What are some of the mistakes you made...where your beer still turned out great!

[Mysticmead]

Probably fine. The yeast is healthy.

Was it a diluted solution of Star San?

yeah it was a diluted starsan... it'll most likely be fine.. been brewing since 1999 and this was the first time I left sanitizer in the carboy. have done lots of other things including sticking my arm into the primary bucket and inserting the drilled stopper into a carboy to far and watching it drop into the wort. one thing I learned a long time ago that really helped me not freak out on these little things is.. relax.. people have been doing this for thousands of years.. in the end we're just making beer.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

yeah it was a diluted starsan... it'll most likely be fine.. been brewing since 1999 and this was the first time I left sanitizer in the carboy. have done lots of other things including sticking my arm into the primary bucket and inserting the drilled stopper into a carboy to far and watching it drop into the wort. one thing I learned a long time ago that really helped me not freak out on these little things is.. relax.. people have been doing this for thousands of years.. in the end we're just making beer.

fwiw, #7 drilled stopper can't be pushed in that far, but still fits. So, you want #6.5 solid, #7 drilled.

 

[Mysticmead]

fwiw, #7 drilled stopper can't be pushed in that far, but still fits. So, you want #6.5 solid, #7 drilled.

I use the small bung now... it can't go all the way in either.

 

[TheMan]

I'm not sure what happened, I made a 10 gallon batch of blonde last November. Split it in two fermenters and used different yeasts. One of them must have gotten some wild yeast cause it developed a funky little tang. I let it sit for 6 months and it's turned into a very nice sour ale. I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[LabRatBrewer]

I decided to try to make a really big beer. I calculated that the max amount of grain I could use with my system (BIAG) was 30 lbs of grain. I failed to calculate how heavy 30 pounds of wet grain are. I had no brew partner, so I struggled tying the bag to my pulley system. I finally got the grain up on the hook after the mash out. I walked away and heard a splash. My knot failed and about a 60 lb (wet weight guess) bag of wet grain fell back into the kettle splashing wort everywhere. It could be worse, I could have been standing next to it and been cover by hot (170 f) wort, which while better than boiling liquid would probably still have felt less than nice.

I have a lot of hops (thank you nikobrew), so I figured why not shoot of that mythical 100 IBU. I had 11.5 ounces of various pellet hops in the wort by the end of the session. Also, I had just picked and dried 1 oz of my casades growing out back, so threw them in also. Should have consider the fact that they would suck up some liquid. I cooled it down (used a aquarium pump in ice water for the drop below 100 f- at least that worked well). When it was cool, I went to transfer to the fermenter. I opened the value and a few ounces poured out before the hop screen clogged. So I decided to siphon to the fermenter. I sucked up a ton of trub. My recipe was supposed to yield 6 gallons, I got maybe 4.5 and will likely get 3.5 max as the bottom of the fermenter is already a solid floor of hop material. I also missed my gravity by quite a bit, but ended up at 1.090. The color is good.

Sadly, it will probably pretty good, and I'll never be able to repeat it as the 60 lb grain bag cannon ball drop into the kettle is something I hope to avoid going forward.

 

[frozengash]

I use the small bung now... it can't go all the way in either.

That's what she said?

 

[KBrew75]

when sealing the airlock to the lid using vaseline I put in the bathroom. my pregnant wife looked at it and asked why I was using it. I told her why and she said and I quote "but thats been up my bum". Turns out she used it to grease her hemorrhoids!!!!! Gaaaad sake!. A common pregnancy problem I'm told. She assured me she didn't double dip and i only smeared it round the outside of the airlock seal so none actually was in contact with the beer. I got some sterilizing gel and cleaned it all out and bought a new bottle with a label saying "NOT FOR YOUR GRAPES!!".
Disgusting woman! .....I bet this brews sounding pretty appetizing now eh!.
Oh it seems fine though although I'll negate this story when friends pop round for a taste :cross:

It's funny you mention this. I was trying to place the airlock in the seal and I was afraid I was going to break it. Vaseline was on the list of things to try until I thought of all the things it's been used for. Then I remembered I has some silicon plumbers grease.

