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

[sterling214]

Have destroyed 3, yes 3 digital probe thermometers. The last one was bought at the lhbs and was supposed to be submersible. I'm really starting to doubt the temps I was reading during the mash of my last beer, but it tastes good so far for green beer.

 

[GuitarBob]

I'm only on my fith batch and I already have a couple of blunders.

My 3rd batch using a Mr. Beer kit I misread the instructions and accidently used double the amount of hops I was supposed to. Beer ended up a little more bitter then I would have liked, but it was still a pretty decent beer, in fact I only have two left.

My 2nd batch I screwed up because I'm such a cheap ass. This was another Mr. Beer kit and the recipe only called for one can of hopped extract and one can of unhopped extract. Problem was I also had a bag of booster that came with it, and being too cheap to just throw it away I dumped into the wort and used it anyway. One month later the beer tasted like bubble gum flavored cough syrup.

It's been two months and I havn't thrown out that 2nd batch in hopes that in a year from now it will taste great. I guess the lesson here is that newbies shouldn't tweak recipes too much, especially if it's only to save 1$ worth of corn sugar.

 

[CnnmnSchnpps]

great thread...

First batch, poured too hot water into better bottle to cool, and covered with plastic wrap. Physics took over, and the bb started to compress as the steam in it chilled. It now has a vaguely triangular shape.

Same batch, didn't realize I actually had a 5 gal BB until I poured in all the wort. Whoops. Attached an airlock anyway and woke up with a ton of crap all over the floor. The apartment smelled great for a while, though

Beer has only been in bottles for 2 weeks but seems to be coming along just fine

 

[madcapstudios]

Very first batch. Extract kit. Forgot to add hops. Having read Papazian, figured "RDWHAB it'll turn out fine."

It didn't.

 

[IrishLass]

On Saturday, Dan and I decided to bottle both our Apfelwein and the big IPA he's super proud of... while we brewed our 90 Shilling clone. I guess we had too much going on, because partway through bottling the IPA I looked at the stove and noticed the corn sugar boiling away. Oops. We dumped the bottles back into the bottling bucket *** added the corn sugar *** and started over. Could have been a much worse mistake, I'm just sorry it had to happen to that specific brew.

 

[coffeegod]

I fermented a brown ale at 80 degrees for two weeks. At the end my beer tasted like a belgium tripple not a brown but it was a damn good belgium tripple.

 

[slomo]

I keep forgetting to add priming sugar!!! For the love of god someone help me.

 

[Pete79]

Not beer related but I messed up while racking my first batch of apfelwein to my bottling bucket. I had been been sipping on a sample glass and bent over to pick something up. I accidentally spilled about half of what was left in my glass into the almost full bottling bucket. Still turned out great!

 

[Catch-22]

I was starting to pitch once and my dog came in from outside. It was raining and he proceeded to shake over my open fermenting bucket. Beer turned out pretty good. Slight collie taste but pretty good.

 

[Beerdrop]

I did the ole 'forgot to close the spigot' trick on my primary bucket. So I'm cooling my wort through a plate chiller and focusing more on the connections on the chiller than the better part of a 1/2 gallon of wort on the basement floor. Beer turned out great though.


Boilover? Check
Too much priming sugar? Check
Unsanitized object(s) in wort? Check

Sanitize Airlock by BOILING (note avatar)? Check

Others? Not check (yet)

 

[webnmar]

Beerdrop,
I love the picture. I think you should give it to Revvy to pass on to everyone that loves to brew by counting the bubbles in the airlock. Tell them a sure fire way to make great beer is boil the he!! out of the airlock so that it no longer works, then just leave aluminum foil over the hole and forget about it for 4 weeks!!

Saturday before Easter, I lost about 10 ozs on the floor the same way, plus forgot to put in the second half of priming sugar, capped half, then uncapped, put in some extra sugar and recapped everything. Still waiting to see if it turned out great, but I drank alot of HB, so I wasn't worried!

 

[Bullbythehorns]

I had an Ordinary Bitter in the better bottle "carefully" balanced on a shelf in the basement getting ready to siphon into the bottling bucket. I went upstairs to get something when the wife knocked something into the shelf, which disrupted the better bottle's balance and caused it to come crashing to the ground resulting in breaking the top neck off of the bottle. By the time I got back to it it was all running down the drain.

I was able to pour the 8 oz. remains into a glass to savor and remember "those that had fallen".

Lessons learned were:
Thank God for Better Bottles, if it would have been a glass carboy it would have been a lot worse disaster.

I have a much better, secure shelf to make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

[springer]

I started my brew day with a sense off joy. Nice sunny day little warm not bad. Just a nice June day.

