The bonehead thing I did... How about you??

[jbb3]

All revved up to fill my my first keg!

My keezer build is not finished so I had to rig up individual gas & beer lines to run sanitizer through the dip tube/out port. After getting the keg sanitized, I pulled the fermenter out of the chamber, filled the keg and put it on about 13 psi of CO2 and stuck it in my beer frig until I can complete the keezer. WOO HOO! My first keg!!!



I had fermented a 6.5 gal batch of KingBrian1's Caramel Amber Ale so I had about 1.5 gal still in the fermenter that I planned to bottle. So I pulled out the bottling stuff and bottled (15) 12 oz bottles out of the left overs. Cool!

Got everything cleaned up. Sat down in front of the boob tube to watch a movie and drink a beer or three. My wife said she was tired and was going to bed. Then she asked the question that would shatter my night. "What are you going to do with that sugar stuff you told me not to knock over?" ............. At first I sat in stunned silence... Then I started cussing like a sailor. Yep, I forgot to mix in the priming sugar. Man, it was such a good day up to that point. :smack:

Spent the rest of the night pulling the bottling stuff back out, opening each bottle and trying to pour it gently down the side of the bottling bucket. Then, MIXED IN THE PRIMING SUGAR and re-bottled the 1.5 gal batch.

Thought you would enjoy a good laugh.

Cheers!

 

[Ski12568]

I don't use a false bottom in my mash tun, instead I choose to use my BIABag. But after heating my strike water to temp, I dough in before I but the bag in the mash tun... I had to pour the water and the little amount of grains I had in there into my pot, place the bag in the mash tun, and pour the water/grains back in. Just needed to boil a little water to get to 152 after all the grains were mixed. I've done this twice...

 

[andrewmaixner]

I keep a bag of carb tabs (sugar tablets) on hand just in case I ever do this. Then you just need to drop a couple into each bottle and re-cap.

My "stupid stuff' has included:
-touching a kettle valve without realizing it was hot (Now I have oven mitts on my burner stand)
-mashing with a mis-calibrated thermometer (turned out ok, just high unfermentable FG)
-not using a blow-off on a high OG batch pitched onto a yeast cake (1+ hour of cleanup)

 

[somerandomguy]

Put my wort chiller in with 15 min left in the boil this weekend. Turned my head and looked back and my propane burner had melted the outlet line right in half. Melted plastic all over the edge of the burner. Was an easy fix but still a stupid mistake.

 

[Teromous]

When I'm not using a hop spider I will tie twine to my hop bags and tie it to the kettle so I can pull them out whenever I want. It works pretty good...except for when the twine catches on fire and the bag falls in completely. That has happened twice. I've done other dumb things like leaving valves open and spilling wort all over the cement, forgetting hop additions, forgetting sugar additions, forgetting to take gravity readings...etc.

I will say that having screw-ups has made me a little more prepared than I used to be.

 

[muels]

Shot hot wort at my junk yesterday. Forgot to shut the BK valve before I pulled the cam lock off. It was about 210, I was getting ready to run through the plate chiller. Had loose jeans on so nothing horrible happened.


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[jrgtr42]

Mashing in, then looking over and realizing my manifold is on the counter over there...

 

[grathan]

Hop stand/whirlpool for a half hour with burner left on.

 

[BreezyBrew]

The last time I brewed: Dropped almost 1 oz of whirlpool hops on the floor. Bought filtered water instead of Reverse Osmosis. Opened a valve on my chiller to transfer the wort into the carboy. Forgot to close the valve from the kettle... oops lost about a gallon. Luckily for me, I was able to adjust my water chem (somewhat) for the filtered water, I had plenty of whirlpool hops so I don't know how much that will make a difference, and I always boil plenty of wort so I still got the carboy filled with about 5.25 gallons of sweet delicious wort!

 

[DizzyPants]

Brewed 20 gallons during a double batch day. Drinking the whole time (allegedly). Got everything cleaned up and in the fermenters. Watching TV and my Wife asked "What's this stuff left on the counter?"

Oh ya, that would be all the yeast I never put in. Everything turned out fine.

