True scary homebrew tales

[Chadwick]

I can't believe I'm sharing this with you. I should keep this stuff to myself. But I sincerely wanna believe I'm not the only one to experiece a horror story like this.

It wasn't immediately apparent. It took some time to discover the scope of it. And please bare with me. I'm not a nasty person at all. Crap just happens sometimes......here goes.

I brewed a beer a while back. About the same time this brew was fermenting the house got invaded by gnats. I killed gnats for weeks and they just kept coming. I cleaned and bleached the kitchen, the bathrooms, the sink. I could not understand how these damn gnats could keep on coming on. This went on for weeks. While this was happening my brew completed fermenting and was just sitting there conditioning. I was mega busy with work and while I wasn't killing gnats, I was working. To be honest, my beer wasn't the first priority.

Finally I found the source of gnats. My teenage daughter had apparently stored a sack of potatoes in the closet. By this time it was quite old and mostly out of sight in the furthest reaches of the closet. When I finally found it, it was a nasty mess of half decomposed gnat heaven. Once it was removed from the house, the gnats lost the war. Their numbers decreased and I felf that I won.

In the meantime, the primary of brew has been setting for a while (a few months) unattended and needed attention. I knew it had gone far beyond fermentation and was definitely ready to bottle. I noticed the air-lock was dryed out, but oh well.

I open up the fermenter and I see what looks like sheets of wax floating on the top. I figure this isn't good, but I take a sample taste anyways. It taste like apples. Smells like apples too. I tell myself, it'll be alright. I just need to add some extra yeast to the bottling bucket to ensure it carbonates.

So I bottle it with a tad of S-04 added to the bottling bucket to ensure carbonation. It carbonates, and it still smells like apples, and tastes like apples. Sour apples. It is a terrible beer. Seriously, the worst I've made in years. It's actually the worst tasting beer I've made in 10 years. The only beer I ever made this bad was made with 10 year old LME and 10 year old yeast to boot. And that beer wasn't as bad as this one.

I have this thing I do, I drink bad beer (so long as it isn't poison) as a lesson to myself. So I'm drinking one of these one evening a few nights ago and my daughter points out there is a gnat in it. I pull it out with my finger and think, ick that was nasty. Tonight I pour another one and after the first drink, and yuck face, I notice a gnat in it. WTH? I pull it out with my finger then start to take another drink and a thought occures to me.......oh no.

I pour out the beer (not like it was good anyways) and open another one and pour it in my glass. Dear Lord!!!! Two gnats are floating in this one!

I think I have found the source of infection now.

I hate pouring out beer. I hate thinking that I screwed up and now I have to give my beer to the sewer rats. But after this experience, I see no other choice. Besides, the beer sucked. I pour the first bottles into a large glass bowl to check for nasties. Sure enough, most of them have gnats floating in them after examining the contents.

OMG, this is the most disgusting experience I've ever had with home brewing. I didn't see any gnats when I bottled. But they must have been there already. Under the surface of the vat. Hiding to reveal their decomposing bodies until after I bottle conditioned their corpses. The horror.

If anyone has a horror story to top that, please, let share it with me. I need some encouragement about now.

 

[Beernik]

I cannot top your story's icky factor.

But I had my MLT manifold seperate during a mash. Imagine bare-hand reassembling a corner of a manifold by feel in a 150F mash. After that I bought a pair of dishwashing gloves just in case.

Now I have some silicone oven mitts that are awesome.

But I retired the manifold last year in favor of a bazooka screen.

 

[Cider123]

So I opened one of your Elesanore beers aey, and there was like a mouse floating in my beer aey. My brother, he puked aey. And he's a cop, and he said come see you and get some free beer aey.

Your beer story is pretty foul. Just to add another layer, it's not as much the gnats floating in the beer that turns my stomach. It's the thought that at one time there were thousands of little disgusting squirmy maggots wriggling all through your beer. Those maggots then developed into gnats which then produced even more vomitus little squirmy maggots swimming in your beer. At some point, many of those maggots died before they could develop into adult gnats. Those dead maggots then started to decompose and rot into a nasty little soup that mixed in your beer.
If nature was fair, this taste would have been immediately foul and unpalatable. But as if in some cruel sadistic way, nature decided to make this putrid soup taste like apples and somewhat palatable. Allowing you to consume a bunch of it before realizing what it was.

Time to take the car keys away from your teenage daughter. A penalty must be paid.

 

[Chadwick]

I cannot top your story's icky factor.

But I had my MLT manifold seperate during a mash. Imagine bare-hand reassembling a corner of a manifold by feel in a 150F mash. After that I bought a pair of dishwashing gloves just in case.

Now I have some silicone oven mitts that are awesome.

But I retired the manifold last year in favor of a bazooka screen.

Oh my. I can totally see me doing something like this too. Red faced, in tears, the burning pain searing through my body, and only one thought repeating in my head. "Save the beer! Must save the beer!!"

 

[passedpawn]

I liked this story.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/yellow-white-creepy-crawly-things-my-beer-130714/

 

[Black Island Brewer]

One brewing related, one not:

I was slanting some yeast, and after innoculating the vials, I set them out in a jar covered with foil. The caps of the vials are unscrewed a quarter turn for oxygen transfer. There's a little star san in the bottom of the jar. After a week, I sanitize my hands, tighten the vial caps, seal with tape, and put them in my yeast drawer in the beer fridge. At the time I sealed them I noticed some fruit flies had gotten under the foil and were dead in the star san. Didn't think much of it, but sure enough, I was putting more yeast away a couple months later and found maggots in the previous slants.