Get my MLT cooler all set up on the 4 ft step latter. Heat my mash water and preheat the Tun . Little over what I was shooting for a little ice and it hits 175* add my grains and perfect 152*. Time for a beer I go inside and sit down to a little bratwurst and kraut. Next thing I know thunder lightning and wind - Now I am all set up in the driveway I run out find my tun on the ground and some water coming out. I hastily pick it up and burn my hand not so bad though. Have no idea how much water I lost as it’s pouring out 10% chance of a shower my but. I let it sit 75 minutes and I drain, nice and clear no grains but only get about 2 of the 4 gallons out. I have 4 gallons at spurge temps so I split them and pour the first into my keggle. My wife then says, "Why is there water running out the valve?" damn lose another 1/2 gallon. I ended up doing a 3rd batch sparge and at least it was at 1.013. But my 6.5 in the keggle were only 1.035ish. So I do my boil and it comes to 1.040ish with 5.5 gallons . So I took some wort and added DME by this time I was so pissed I just dumped a scientific amount in (I guessed) and did a short boil.


All this time I had the chiller going on the rest. Get everything into the conical and take a sample from the bottom valve... 1.096 WTF! .... OOPPS forgot to stir it as I added the stronger wort first ...

OG was to be 1.050-1.056 I hit 1.060. I pitched a 2 liter starter at 60* and it was active in 1 and 1/2 hours and yesterday was blowing out the airlock.

I have yet to be able to replicate this beer.....

 

[Scut_Monkey]

I had the right of passage of pushing the grommet from the primary lid into the wort. I tend to have most of my screw ups at the end of the brew day. I think because I'm tired and my metabolism is running off of homebrew.

Anyways, I had already pitched the yeast and did not feel like screwing around so I quickly sanitized a black garbage bag and used it as an arm condom. It's important to use protection because yeast infections can cause a really gross bodily discharge. So when you think you're puking from too much drinking, you might want to see your doctor....... it could be a yeast infection. :cross:

 

[Jidas]

I was brewing baltic porter and ended up using a bad thermometer for my initial strike water (I realized this halfway through my rest). The temp of my mash was about 170 when I checked it with a correct thermometer. I hit the gravity I wanted but I knew it wouldn't attenuate well... Final gravity was 1.030.... I entered it into a homebrew competition and placed first in the porter category. It was really tasty even though I thought it was ruined.

 

[conpewter]

Brewing up 10 gallons of oatmeal stout, 4.5 lbs of oats... no rice hulls. The sparge got stuck twice, dumped the whole thing into my old mash tun (square cooler w/braid) and sparged out of that. I got a little hit on my efficiency but not much. So far so good. It is tasting OK but needs another month or two of aging (stouts...). I bought 3 lbs of rice hulls to use when I need.

 

[cvstrat]

I've only made two batches, neither of which have been bottled yet but I realized I made a pretty solid mistake or two on my first batch.

Bayou Classic on high first run = insane burning paint fumes that will kill you if you aren't careful

Boiled so hot I ended up with 4 gallons and didn't know you could add water to compensate

I hit all my temps perfectly and boiled down to 4 gal, yet somehow ended up with an OG of 1.020 instead of 1.046. Note: everyone says I HAD to have read the hydrometer wrong, since a 1.020 would mean an effeciency of like 40 percent

I put it in the fermenter anyway and let it go. Bubbled like crazy and finally evened out. Transfered to secondary at 1.009 and there it sits.

The recipe I ordered was pre-measured. Hops came in a 2oz and 1 oz package. All 3oz were supposed to go in for the entire hour. I read it as 2oz 1 hr, 1 oz 1 min. I noticed this about 10 days after the fact when I was creating a spreadsheet to track progress.

I thought about trashing it but was urged not to by everyone here. So there it sits in secondary. Going to leave it in there for a few more days and bottle. So what if it tastes like ****, it's my first beer damn it and I'm going to see it through Who knows it might just turn out spectacular.

 

[Joos]

I had SWMBO pick me up a hose for my autosiphon.She got it from petco so NO it's not foodgrade.I made a ruination clone that tasted great when I transfered to secondary.The end result tasted like a rubber hoseOddly enough I had a couple friends of mine tell me it was great!They liked that extra spice!I told them it was rubber hose but they drank it anyway

 

[IW396STL]

Well I will recap this since its not done yet but pretty funny anyways. I needed to make a batch of beer for my buddy that will be in town in 14 days. I hurried up and brewed a scotch ale that I had upped some grains and DME. Everything went good until I was about to pitch the yeast. My girlfriends grandmother was in the ICU and my girl called and said that she needed me their cause it wasn't good. Well I finished my pitch but just put the carboy in my bedroom on a dog pee pad and turned the ac and fan on. I then rushed to the hospital. Well needless to say when I got home I had about a half gallon of sticky mess on my floor, on my bed, on my LSD, on my PS3 and on the ceiling. I found the airlock across the room and cleaned it and recommissioned it but it just popped right back off in like 5 minutes.

