the bottling bucket open once like almost everyone. My saddest careless mistake was recent though. I was over ambitious and my wife and I bottled 4 batches in one night. Since we knew it was going to be a long night we decided not to sanitize the bottling equipment between batches since none of them looked like they had any infection. We bottled an IPA, Red, Stout & a parti-gyle in that order.

We couldn't figure out why we started having bottle bombs in the stout and parti-gyle and I eventually poured out the remainders of those batches when a flip top bottle blew to bits. It was another user on Homebrewtalk that figured it out. The IPA & Red used a highly attenuative yeast while the others used a low attenuative yeast. We infected those 2 with the more aggressive yeast which quickly went to work on all those leftover sugars and ... boom! Very sad.

 

[TAK]

I had a boss once tell me that if you aren't making some mistakes it's because you aren't doing anything. Just try to keep the mistakes minimum and inexpensive.

This is a great quote.

I've...
- Drained my hot liquor into the mash tun with the valve open.
- Drained wort into my kettle with the valve open.
- Racked wort into a carboy with at 1/3 gal of StarSan still in it.
- Left my O2 tank open and drained it. Apparently flow regulators don't really hold at zero. I wonder if the household was super alert that day, with the extra O2 in the air?
- Hooked up a tap line with the faucet open.
- Dumped cold water all over my feet in the middle of the winter while cleaning my mash tun (probably x2 or x3, I never learn.)
- Almost dropped a carboy while sloshing StarSan around in it. Seriously, it was up in the air, bounced in and out if my hands a couple times before I got a grasp on it. Holy exploitive that's scary. Juggling chainsaws is one thing, but I'd like to see someone juggle 6.5 gal carboys.

 

[feinbera]

I also had forgotten how important it is to wipe up malt and hops from a boilover while still wet. I think my arm is still tired from scrubbing.

This! Took me until my fifth batch with my wort chiller to realize that it really pays off to at least rinse the dang thing down immediately after I'm done chilling, instead of just letting the hops goo drip-dry until I'm ready to clean everything else up, often not until the next morning...

My favorite was putting the stopper into the fermentor before I put the airlock through the stopper – although I did learn that "dry stoppering" in the primary contributes very little flavor to the finished beer, so, I got that going for me.

 

[mdbrewer1]

This! Took me until my fifth batch with my wort chiller to realize that it really pays off to at least rinse the dang thing down immediately after I'm done chilling, instead of just letting the hops goo drip-dry until I'm ready to clean everything else up, often not until the next morning...

My favorite was putting the stopper into the fermentor before I put the airlock through the stopper – although I did learn that "dry stoppering" in the primary contributes very little flavor to the finished beer, so, I got that going for me.

If you're using an IC and have a spare 5 gallon bucket, fill the 5 gallon bucket with hot water from the output of the IC (if you're not recirculating) and just plop the IC in there when you're done. You could also put some PBW (or the cleaner of your choice) in that 5 gallon bucket and have a headstart on cleanup.

 

[PaintedRat]

My stupid top 3
1. Trying to rinse my autosiphon in recently boiled water.
2. Doing two different starters at the same time and not labeling them.
3. Cooking a bochet during orange blossom season.

Bonus stupid: Failing to make kitchen reservations with SWMBO.

 

[CJ1]

I melted my auto-siphon with boiling water.

Had a party tap fall down in the kegerator and land with just the tiniest leak. That wasn't fun to come home to.

 

[normonster]

I bottled up some beer with bottles I'd cleaned earlier in the month after having only dipped them in sanitizer before filling. A few weeks later I discovered that several spiders had taken residence in a good handful of the bottles and were now dry hopped in my bottled beer......made them harder to drink but didn't affect flavor I don't think...lol

 

[jbaysurfer]

I've done this with a different item (I actually have forgotten now, it was 2-3 years ago) and it was pre-pitch. The beer still turned out great.

Other dumb stuff I've done: Pitching my stir bar into a carboy. Finding it afterwards is a mess. Super strong "getter" magnets are the answer to this particular gaffe.

Trying filtering once without flushing the filter with CO2. I oxidized the whole batch.

Not checking that my corny posts were tight after racking and pressurizing my first batch of sour beer ever. I proceeded to lose half the keg that night into the floor of my kegerator.

Pitching yeast into 100F wort because I figured my new plate chiller had cooled it enough and didn't take the temp until it was too late.

Assuming that I could make a double IPA the first time I tried to whirlpool and get a "cone" of trub and hop debris and I wouldn't clog my pump up all to hell.

Using my pre measured Janet's Brown Ale grain bill to make what I thought was an imperial porter and wondering why I came up 16 pts low on OG.

Not watching my toddler while I was brewing for just long enough for her to pooh in the trainer toilet and smear it all over the bathroom walls.

There's more, but that's enough rehashing for me for the moment.

 

[pfgonzo]

...
- Left my O2 tank open and drained it. Apparently flow regulators don't really hold at zero. I wonder if the household was super alert that day, with the extra O2 in the air?

Yup, I learned this one the hard way too. I use the red disposable O2 tanks, and the reverse thread twisty regulator you get at home brew shops doesn't really seal in the "off" position. After adding oxygen to my first batch, I left the regulator attached and the tank was completely empty the next time I brewed. Now I disconnect the regulator as soon as I'm done using it.

 

[Hopper5000]

^^ My regulator on those disposable red tanks seals fine, maybe you have a faulty one?

 

[TAK]

I use a regulator like this on a commercial O2 tank.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002J7FLTW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I don't think it's faulty, just doesn't hold the pressure of a commercial tank all the way down to a rate of "0."

 

[dkeller12]

Dropped a dirty, smelly kitchen sponge directly into my first runnings. I know all that stuff gets boiled, but the sponge was gross and I really didn't want it in my beer.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[pfgonzo]

^^ My regulator on those disposable red tanks seals fine, maybe you have a faulty one?

If yours doesn't empty the tank after being attached for 2 weeks, then mine is probably faulty. It just screws off though, and I've gotten into the routine of removing it each time I use it, so I'm not in too much of a hurry to replace it.

 

[Hopper5000]

Nope mine doesn't do this. Probably a better idea to detach it though...

 

[jeremybwilson]

Decided it would be a good idea to use the hydrometer testing jar to position and push together the lower two segments of my beer thief, whilst my hydrometer was still in side the jar. And broken glass everywhere...

 

[watermelon83]

If you're using an IC and have a spare 5 gallon bucket, fill the 5 gallon bucket with hot water from the output of the IC (if you're not recirculating) and just plop the IC in there when you're done. You could also put some PBW (or the cleaner of your choice) in that 5 gallon bucket and have a headstart on cleanup.

Ya know it never ceases to amaze me how simple an incredible idea can be! Thanks for this!

 

[mdbrewer1]

Ya know it never ceases to amaze me how simple an incredible idea can be! Thanks for this!

I'm quite happy to contribute. I've learned so many great ideas here, it feels good to be able to share something I've learned.