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

[drummstikk]

When the truth is, we're human, and we are all going to make mistakes at any given time, and making a mistake or 5 is not a guarantee that the batch is ruined.....

When I was a beginner, I knew that I didn't have time to perfect everything in my process at once, and RDWHAHB did have some palliative effect on my psyche. But I also didn't want to just "relax", and I sure as heck wasn't drinking while I was brewing. It's at least 4 hours of your life and $40, so I wanted to get it right, or at least I wanted to get something right.

I could have benefited from somebody sitting me down and saying, "Look, don't worry about wort production. Just focus on yeast health and fermentation temperature."

Instead, I was inundated with RDWHAHB-ism, and when I did try to improve my beers after a few medium-quality batches, I wasted time on the wrong things: sanitation, HSA, hop bags vs. free hops, cold-break in the fermenter...on and on.

I was probably ten batches in before I finally made a yeast starter and fermented in my cold basement with an electric blanket and a temperature controller. I couldn't believe the difference it made in my beer! Strange flavors disappeared, and my beer was never again underattenuated. If somebody had told me, I could have done this on my 2nd or 3rd batch. Now that would have really saved some worrying.

So, for our newbies, I suggest: ROWAYHAT (Relax, Only Worry about Yeast Health and Temperature)

 

[Newbeerguy]

When I was a beginner, I knew that I didn't have time to perfect everything in my process at once, and RDWHAHB did have some palliative effect on my psyche. But I also didn't want to just "relax", and I sure as heck wasn't drinking while I was brewing. It's at least 4 hours of your life and $40, so I wanted to get it right, or at least I wanted to get something right.

I could have benefited from somebody sitting me down and saying, "Look, don't worry about wort production. Just focus on yeast health and fermentation temperature."

Instead, I was inundated with RDWHAHB-ism, and when I did try to improve my beers after a few medium-quality batches, I wasted time on the wrong things: sanitation, HSA, hop bags vs. free hops, cold-break in the fermenter...on and on.

I was probably ten batches in before I finally made a yeast starter and fermented in my cold basement with an electric blanket and a temperature controller. I couldn't believe the difference it made in my beer! Strange flavors disappeared, and my beer was never again underattenuated. If somebody had told me, I could have done this on my 2nd or 3rd batch. Now that would have really saved some worrying.

So, for our newbies, I suggest: ROWAYHAT (Relax, Only Worry about Yeast Health and Temperature)

Really a good post. Although I believe that you need to be diligent with sanitation, I really think alot of peoples problems arise from yeast/fermentation issues. Just like you said, pitch enough healthy yeast and keep ferm. temps under control and see how much better your end product will be.

 

[ssult1]

I have never made a mistake. And I'll save you the 'you have to brew more than once a year to make a mistake' jokes.

No, really, my second batch, an IPA, almost became a disaster. I couldn't keep the siphon going when transferring to the bottling bucket. I got extremely pissed after probably 15 tries to keep it going. Said screw it and left behind about a gallon of beer. My mood was not helped by having literally just finished painting my kitchen.

Whole transfer process took probably 90 minutes with me aerating the crap out of the beer. It turned out pretty well, in retrospect.

I believe it was that day I discovered this place and was also the day I ordered an auto siphon, so I guess the disaster had its benefits.

I just had almost the same experience with my current batch of beer. I had not brewed in a few years and just started back up. I made a cranberry wheat. When I went to siphon to the bottling bucket I could not keep the siphon going to save my life. I finally had my daughter hold the bottling bucket at an angle and I just picked up the carboy and poured the beer down the side of the bucket. I was afraid of aeration but the beer tastes great. I only have 8 bottles left.

I have also had other incidents but the beer always turns out great. You new brewers need to take Charlie's advice, "Relax and have a homebrew!".

