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

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I found a steak knife in my carboy....beer turned out great!

I brewed a Belgian Saison this past summer. I was excited to use Wyeast 3724, a yeast the is supposed to ferment at "blood warm" temperatures. I brewed alone on a Saturday night. Just a relaxing evening on the back patio. I was drinking but don't recall getting drunk or anything out of the ordinary occurring. This beer got stuck at 1.030 (typical of this strain of yeast, per the Wyeast website). The advice I got from my LHBS was to raise the temp and swirl the yeast back into suspension. My fermenter was already reading 85F, so I swirled the carboy and heard something clanking around. At first I thought is was only the cord of the heating pad taping against the glass carboy but soon crossed the theory off as I held the cord in my hand and still heard the noise. I thought to myself, "This is nuts!". Then it got nuttier as I saw some black object pass against the side of the carboy! https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/there-something-my-beer-124945/. What on Gods green Earth is swimming in my beer?!? This crazy black wort fish better not drink all the good stuff or I'll be pissed!.....Anyway, when I go to rack into a bottling bucket I find a 6 inch steak knife with a black handle. It was a plastic handle, as opposed to a porous wooden handle which may have more nooks and cranies to harbor nasties. This made me feel a little better.
I wait for the beer to carb and then drink it. It tastes great. It is also strong which must mean the crazy wort fish doesn't like alcohol!
 
Glubki said:
I got piss drunk on rum and coke while brewing a batch one night and passed out on the couch while my wort was chilling - 9 hours later it was in the fermenter and it still turned out ok...
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That seriously sounds like something I'd do.
 
This is awesome and makes me feel like the few mistakes I have made on my first AG won't screw it up :)

All I could add is that about 8 months ago I made a stout from extract, in my old rental apartment. I had only made kits with liquid wort to this point so hadn't had much experience. I put 5.5 gallons of the thick wort into my 6 gallon carboy with an airlock. Woke up in the middle of the night after being awakened by a 'bang' and went into the kitchen. There is beer all over the wall and a big black circular stain on the ceiling spackle, and foam all over the counter, cupboards, and kitchen floor. Didn't even know what to do, had never heard of a blowoff tube until a few google searches later. Rigged one up quick and said f-it to the mess till the next morning.

Anyway the beer is wonderful... having one right now in fact. What's better is that when I moved out of the place, the lady doing my move-out inspection failed to notice the black portion of the ceiling. :)
 
TexLaw said:
Here are some of my greatest hits (most are common):
- Pushed a stopper through the neck of primary. I had no spare, so I spent about 30 minutes trying to fish the thing out with a straightened coat hanger. I finally gave up and drove to the LHBS for another.
TL
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This definitely happened to me. Only right when I racked to my secondary. Ended up getting a carboy cap instead of a stopper though.The carboy was covered in foil for around 24 hours. The stopper ended up staying in until a week after i bottled the oatmeal stout. Never again will I rack at 10pm, living 1 hour away from a (L)HBS, had to take off early from work to go there and get the cap.

Also during the bottling of said oatmeal stout the dry hops kept clogging the valve for the racking cane (the one that depresses to dispense) probably cleaned it out around 5 times and left around 1 gallon in the secondary because of all the pellet hop debris floating around.

(still waiting for this one to age in the bottle, probably another 2 months)


Another time when I was brewing my Belgian tripple, (hereby named tripple fail) I had a few leaves fall into the boil, my wort chiller hoses got heated more than I thought and spewed water, and my fermenter top wasn't quite on when i started shaking it to aerate once it was in there (nice sticky mess).
This beer keeps getting better with age, too bad I gave so much of it away and now only have 2 12oz and 2 22oz left.
 