 

[edroberts]

Assembled a 3-tier setup in my garage. Had water ready, grain conditioned and milled, then opened the garage door so I could fire up the burner. Top tier was too high and it got hit by the door. This knocked over the the pot spilling my water, doused the grain, and busted the gas intake for the burner. I now had 14 pounds of milled grain sitting in water with no way to boil.

 

[mikeymjr23]

Thank you for the laughs guys! Makes me a little less worried about mistakes now though!

I'm only on my 2nd batch, so I'm still reading instructions word for word and freaking out over the littlest of things, so I haven't done anything (that I know of) major yet. I am certain that in 10-15 batches, I'll do something stupid!

I did forget to activate my wyeast 3 weeks ago until I was already starting to steep the grains (I'm extract thus far). Fortunately, I was able to activate it and wait a bit to pitch them.

 

[mackay85]

Did a batch on morning of Super Bowl (stupid Pats). Live in Canada and it was -10 to -15 during boil. When it came time to cool, I had built a snow bank to put my kettle in while running cold water through my wort chiller (through basement window). It was going for half an hour and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't dropping to 20 Celsius. Oops...was looking at Fahrenheit...on two different thermometers. yeah, chilled it to 5 Celsius.

 

[troy2000]

My latest (but far from greatest) screw-up: I forgot to add the rolled oats when I mashed in. Half an hour later I remembered. So I popped the lid to my cooler, poured them in, added a little hot water, stirred vigorously, and did a ninety minute mash.

When I opened my valve, I got about a teaspoon of wort. Turns out I had stirred a little too vigorously, and knocked the little piece of tubing loose between the valve and my false bottom. Had to dump everything into a bucket, clear the valve, and reattach the tubing.

And of course, after I got done cussing I said "eff it, it's pre-boil."

 

[edroberts]

When I opened my valve, I got about a teaspoon of wort. Turns out I had stirred a little too vigorously, and knocked the little piece of tubing loose between the valve and my false bottom. Had to dump everything into a bucket, clear the valve, and reattach the tubing.

And of course, after I got done cussing I said "eff it, it's pre-boil."

Been there, done that. I've knocked apart my manifold a few times when stirring. THEN I have had the bright idea of trying to reassemble it by sticking my hand in 150 degree mash. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

 

[troy2000]

Been there, done that. I've knocked apart my manifold a few times when stirring, then have had the bright idea of trying to reassemble it by sticking my hand in 150 degree mash. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

OK, you're ahead of me. At least I didn't try to reassemble it through the mash... not because I'm so smart, but because I'm so dumb I couldn't figure out what was going on until I dumped the mash and had a look-see.

 

[dcrog]

While getting ready to siphon beer into bottling bucket I look down and see water, or something similar, in the bucket so I dump it out. Only to realize moments later it was the priming sugar I had boiled and put into the bottling bucket.

I'm glad I usually keg these days.

 

[bbohanon]

Been there, done that. I've knocked apart my manifold a few times when stirring. THEN I have had the bright idea of trying to reassemble it by sticking my hand in 150 degree mash. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

I have done this one as well..My thought when I jammed my hand into the mash was "Its not THAT hot.." lol

Also:
- Started to pour strike water in my cooler MT with the valve open. The valve was sitting right about "My Junk" level as I was pouring the water in. That one hurt.
- Forgot to pitch yeast until day 2..I was wondering why there was no fermentation going on.
- Left the beer chilling while I ran inside to pee. Came out to see the dog lapping up the chilled wort right from the pot. Still fermented it and it came out great. Called that one "Dog Slobber Saison"
- Had multiple bugs hit the beer during brewing session. They fermented out great..This is what made me move indoors to e-brewing..No bugs inside.
- Broke a floating thermo in the wort and thought I might get sick or someting from the little black balls that ended up in the wort..Fermented it and it came out ok as well..

With beer brewing, sh*t happens..just roll with it and the beer will either turn out ok..or it wont.

 

[grathan]

Got a carbed up keg from storage this week and hooked my co2 setup to Out instead of In.