 

[swackattack]

I reached my hand into a bucket of wort pre pitching to grab something. No bugs. Great extract IPA

 

[SteveHeff]

First extract brew I did, I asked my wife for a bit of help. She was actually interested in the brewing process (or at least she's a great actor). She asked if she could add some of the DME to the boiling wort. I begrudgingly agreed, knowing the size of the pot and amount of liquid inside of it. I wish I had this on film. She screamed so loud, I thought the cops were going to show up. Even though I was standing right next to her when it happened, the wort boiled over (about 1/4 of the batch) all over our BRAND NEW range and stove that were delivered 3 days earlier.

2 points to take away here. 1. My wife doesn't brew beer with me anymore. 2. I now know why there are so many ants in my house.

The beer turned out very nice, though. Ended up bottling 37 bottles.

 

[fergyrock]

My second brew and I did a DIPA recipe from a friend (slightly modified)

Had no Idea how much volume the whole hops would use up of my puny un-manly kettle. I ended up straining out the whole hops in the last 15 minutes and putting them in my top off boil to finish them and in order to be able to get my last 3# of LME in the boil.

Aside for having to stand there, watch and stir to avoid boil overs the whole time, at the end the wort was within 3/4 inch of the rim, everything went fine.

Got it all mixed together in the primary, sans whole hops which I strained out, and pitched.

Lesson Learned: Big beer = big kettle or its a pain and maybe won't come out well. Hopefully this one does, OG of 1.088 and 5.5 oz of hops, pre 2 oz of DH. my kind of brew :rockin:

Looks like I am spending some more dough because this is really a lot of fun. And the wifey is stoked I found another hobby that doesn't involve ER visits, at least likeley ER Visits

 

[RIC0]

Don't go outside to shoot hoops while the pot is boiling away on the stove.

I think you know the rest of the story..... This was some 18+ years ago.

 

[modenacart]

I froze my beer trying to lager and the yeast stopped very premature. I added a crapload of dry hops to the keg and the guys at the homebrew clue loved it.

 

[Gunpowder]

Very first batch of beer I ever made, was a 1-gallon Cranberry Cream Ale kit that my wife bought for me at a local cranberry festival. She thought it was a good idea that I had a hobby that didn't involve electronics or saws (little did she know I'd use BeerSmith AND use power tools to make my brewing area & accessories!). I wasn't expecting much from this batch. In fact, I was wondering if I'd be able to stomach enough of it so as not to hurt her feelings...

- I sanitized NOTHING. In fact, I used Palmolive to wash everything before hand.
- I used tap water
- I left the brew bucket uncovered & exposed
- I poured the finished beer into a jug, then from a jug into a measuring cup, then from a measuring cup into the bottles.

Despite all that, it was one of the most delicious beers I've ever had.

 

[Toy4Rick]

Very early Saturday morning... Pre-coffee... Don't know what I was thinking... but I added enough yeast nutrients for a 5gal batch into the starter. Didn't realize it until I pitched the yeast.

The batch at large is currently in the fermenter. A sampling today shows the makings for a very good batch

Toy4rick

 

[MarcusKillion]

How much room do i get to post my screw ups ?
Dropped towels in wort when transferring .
Siphon the beer by sucking on tube . Hey if it is good enough for your gasoline ...
dumped in a quart of extra wort to my primary that I forgot to boil first .
pitched yeast while wort was about 83 degrees .

things I do not do : Sterilize like crazy .
I use no rinse on my bottles and buckets and paddles .. but I do not get crazy . I simply wash anything else off with hot then cold water while brewing . measuring cups etc. Ever wonder if this stuff is actually doing anything ? Rinsing something off and then immediately using it sure can not be sterilizing it . Surely it must sit a while .

Boiling with lid on .
The list goes on ......

 

[ScottG58]

I accidentally made an imperial Two Hearted clone. I did not check the equipment profile when loading the recipe to Beersmith. The profile was set at extract rather than all grain. I ended up with a 1.076 OG and 83 IBUs. (I skipped the 30 minute addition after realizing my mistake or IBUs would have been 100 plus).

Finished at 1.018 and tasted good going into bottles. I named it "Two-Hearted Imperial Mistake."