Me and my buddy were brewing one weekend at his apartment. We were brewing a Sam Adams Boston Lager clone but ended up fermenting it room temp like an ale. This was our third attempt and we were still learning the process and the importance of having a dedicated stirring utensil like a paddle from our LHBS. Anyhow, we were cooling the wart in a sink full of ice because we had no stopper for the sink to do it with ice water. While one of us was stirring the wort with one spoon, the other was stirring up the ice so we could continue to add more and cool faster. All of a sudden we were both stirring the wort at the same time with different spoons, one of which was not sanitized and had been in the sink...gross. Well we boiled the wort again for 5 minutes and went ahead and cooled, aerated, and pitched the batch. turned out fine and tasted similar to a sam adams. Beer is pretty resilient. Thanks for the stories.
 
I was brewing a batch, and a miller moth decided to kamikaze directly into the boil kettle, just as I cut the flame out for chilling.

It was the tastiest miller beer I ever had.
 
I can say reading this thread made me hopeful.
I am very concerned about my most recent mistake.
To cool my wort, I use a 22LB bag of ice with water in my laundry tub. This easily cools my wort from boiling to less than 80 degrees in under 15 mins.
So anyway, I took my now cooled wort in my brewpot and poured into my primary. I noticed that a couple drops of laundry-bucket-icewater dripped from the outside of the brewpot into the primary with the wort.

Nothing I can do about it now..I pitched the yeast and sealed her up.

Been less than a week in the primary now so all I can do is wait. Will I be able to tell before I waste time bottle conditioning that it has been infected?
 
Mike35673 said:
Been less than a week in the primary now so all I can do is wait. Will I be able to tell before I waste time bottle conditioning that it has been infected?
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Your infection is likely to show up in the primary over any other point in the process. Even if it does become infected (which I doubt it will), you can still bottle. Infections tend to happen on the top of the beer. So sample from under the infection and see if it tastes ok. It won't hurt you, at worst it will just taste nasty. If it doesn't taste like crap, some people will rack and leave an inch+ behind, which will hopefully be all of the infection. You won't get as much beer out of it, but you might be able to salvage some.
 
My favorite "mistake" was just after washing and sanitizing about a case and a half of bottles, I let them sit upright in the tub next to the washing machine with some saran wrap covering the tops. I went out to the garage where I was getting ready to bottle while a buddy went to collect the bottles and bring them out. While we were talking (before he went to get the bottles) my wife ran a load of laundry which emptied into the same washtub. My buddy (who was brand new to brewing) soon returned with half the bottles. He proclaimed there was a little water in the bottles, but he emptied it out before bringing them up. I was thinking - a little left over starsan.... not half a bottle of suds water from the washer. I bottled them up then went with to get the remaining bottles.... WTF???? I knew what happened as soon as I saw the rest of the bottles.
A few weeks later, I had to try.... (you know you would...) the washing machine IPA tasted just fine.... turned out great (outside of your occasional pubic hair or lump of lint) :eek:
 
An airlock stopper fell in my blueberry low carb ale when I was putting blueberries in the secondary... definitely sanitized my arm and grabbed it off the bottom of the better bottle... The beer came out great! I got lucky I guess.
 
Soooo...figured I'd add my $.02. I am a total noob and just brewed my first successful batch, a CA Common. Being a typical noob, I did my best to screw up, but the inimitable law of RDWHAHB seems to have worked.

First, bought a kit about a year ago and it sat in my basement this whole time. Made my wort, cooled it over a few hours to 70 and went to pitch the yeast. Expired about 6 months ago. Having no other options, I pitched it and it worked out well. I just had my first 'green beer' and it can only get better!

Second, not having paid attention to the Papazian book or any posts about properly starting a siphon. I used my mouth to start the siphon going from primary to secondary. I got a mouth full of flat beer and my instinct was to spit it out, but I inhaled some, before I could self edit---classic spit take. Some of the mouth-discarded beer made it into the secondary, as well as the tube that my filthy mouth was just on. beer sprayed everywhere.

Third, I misjudged the directions and input from my mentor and only let the beer site in secondary for about 3 days. Supposed to be ANOTHER 10-14 days, not 10-14 days TOTAL. I bottled it with priming sugar and it cleared up nicely.

BTW-It's my first and I can't stop 'testing' it. I know it's green beer, but because it's all mine--it's so much better than anything else I had. So, in addition to all of the above, I am drinking (and enjoying) beer that's only been bottled for about a week.