So I then grabbed a 5th of bourbon made a strong bourbon w/ a splash of coke, grabbed some siphon hose and stuck it in the bung cork and into the bottom of the bottle. I wired the hose to the bottle and carboy. Wow that works nice, no foam spray. Its been fermenting steady for like 3 days so I will update when finished.

 

[Joos]

well you have your prioritys straight.Is your LSD ok?

 

[IW396STL]

Yeah it seems ok so far, I havent tested my PS3 yet. Yeah that could have been a real costly batch of brew.

 

[Dougan]

I'd hate for my LSD to get screwed up.

I lost pieces to an airlock at some point. Found it 4 weeks later when i opened up the primary, floating on top. It was clean when I lost it, but not fresh out of the sanitizer.

That beer is the one my friends ask me to brew the most.

 

[Hombru1]

I brewed a 5.5 gal. blonde with orange peel, honey, and corriander. Needless to say the orange peel clogged up everything from the bulkhead to the chiller plate. Ended up mouth siphoning wort out of bk into fermenter. Thought for sure it was going to be a biological time bomb, but it turned out really nice, no noticeable contamination. Note to self...use a hop bag for any type of peel!

 

[VApatriot]

On my first batch ever, had everything lined up ok, got the 6 gallons of filtered water (SWMBO's afraid of the tap water, she insists on using water filtered out by the Berkey which takes forever) in the kettle, steeped the grains at 170 for 1/2 hour like the directions said, so far so good.

I went to rinse out the 6 gallon carboy and thought 'I better put that solid rubber stopper in to make sure it stays clean, I don't want any contaminents in my wort'. Well, got it out to the garage, looked at the rubber stopper and thought 'I better make sure it's in nice and tight'. You guessed it, pushed it in a little too hard, and, flooomp, right down to the bottom of the carboy. It took me about 2 hours with a big fishing hook and a pair of vise grips to get that slippery rubber ba$tard outta there. Finally got it out but had to endure SWMBO calling me a dumba$$ the whole time.

Re-sanitized the carboy for about an hour and decided to go on with the boil. Everything seems to have gone right, the OG was pretty close to what was listed in the directions at 1.056, the FG was about 1.006. It looked nice and clear when I bottled it but it tasted really bitter. Well, this sunday it will have been in the bottle for 4 weeks, so my fingers are still crossed.

I used to think of myself as a patient person, but waiting to know if my beer is any good is killing me. I have to keep telling myself, just wait, be patient it'll be ok.

 

[txtaquito]

My second batch ever was a Bock and I didnt realize it is a lager. I fermented at room temp. But the gotya here was this. As I cooled down my wort with my wort chiller, just as it reached 75' and I went to pull out the chiller, a tiny little feather fell into the pot. I was stuck in a dilemma. Do I reboil and hold for 10 minutes to kill any possible bacteria and in the process change the outcome of the final product or pitch the yeast right away and hope its gets a good start and overcome any bacteria........
My immediate reaction was to grab the feather out, which I did. I decided to let it go and not reboil and hope for the best.

Turned out to be a damn nice bock!!! I labeled the brew "Bock Flew Over the BrewBrew Nest"

TxT

 

[davebl]

Aside from pushing a rubber stopper into a carboy.... more than once, I left a blow off tube on 10 gallons of beer, and cranked the fermenter freezer down to 35 before I left town for the weekend. Came back to a 30 degree freezer and 1 gallon of starsan in my beer. The cool temp caused a vacuum and sucked the sanitizer into the fermenter. Lesson learned.

 

[Pete79]

Wait, so your beer still turned out good? A little diluted i'm sure.

 

[aeonderdonk]

I have used unsanitized spoons to stir cooling wort, accidentally got the label from a bag of extract in the boil and had to pull it out piece by piece, forgot to rinse a carboy after draining sanitizer out, and realized that after adding my aroma hops that wort wasn't boiling (burner had been turned off by accident when adding hops) so boiled an extra 10 minutes.

All beers turned out great.

 

[weirdboy]

On my first ever brew I pitched the yeast at 90+ straight from the fridge. Must have been some hardy stuff because the beer fermented just fine.

One time I accidentally got about half a gallon of the water from my ice water bath in the dirty sink into my boil pot while I was cooling it. Turned out great.

On my last two batches in a row, I've managed to melt the tubing on my burner as I was trying to cool down the wort, then replaced or otherwise fixed the tubing with other, non-sanitized substitutes. Both taste really good. This latest one still in primary might be my best brew yet.

 

[tranceamerica]

all of my screw ups include breaking the glass carboy - but only one ruined batch. this last week, broke 2 carboys - 1 by just lightly knocking two (empty) ones together...the other with too hot sugar water when bottling.

damn. I gotta get more carboys now...only 3 left...