 

[feinbera]

OK, I'll throw one more on the pile, my first all-grain batch.

The screw-ups start on brew day, as we're transferring the cooled wort to the fermentation bucket. I'm so excited/nervous about using the fancy ball valve on my brand new brew kettle that I completely forget I need a hydrometer sample for an OG reading until I've already drained half the wort.

My brewing partner and girlfriend is here helping, so, no worries, right? I ask her to grab a little glass to hold the sample while I keep an eye on things at the kettle, she brings it back, holds it over the fermentation bucket near the stream of wort... then, we completely fail to communicate who is supposed to be holding the glass, and, *SPLASH!* into the fermentation bucket it goes.

At this point, I figure, what's done is done -- any bugs on the glass will have floated off into the wort in the first second or two, and I can only introduce even more contamination by reaching in there after it. So, we leave the glass, get another one under the wort stream in time to pull the hydrometer sample, pitch our yeast, and call it a day.

Fast forward a couple of days, fermentation is proceeding well -- a little too well, in fact, there's krausen goop starting to get into the airlock. I'm sure you all know where this is heading... I pull the airlock and rubber bung, clean 'em, sanitize 'em, and make that popular mistake of putting the bung into the bucket lid and then trying to insert the airlock. *PLOP!* in goes my only bucket-lid-airlock-hole-sized bung, to keep that sample glass company.

Did I mention that it's the afternoon of Christmas eve?

So, yeah, here I am, holding my now-useless airlock in my hand, LHBS is already closed, won't be open on Christmas Day, 36 hours before I can possibly get a replacement bung. I throw a little glass bowl over the airlock hole in the hopes of at least making it harder for the nasties to drift into my beer, then it's off to the folks' place for Christmas Eve dinner.

After spending the next 36 hours periodically cleaning copious amounts of krausen goop off the top of my fermentor, hooray, the LHBS is open, I can pick up another bung, rig up a blow-off tube, and RDWHAHB. If there's a silver lining to cleaning up sticky, drippy krausen goo, it's that doing it in a room that smells half like porter and half like rising bread ain't all bad.

Well, it's a few weeks later, and I just racked it to secondary last night. I don't think this beer will every be "great" -- some unrelated growing pains in my all-grain process and some overzealous temperature control have kept this batch from fulfilling its full potential. But none of my hydrometer samples had any trace of funk or sourness, and there wasn't any sign of pellicle formation, in spite of my multiple poorly-timed attempts at infecting the batch, so, I'm confident this beer has a bright future ahead of it.

Cheers!

 

[scratchy1971]

My second batch was a partial boil recipe that recommended using two frozen milk jugs of water to cool/top off the boil. Just cut the plastic and throw these two hunks of ice in the wort and your done. Sounds easy, right?

Had the first jug cut and was trying to get the ice out, when it slipped and the plastic cut my hand. Bled all over the ice, then that slipped and fell in. With all hopes of sanitation gone, just cleaned my hand, put the other ice in and called it a batch.

That bloody ale tasted just fine.

 

[bleme]

Lol! Blood should be fairly sanitary but that plastic...

 

[Patro]

Ran out of time and had to pitch yeast at 80 degrees (us05). I threw it in the fermentation fridge and three weeks later it tasted great. No off flavors that I could taste.

 

[kingogames]

I've only recently started brewing. 1st batch was a one gallon pale ale I ordered from Homebrew Exchange. Anyways, I got it and realized it was all grain, had NO idea what to do, I have no equipment for all grain, so I just winged it (got a lot of help on here btw). Just cracked one the other day and it's great. Great head, lacing, taste is still a little green, so I'll let the rest bottle condition for another month or so. OH, sucked up a lot of hops when transferring to bottling bucket, so I put a grain bag over the end of my autosiphon with a rubber band, neither the bag or the rubber band was sanitized! Oh well, they have a lot of sediment, but no infamous (and maybe mythical?) bottle bombs!