Yes, I now know better on all of the above. ;-)
 
Mike35673 said:
I can say reading this thread made me hopeful.
I am very concerned about my most recent mistake.
To cool my wort, I use a 22LB bag of ice with water in my laundry tub. This easily cools my wort from boiling to less than 80 degrees in under 15 mins.
So anyway, I took my now cooled wort in my brewpot and poured into my primary. I noticed that a couple drops of laundry-bucket-icewater dripped from the outside of the brewpot into the primary with the wort.

Nothing I can do about it now..I pitched the yeast and sealed her up.

Been less than a week in the primary now so all I can do is wait. Will I be able to tell before I waste time bottle conditioning that it has been infected?
Click to expand...

Well I am happy to say I took a FG sample and drank said sample after testing and I didn't taste anything funky!!! Just flat!!!
 
I made a few mistakes on my last batch of beer. It was the Patersbier extract kit from NorthernBrewer. I cleaned my brew pot with dish soap and when I started boiling my water, I guess I didnt rinse it good, because soap bubbles started forming.
On top of that, the dish soap I used was green apple scent, so I was afraid it was going to effect the flavor of beer.
Then, I was in such a hurry that I scorced some extract on the bottom of my pot.
I thought I was going to have a beer that tasted like burnt apples.
But I am happy to report that all turned out well. And it is one great easy drinking beer that I have on tap right now.
 
SaltyDog620 said:
On my first batch (an APA), I was having trouble siphoning the beer from the primary into the bottling bucket. I sucked on the tube to get it flowing and got some in my mouth. Without thinking, I spat it into my bottling bucket. It freaked me out. The beer ended up being fine.
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I did this exact thing with an IPA about a week ago. One more week and I'll know if it has had any effect.
 
I just bottled up a "porter" a few weeks ago. The whole time i was trying to figure out why it came out more a ruby redish brown color vs a dark brownish black color like a porter should be. Well I was taking an inventory of my malts today and i never added the roasted barley and chocolate malts to the mash.

Tried a bottle today its more of a burnt caramel amber ale. Thinking that this will get better someday but since it wasnt what i was expecting and i messed up, ill let this one mellow and age a while.

My guess it will be the ugly duckling that will be a true winner. Good thing i have narrowed it down to what i missed adding. If this turns out well, then i have new recipe.
 
Man, I have messed up mash schedules.
Had to extend boils by an extra half to a whole hour after adding bittering hops.
Primed siphon tubes by sucking on them.
Using a stopper one size too small and dropping the airlock and stopper into a better bottle and leave it there.
Forget to aerate.
had my toddler drop toys into a fermenting bucket.

I only pitched one batch and that was because I had some kind of pervasive mold that would not stop. If I recall, that brew went pretty smoothly.

It really is hard to screw up beer.
 
On my second brew I was using a piece of tin foil to prop my funnel off the mouth of the carboy while I transferred wort into it, a week later when fermentation died down, there it was. . . taking a beer bath. That one is still conditioning but it seems to be coming along fine.

I also had another minor freak out with that beer when I read that Nottingham makes gross beer when you ferment it over 70F, that one fermented in the low 70s, like I said, shes a beaut.
 
duffman2 said:
While brewing, my roommate's step father came over to ask to borrow a shovel. He then let me know someone thought her cat was the victim of a hit and run near the house. Now I know I'm going to have two crying women on my hands soon!