 

[Meatyboy]

My first brewing session I was using dry yeast. Instructions on the pack boil 1 cup of water then cool down to 33-36 degrees. Little did I know (or see) the lil c next to the temp range. So I boil my water and then toss it in the freezer. When ice started forming on the edges I popped it out and pitched my yeast in. Then it dawned on me that maybe they meant 80-90 degrees, grabbed the package and yep, lil c next to the temp range. It was like flight of the bumble bees in my kitchen while I hastily tried warming up my poor lil frozen yeast buddies. Managed to get it up to temp in about 10 minutes and the brew turned out great and was fully fermented in about 4 days.

Tl;dr: Froze my yeasts' balls off, made great beer.

 

[ahefner33]

,mine https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/overactive-fermentation-322077/

pics 2nd page

 

[mikeysab]

Froze my yeasts' balls off, made great beer.

Mind if I use that for my sig?

 

[Meatyboy]

Mind if I use that for my sig?

Knock yourself out.

 

[mikeysab]

Thanks, hows it look?

 

[Meatyboy]

Thanks, hows it look?

Couldn't tell ya, I'm on my phone right now and the HBT app doesn't show sigs, but I'm sure it's quite lovely.

 

[iamtheq]

It's 100 degrees out and my AC can't keep up. The house is around 85 degrees. My first brew ever is in the primary which is in a bucket of water that I managed to get down to 60 degrees. Thanks to this thread, I can sleep now.

 

[iamtheq]

Couldn't tell ya, I'm on my phone right now and the HBT app doesn't show sigs, but I'm sure it's quite lovely.

It can show sigs. You have to go to more >> settings >> forum reading options. At least, it works on the iPhone.

 

[Meatyboy]

It can show sigs. You have to go to more >> settings >> forum reading options. At least, it works on the iPhone.

AT&T screwed me out of my unlimited internet and I'm a truck driver. Anything to save on bandwidth I do just so I don't hit my cap at the end of the month. Thanks for the heads up, but I doubt I'll change my settings.

 

[snaps10]

I was checking gravities on 6 different beers I had going at once and forgot to put the lid back on one of the buckets. I discovered it two days later. Beer turned out delicious.

Fermented way too hot. Fermented way too long. Dry hopped for way too long. Pitched way too hot. Pitched too cold. Frozen jars of yeast. Ran out of propane in the middle of the boils too many times. Accidently doubled the amount of liquid extract. Son put unknown amounts of unknown grains in the boil.

Pretty much, if it could be done wrong, I've probably done it. The only beer that I could say I ruined (without infection) was a Pale Ale that I dry hopped. I bought a pack of stainless nuts from Lowes and put them in the hop bag and tossed it in. Turned out they were stainless coated or some non-sense like that. The metallic taste was so overwhelming. I'm on my last bottle now and it's been a labor of love to finish that beer.

 

[bleme]

I bought a pack of stainless nuts from Lowes and put them in the hop bag and tossed it in. Turned out they were stainless coated or some non-sense like that. The metallic taste was so overwhelming. I'm on my last bottle now and it's been a labor of love to finish that beer.

We need a "Dump No Beer" club!

 

[snaps10]

If I ever question my brews, I always age them a month or two. 90% of the time that takes away any doubts.

 

[Meatyboy]

Well, great... I just brewed a London Porter tonight and totally forgot to check my OG before I pitched my yeast. Best guess is I got around 1.052, at least that's what the hydrometer told me when I remembered I didn't check...

 

[emjay]

Well, great... I just brewed a London Porter tonight and totally forgot to check my OG before I pitched my yeast. Best guess is I got around 1.052, at least that's what the hydrometer told me when I remember I didn't check...

I doubt it attenuated to any noticeable degree by then. Almost definitely within the margin of error you get from reading a hydrometer, anyways.

 

[Meatyboy]

I doubt it attenuated to any noticeable degree by then. Almost definitely within the margin of error you get from reading a hydrometer, anyways.

I'm not too worried about it. I've done worse things to my beer and turned out okay. A forgotten Hydrometer reading is just a drop in the bucket.