On my most recent batch, a chocolate lavender stout I was pushing the airlock into the lid hole and the gromit fell in and I reached my arm in to fish it out. Fermented fine (I think). Just went to bottles today, so we'll see in a little while how that turns out, tastes fine now though.

Let's see, I have NB Kiwi Express fermenting (just about to add dry hops) and I added the LME at the beginning of the boil instead of at thee last 15 min like the instructions say, so we'll see. Seems OK though.

That's three mistakes in my first three batches and (so far) no one has died or gotten sick, and the beer hasn't tasted that bad either!!!!

 

[KramHam]

I reached into my primary bucket to get out the airlock seal. The Oktoberfest brew still tasted great! I am still new to brewing and I am sure I will have more stories. It is nice to read that others mess up too!

 

[MarcusKillion]

kingogames ;
Put a spigot in the bottle bucket about 1 inch or so from the bottom and that will allow things room to settle in and you will not have so much suck up into the bottle .
Use a 5 gallon nylon paint strainer instead of a grain bag for a filter when there is a lot of stuff like hops floating around in the wort. I also use this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/filter-siphon-tube-leave-trub-behind-380879/ to filter my wort when siphoning into bottle bucket and it works great .

Mistake ... I dropped a towel that I was using to prop up my bucket into my bottle bucket . the towel was clean until I used it to prop up the bucket which had been sitting on the floor . No problem how ever . I guess that alcohol is enough to kill off small amounts of germs . Now people know why I served them a beer with a label that said " dirty towel brown ale "

 

[Dynachrome]

I was probably ten batches in before I finally made a yeast starter and fermented in my cold basement with an electric blanket and a temperature controller. I couldn't believe the difference it made in my beer! Strange flavors disappeared, and my beer was never again underattenuated. If somebody had told me, I could have done this on my 2nd or 3rd batch. Now that would have really saved some worrying.

Yes, two big things. The yeast starter can be low tech too, IMHO.

 

[mojo_wire]

Brewed a pilsner, pitched a 2L starter and left to to ferment at a perfect 50 f. It takes 3 days to start and is the slowest fermentation ever, like 1 bubble in the airlock every 5 seconds for 2 weeks. I check gravity and it has dropped from 1.047 to 1.028. I realize I pitched Wyeast San Fran Lager yeast -- as in "not designed for cold fermentation".

I moved it to a 65 degree room, it took off, and I'll probably transfer to lager tomorrow.

 

[Bazaar]

I mostly brew with spring water from the grocery store. It comes in 1gallon jugs and is pretty cheap, so I tend to use it for everything--mashing, sparging--whatever.

During one of my first AG attempts, I overshot my sparge temp, and I was well in the upper 170s. I didn't want to add ice, so I reached for a gallon of spring water, just to see how much I could get the temperature to drop. Glob, glob, glob. Then I realize I've just added half a gallon of whole milk to my mash.

Well, of course I didn't collect it and instead made a nice first wort batch of some high gravity brown.

 

[MarcusKillion]

brew day yesterday. blonde ale AG . Beer Smith says pre boil gravity 1.046 . I get 1.070 . Guess my mash is better then they think . so I am wondering what to do with the rest of the wort I will have after thinning down for 6 gallons at a reasonable gravity for US05. I start boiling and run out of propane . Got another bottle , no problem , right - wrong . It is almost empty . Runs out right before the 45 minute hop addition . I run down to the store and get another but 30 minutes goes by . Boil again and add hops . Oh , also during the boil time boil over 3 times clogging up parts of my burner . Going to have to take it apart to clean. time for the 30 minute hop addition . I decide to go with .5 instead of .25 . I grab the wrong hops and dump in .50 of 11.7% bittering hops instead of the 7% flavor hops . Decide it may come out too bitter so I shut it down in 5 minutes losing about 20 minutes off of my 75 boil . cooled , put in fermenter . Tossed about 1 1/2 gallons and added in 1/2 gallon of water to make about 1.70 gravity . Only had one packet US05 so I used that rehydrated and sprinkled Nottingham in with it . Did not stir really enough for oxygen for that high gravity but thought I would stick in a tube through the air lock hole after the foam settled down and then pump some pure oxygen in . Turned out my bottle was empty . Just let it go . Put a large tube on the air lock to a bottle of sanitizer and it went crazy fermenting .
Hope it ferment out good and gives a high ABV and a good flavor .
Will post my Blonde recipe sometime .