The non-brewing horror: Had a turkey fryer, and between uses, I would keep the peanut oil in the pot, stored in a cellar to keep the oil from going rancid. Went to fry a turkey for some friends, and as the oil was heating, I noticed as it got warmer, it had a sour smell. Not rancid, just "tart". I stuck my spoon into the oil, and stirred a bit to see of I could figure out what the smell was, and a but of grey fuzzy mold was stuck to my spoon. Now there was no mold on the oil when I started, so it made no sense, and then I noticed that even though there was nothing cooking, the oil, as it got hotter, started popping, as if it was cooking something. A closer examination, after probing with the spoon, turned up a dead rat, frying in the oil, grey fuzzy skin pealing off.

The oil, rat and pot all went straight into the garbage. We had pizza.

 

[soccerdad]

Hmm ... I'm thinking that gnat maggots taste like apples! This could generate some real savings on the purchase of apples, apple sauce, apple butter, apple juice ... could use the savings to buy more beer gear! Plus this gnat goo is likely all natural and organic .. could bottle it and sell it at Whole Foods - extra income !!!

My blunder today was to miscalculate the amount of 2 row I needed in a scaled recipe. I looked at the ultra thin mash and went back to 're-run the numbers. Easy fix though - had 3 more pounds cracked before the first 15 minutes were done .. now I'm looking for some gnats to invite to a ferment party. APPLE ALE!!

 

[JohnSand]

Probably fruit flies. And I doubt they bred in the beer, just died drinking it. I brewed an APA that foamed over while fermenting. I didn't clean it up well enough, and a trace of mold grew up the sides. When I opened it, there were castles of mold, mountains of mold atop the wort. That mold was an ecosystem, populated by fruit flies. Like a scene from Lord of The Rings in miniature.
You know I bottled it.

 

[Cider123]

"And I doubt they bred in the beer, just died drinking it"

and this is how I want to go too


BTW, if you want to see horror, check out the first post of this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/broken-glass-carboy-horror-stories-compendium-376523/

 

[Chadwick]

"And I doubt they bred in the beer, just died drinking it"

and this is how I want to go too


BTW, if you want to see horror, check out the first post of this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/broken-glass-carboy-horror-stories-compendium-376523/

Wow. No denying the horror of that. You know, I was considering getting some glass hardware. I just decided to get more plastic instead. Thanks for sharing that. The glass vs. plastic augument has just been settled 100% for me.

 

[Ivypunx]

Thats is disgusting. I have one horror story.

Mine happened to one of my very first beers. I used a wyeast smack pack for this one. I was brewing a extract black IPA with ingredients that I had purchased and had shipped to my home one week before I got back from Afghanistan. Everything seemed fine. The smack pack didnt expand as much as I had seen before but I still used it. On my first couple brews I used a bucket before I got my carboys. I cooled my wort and pitched it the yeast and closed the bucket. 1 day goes by, no bubbles in the air lock. Everything I had read yet told me not to panic, just be patient. 2 Days go by, say thing, still patient. Third day, nothing. I opened the buck and the wort had no fermentation at all. It was at 67 degrees the whole time. I pitched a new yeast and it took off in 5 hours. 2 weeks later I pop the top of the bucket to bottle and a horrible sour smell filled the apartment. At that point I knew it had a infection. Still, I primed it and bottled it. After a week a opened the first bottle just to check. From opening just one bottle the smell once again filled the whole apartment. I tried drinking it but it was the nastiest and most sour thing I had ever tasted. I kept about ten bottles just to remind myself how bad it had gotten. Everytime I poured one out it still surprised me how foul the beer was

 

[petey_c]

BlackIslandBrewer, That is a funny/gross story all at once.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

here's my horror story: people have actually asked for more of my beer. my beer. it's mine!

 

[amfukuda]

here's my horror story: people have actually asked for more of my beer. my beer. it's mine!

That's why you save the horrible beers to give to them so they stop asking

 

[Billy-Klubb]

That's why you save the horrible beers to give to them so they stop asking

but if I did that, then people would think I'm a bad brewer. rock & a hard place, I tell you what.

edit: I don't make bad beers, just mediocre ones. hahahhahaaha!!!

 

[Seven]

No horror stories yet. I intend to use some of the experiences here as a learning experience to (hopefully) prevent them from happening to me!

 

[edecambra]

I have maggots on my slants before but real horror is in glass if you aren't careful. I ended up in a hospital with some stitches in my foot. Healthy respect for glass ever since.

 

[texcan2000]

I drank a few homebrews one night and thought I saw a ghost. Very scary.

 

[ericinthewoods]

At the time I sealed them I noticed some fruit flies had gotten under the foil and were dead in the star san.

I don't know what it is, but fruit flies love star San. I used it to overcome an infestation that happened when we were outta town. I used raid on the trash can (I think they were drowning before the poison had a chance to work), but couldn't track down all the fliers. At the time I was preparing for a brew, and was really starting to worry that they'd find a way into a sanitized area. SinceI was cleaning equipment, I'd left a bucket of SS out without the lid, I couldn't clean anything because the flies kept dying. I'd keep fishing them out, and more would take their place. About half an hour went by wherein I took out about 60 of the buggers, before giving up on cleaning and just leaving the flies be to commit suicide. I left the top off, and it took two days for the remaining flies to find their way into that bucket. They died by the hundreds. No trace of them afterwards.

Also OP, I'm proud of you for drinking your mistakes too. I've saved one of my worst ones and every couple of weeks I drink it to remind myself of the importance of maintaining appropriate mash temps.