So, my roommate's boyfriend decides to come over to be my brand new assistant (which proves to be just another big distraction). I was done with my mash and sparge, took the kettle outside to begin the boil, and then the roommate comes home, with tears in her eyes. I console her the best I can, then go out and adjust my fire, throw in my bittering hops, and go back to the door where girl #2 comes in. She is a mess and I help her out the best I can b4 going back to my brew, adding the 2nd round of hops, and then Sh@$t, I realize I completely skipped my LME that was supposed to go in after first boil, and then put my hops in after a return to boil!! So, I take out my hop sack, pour in my extract, and try to bring to a boil when I realize my propane is out....Double Sh%^t!! So, I send new guy to the store while I tend to my bbq chicken and kick my burner. After an hour, he shows up, I get it back to a boil, add my hop sack again, and then put in aroma hops to complete the brew. OG was 1.070 instead of 1.048, and fermentation started at 8 hours.
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Does this remind anyone else of the last 15 minutes of Goodfellas? :p
 
Here's a new one for my books, a couple of months back while brewing my Oktoberfest. During the boil my 2 1/2 year old son grabbed my hat off my head and chuncked it into the boil. I paniced and pulled it out with tongs. Continued my brew session as normal, and it turned out to be one of my favorite beers to date. Now I just need a clever name for it, like sweaty side oktoberfest :)
 
My last brew was 3 weeks ago and I was excited to use a new plate stirrer that I had found at work to make the starter. Problem was no stir bar. I improvised with a safety pin that I could get to spin just enough to make a dimple in the surface. Had a magnet set out with my brew equipment to remove the pin prior to pitching but forgot anyway. At least the pin was boiled when I made the starter wort. Anyway I was a little concerned over the last three weeks what metal would do to the beer. Just tasted a hydrometer sample and it seems no harm done. Coincidentally, the stir bar I ordered just showed up in the mail today
 
I'v done 17 batches of all grain so far and never had a infection. I pay close attention to what I'm doing but I think the most nervous thing I did was get all ready to rack my beer from the secondary to my keg; I sanitized everything (keg, siphon, racking cane, ect.) then decided it wasn't ready for transfer. I put everything away and dumped all the sanitizer. 30 min later I came back and decided it was ready to rack to the keg; everything was dry and I didn't want to waist more sanitizer so I racked with the dry equipment. The batch was just great.
 
Second, not having paid attention to the Papazian book or any posts about properly starting a siphon. I used my mouth to start the siphon going from primary to secondary. I got a mouth full of flat beer and my instinct was to spit it out, but I inhaled some, before I could self edit---classic spit take. Some of the mouth-discarded beer made it into the secondary, as well as the tube that my filthy mouth was just on. beer sprayed everywhere
Click to expand...

I love this post. I've done this every batch I've ever made, except the messy part. It's a good excuse to take a shot while working with beer.
 
*Fermented my beer while the ambient temperature was at 82 degrees.

*Forgot to sanitize a bunch of stuff.

*Fermented my beer in plastic buckets that had some scratches on the inside.

*Added some Isinglass to my beer because I thought I would have time to bottle it before I left to spend a week in the south the day after. I didn't.

*Chilled my beer by leaving it overnight in a tub of water outside. When I woke up, the beer had stratified and my OG reading was 1.050, when it really was about 1.080.

*I was going to rack to secondary and put my beer on some oak chips and vanilla beans, but the secondary vessel was dirty and I didn't feel like cleaning it, so I just dumped the oak and beans into the fermenter and let it sit for a couple of weeks more.
 
BenS said:
I love this post. I've done this every batch I've ever made, except the messy part. It's a good excuse to take a shot while working with beer.
Click to expand...

I now just follow Yuri's advice. Wish I'd seen this before my first batch.

Thanks Yuri!

 
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thataintchicken said:
I had a batch of tripel that tasted like lighter fluid, seriously.
I waited... and waited.
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I had a lighter fluid batch - still working on what exactly happened - luckily my neighbor thought it was tasty anyhow. I was cleaning up my boxes of bottles when I found one that still had my lighter fluid brew. But after a few months - the taste was gone and somehow it turned back into beer. Simply magic.

And who doesn't have a story about being elbow deep in a bucket of beer?:D
 
I gotta thank all...the old timers and the newbies...who had the courage to post their mistakes here! I will be boiling my first 5-gallon batch tomorrow. All these "goof-ups" give me courage! Gonna make an autumn amber ale. Sure hope the first brew turns out OK!

glenn514:mug:
 
This is a great thread for all the beginners, like myself, to read everything that happened to the veteran brewers while still ending up with great beer. Here are my mistakes with my first and only batch, so far, that has gone to completion.