 

[MrVix]

I bagged my hops into the hop sacks and lined them up on the counter according to the hop schedule. Then I mistakenly added them to the wort in reverse order, finishing with the bittering hops. The brew actually didn't taste that bad.

 

[tuirc]

I got a new 10 g brew pot with a value on the front. While it passed its initial seal test, it failed hot with a Scotch Ale boiling. The valve started leaking like a sieve. I put a wrench in a plastic bag and tightened the inside nut enough to slow the leak and finish the boil. But when I pulled the bag out, it had ruptured. So I was brewing Essence of adjustable wrench. Despite the unintended flavoring, the ale turned out great. Definitely one of my best so far.

 

[CidCitrus]

I'm not too worried about it. I've done worse things to my beer and turned out okay. A forgotten Hydrometer reading is just a drop in the bucket.

i forget OG hydro readings all the time. usually by the time i need to take one i'm tired and buzzed, with a ton of cleaning left to do. so far i haven't made any huge mistakes with efficiency or boil-off.

 

[FutureJack]

What a cool thread.



A few screw-ups in my young brewing career thus far...

My first batch - I was brewing with an experienced homebrewer friend all day. But he had to leave before my wort was finished cooling. I "feared the foam" that was hanging around my carboy, so I rinsed it out with tap water. Beer was fine.

Second batch - I bottled half the 5-gallon batch of my Foreign Extra Stout when I realized I had forgotten to add priming sugar. I opened all the capped bottles and dumped them back into the bottling bucket. Won second place in a local homebrew contest with that beer.

Third batch - Correctly added the malt bill recipe and first addition hops for a 5-gallon IPA batch, but mistakenly looked at the 10-gallon recipe for the late addition hops and ended up doubling the hops in the recipe. That beer turned out heavenly. Would brew it the same way if I did it again!

 

[BrewinHooligan]

When I first made a dip tube for my bottling bucket per Revvy's bottling thread, there must have been air in the system that wouldn't allow the beer from the bottling bucket to enter the bottling wand. In a panic I reached my unsanitized hand into the bucket to remove the dip tube. The beer turned out just fine.

This last batch I found a dog hair in my cooled wort prior to pitching my yeast. The yeast was sluggish taking off, but two weeks later things are great and my gravity sample tastes tell me this will be my best one yet.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

This last batch I found a dog hair in my cooled wort prior to pitching my yeast. The yeast was sluggish taking off, but two weeks later things are great and my gravity sample tastes tell me this will be my best one yet.

Well, a little hair of the dog never hurt anybody, right?

Second batch - I bottled half the 5-gallon batch of my Foreign Extra Stout when I realized I had forgotten to add priming sugar. I opened all the capped bottles and dumped them back into the bottling bucket. Won second place in a local homebrew contest with that beer.

Sometimes i think oxygenation fears are overstated here, at least with regard to naturally carbonated rather than force carbonated beer. Yeast love oxygen, and it's likely that any oxygen that got into the beer during the bottling process will just get gobbled up by yeast during conditioning.

Not that people should have a cavalier attitude about it, but stirring the beer to mix in the priming sugar probably isn't going to ruin it.

 

[ArcLight]

>.Not that people should have a cavalier attitude about it, but stirring the beer to mix in the priming sugar probably isn't going to ruin it.

As an experiment, I bottled (and primed) some starter (yummy ) and shook the hell out of it to aerate it first.
I want to sate the card board taste, so I can recognize it.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

>.Not that people should have a cavalier attitude about it, but stirring the beer to mix in the priming sugar probably isn't going to ruin it.

As an experiment, I bottled (and primed) some starter (yummy ) and shook the hell out of it to aerate it first.
I want to sate the card board taste, so I can recognize it.

One of my older brothers has been through the whole training course at the Siebel Institute.

He tells me that they had everyone taste samples of off flavors in concentrations where they really stand out, and then he realized that he had never, ever tasted oxidized beer before.