 

[bleme]

After a brew day like that, you really need to go buy a lottery ticket. You are WAY overdue for a change of luck!

 

[DrunkleJon]

Just consider that one a brewday from hell to weigh any other that you consider to be bad against.

 

[MarcusKillion]

Update on post #683 .. I just realized that I also forgot to add in the 10 minute hop addition of Kent Goldings .

 

[manneken]

I mostly brew with spring water from the grocery store. It comes in 1gallon jugs and is pretty cheap, so I tend to use it for everything--mashing, sparging--whatever.

During one of my first AG attempts, I overshot my sparge temp, and I was well in the upper 170s. I didn't want to add ice, so I reached for a gallon of spring water, just to see how much I could get the temperature to drop. Glob, glob, glob. Then I realize I've just added half a gallon of whole milk to my mash.

Well, of course I didn't collect it and instead made a nice first wort batch of some high gravity brown.

Use Poland spring

 

[phineascoates]

It seems like its too difficult and nervous as well in making beer. There's a whole lot of questions runing in ur head if its gonna turned out great?what if it taste bad? You can't really help yourself from getting worried about it. Can u give me some tips and guidelines in doing so, so that i can help make a beer that really tastes great as if its made from an expert brewer.

 

[bleme]

It seems like its too difficult and nervous as well in making beer. There's a whole lot of questions runing in ur head if its gonna turned out great?what if it taste bad? You can't really help yourself from getting worried about it. Can u give me some tips and guidelines in doing so, so that i can help make a beer that really tastes great as if its made from an expert brewer.

There are more 'tips' than you can read in a week and half of them will disagree with the other half.

It really boils down to are you having fun or not?
When you find something that works for you, stick to it. If something doesn't, try something else.

Worry will just give you ulcers, and then you wouldn't be able to drink beer...

 

[half_whit]

There are more 'tips' than you can read in a week and half of them will disagree with the other half.

It really boils down to are you having fun or not?
When you find something that works for you, stick to it. If something doesn't, try something else.

Worry will just give you ulcers, and then you wouldn't be able to drink beer...

+1

Relax an have fun. Beer is resilient stuff. The more we try to screw it up, the more it likes to prove us wrong. And believe me, someday you will screw up. Don't worry. Just laugh and learn. For your learning and amusement, let me share my yester-brew day...

I was doing deathbrewer's Hoegaarden partial mash clone recipe. I was taking my time. I was planning ahead. I was falling in love with the smell of cracked coriander. I was drinking homebrew. I was drinking homebrew. I was... You get the point. Mash went great. Everything was going smoothly. 90 minute hop schedule finished, dumped into bucket, chilled to pitch temperature. Now things go downhill

Vial of yeast still in the fridge. No worries. Input the lid on the bucket for a while and stick the vial in my pocket to warm up. I come back and pitch. Forgot to take an og. I take one... 1.02. Wut? That's when I see the two pound bag of extract sitting on the counter. After five minutes of swearing and debating dumping, I start up a gallon of water on the stove. Boiled the extract by itself. Somehow one gallon managed to boil over the 4 gallon pot when i turned my back. Stuck the bottom of my wort chiller in the pot and got it cool enough to add in to the rest of the batch. I added a little extra extract to make up for the fact that I now have 6 gallons of god knows what HOPEFULLY fermenting in my closet. Rigged up my first blowoff tube ever (seemed like a good idea for this one) and if I don't keep it in the closet the cats are sure to get curious.

Though I sanitized everything (except the yeast vial. Always forget that one), I probably have this beer every possible chance to fail. Out of my hands now! What's the worst that could happen Dumping would be a waste of possibly good beer! Well just have to wait an see