1) Vodka from the airlock went into the fermenter 2) When transferring beer into the bottling bucket I wanted to speed it up a bit and move the bucket lower, but i forgot that I already had the bottling attachment on the spigot. Beer poured on my shoe and throw carpet. I wasted an ounce after finishing the transfer and dipped the bottling attachment in some sanitizer. 3) I couldn't get the spigot to seal correctly on the bottling bucket so it dripped the entire time, I probably lost about 30-50 ml's of beer

My first batch is good (I cracked it open early since it is my first batch). I can't wait until it ages even more in the bottle.

Primary: Dunkel Wiezen, Apfelwein (both pitched today)
Bottle: Nut Brown Ale
 
Sneezed over the brewpot and in went the Oakleys... took 15 mins to dig em out with some tongs and they were ruined, but added that little something extra to the brew. Behold "Polarized Pale Ale"!
 
Pitched the yeast in my first beer at 100F. The beer tasted like green apples for 10 weeks after bottling. But it eventually conditioned out.
 
Beernik said:
Pitched the yeast in my first beer at 100F. The beer tasted like green apples for 10 weeks after bottling. But it eventually conditioned out.
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Green apples? I thought it tasted more like band-aids. :p
I love how forgiving beer can be
 
SWMBO hates brew day, so I do a lot of after hour brewing/drinking...Waking up the next morning, still buzzed, everything is put away so SWMBO aint mad. I do the check, "Did I do this...I don't remember doing that....Shoot I know I forgot that! Then the magical sound of the blow off, bloop,bloop. All is good.

No blow off lesson. The primary has shot the fermenter lock into the attic, and primary was open to atmosphere for several hours (sad to say I did this one twice) beer turned out fine.

Bottle bombs - put honey in and kegged, didn't realize that bottling said honey injected kegged beer and putting into closet would be grenades. Back in the fridge minus two bottles, beer just fine.

Wine, the last bag was sweetener, only one to have replacable cap. Dumped whole bag in...Waffle syrup! 6 months later the wine was FINE!

Edit 2-7-10 added priming sugar, didn't wait long enough in keg, put it on CO2 30 psi for two days instead of one (no shaking). Tried it, thought I bruised it. Now that it has been two days, it is getting to a good carb point. Little sweet from the unfermented priming sugar (not bad) beers OK, drinking it up!
 
I'm definitely a noob. . . I have my 5th batch in the primary right now (it's thr Elbro Nerkte Brown from JOHB, so no secondary), and I've alrady learned a ton from my mistakes.

In my second batch, I used about 50% corn sugar. Turned out really sour, never cleared up, and the one night I had a few of them, the acetaldehyde causes temporary amnesia.

My second batch, and IPA, I dry hopped by just dropping cascade pellets into the beer, then couldn't get them out, so they went into the bottles. The first few bottles had a grassy flavour, but then got really beautifully hopped. I'll have to use some cheesecloth next time.
 
My biggest was rushing into the keg after only 1 week of primary. The ones in the past would have been fine I think, but this was the first time I used liquid yeast. It was pretty bad. Fortunately, after bringing back up to the low 70's for 2 weeks and adding finings, the beer doesn't taste too bad. It's NOT my favorite, but absolutely drinkable.


oh, and thanks for the input here, otherwise it would have been down the drain.
 
Back to back mistakes for my last 2 batches (can you tell I'm a noob).

First, I forgot to crush the grains at my LBHS so we'll see how the body/color/etc. turn out (its an Amber Ale partial-mash that's in the primary).

Second, in the rush of putting supplies away, I accidentally put my liquid yeast into the freezer and didn't realize until my brew buddies showed up the next day (which happened to be when my LBHS was closed). So, back to the store for more yeast and rescheduling brew day.

As John Daume (Maltose Falcons co-founder and owner of LBHS) told me, "every brew is its own adventure!"
 

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