He said "wet cardboard" is only half right - that it tastes like the smell of wet cardboard.

fwiw my conversations with him are where i get my impression that naturally carbed beer is unlikely to have an oxidized flavor, because live yeast will eat both the oxygen AND the oxidized flavor compound.

He made a convincing argument that homebrew almost always has enough live yeast in solution to take care of oxygen problems if left to condition at room temperature. Major exceptions being people who filter the yeast out and people who cold crash too soon during conditioning.

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

I was brewing a pumpkin ale and ran inside to grab the ginger and other spices while I let the first gallon of wort run off. Well the glass jar of ginger fell and shattered, so while I was cleaning the mess about 2 gallons of my highest gravity wort was emptying all over my porch. It nearly cut my abv in half. The beer was fine and I brewed the batch over the right way. But I still kick myself in the ass for it.

I wanted to cold crash a batch, which I do not have the equipment for but my friend does since he kegs. I drove my carboy over there after fermentation and dry hopping. Trying to go slow(which I figured out was making things worse half way there) it was rocking, swirling around, and even had a few heart stopping splashes over the course of this 10 minute drive. I will never do this again but the batch didnt taste even the slightest bit oxidized and turned out great.

 

[HookUp]

I brewed a budweiser style beer w/ rice. Once. And only once.

Turned out fine if you like rice-beer. I dont. My buddies polished it off in two nights.

 

[scutiger]

I created a siphon from my carboy to my bottling bucket with my mouth when my auto-siphon broke.

I've also made several batches that fermented in the high 70's or low 80's all good beers.

 

[bigebrewer]

I was making my extract pumpkin ale and had the wort sitting in an ice bath cooling, it was under 100 degrees at that point. I looked over and saw a 3 lb bag of light extract that was supposed to go in as a late addition (oops!). So I made it a really late addition and stirred it in quickly, and went ahead and pitched my yeast. I hit my numbers exactly and tasted the first bottle last night and it turned out great. I think I will dub it Last Minute Pumpkin Ale.

 

[Scut_Monkey]

I have had the standard error where my dumb rubber grommet for the lid of the fermentor fell into the wort. Of course it was my first batch and I thought it was an absolutely crucial part so I sanitized a garbage bag and used it as a glove to retrieve it. The beer turned out fine. I have also racked beer onto 1/2 gallon of starsan. This beer turned out to be slightly tart and "green" but calmed down after a couple weeks. I haven't had a horror story like my carboy exploded and I had to get 30 sutures.

 

[t_met]

The a couple days before a party, I kegged a standard PA. Knowing I was going to fill a second keg later in the week, I decided to keep the one keg filled with Idophor. That night before the party I force carbonated the PA. The morning of the party, something told me I should try the beer, probably to make sure it was carbonated. It was a little lighter in color on the pour and tasted of Idophor... I force carbed the wrong keg.

Luckly I had enough time to force carb the warm PA and have it cold before the party.

 

[velocity]

I used cleanser instead of the no-rinse sanitizer for the bottling bucket. Best batch I've made by far. (Vanilla Bourbon Porter)

 

[Bithead]

Couple months ago I started mashing in a pale ale and noticed the crush was not good. Ended up with 58% efficiency where I usually get 78%. After checking gravity going into kettle and finding it at 1.037 I decided to change to recipe to a bitter. So changed up hops and yeast. I didn't realize till the end of the boil that I was quite low on water. Ended up 1 gallon short but gravity was 1.053 into the fermentor. It's been a delicious beer!

 

[woody34]

I was racking from secondary to bottling bucket. I had an overused oven mit propping up half of the carboy so it was tilted. Somehow, the oven mit slipped and fell....yep, right into the bottling bucket. I grabbed it quickly before it sank too deep. I continued to bottle, pretending as if nothing happened. It was a Hefewiezen and it turned out great. I called it Glove Love Hefe.

 

[Beer-lord]

Not a huge problem but I forgot about the stir bar in my starter and it went in when I pitched. Without giving it a thought, I reach down to my elbow and grabbed it. I'm drinking the beer now and it came out just fine. It's hard to mess up a beer but sometimes you can do everything right and it comes out wrong and sometimes you're just lucky.