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

[webnmar]

I had a live earwig in my bottling spigot that I didn't notice until I was cleaning it, and somehow the little bugger held on for all five gallons!

I bet you wound up with only 4 1/2 gallons afterward though. He drank a 1/2 gallon as he was holding on!!!!

 

[cobalt60]

Got a few of these...

Added extract before steeping my grains. Decided it didn't matter that much, steeped the whole mix at 160, and it turned into a darn good APA!

Was straining hop gunk out of a gingered ale, and the colander started filling up. I stuck my hand right into it and mixed it up to try and get the wort flowing again! I was positive I'd infected the batch with *something*, but it turned out fine.

Made a batch, was very careful to watch my pitching temperature, and pitched my yeast as it hit 70 degrees. A week later, I started wondering where my thermometer had gone. Found it floating in my fermeter when I went to bottle... covered with krausen gunk!

...and yet, somehow, each time I ended up with great beer!

 

[jds]

I was brewing a beer last month, and the stainless scrubby over the end of my boiler's dip tube got hooked on the IC and pulled off when I took the chiller out to whirlpool.

I ended up sanitizing my entire right arm, reaching into the cooled wort, and clearing the dip tube when it clogged with leaf hops.

The beer was fine coming out of the fermenter, and is waiting for me to tap the keg.

 

[knotquiteawake]

my first brew I didn't realize that I had to top off the carboy to get back up to 5 gallons, so i ended up about .75 gallons short on water. Made a darn good/strong IPA!

 

[HokieBrewer]

Brewed an American wheat beer and my airlock wasn't tight. Freaked out about lack of bubbles after 4 days (even though I saw krausen ) and shook half a pack of notty into it.

Turned out delicious.

 

[ImperialLover]

I dropped the rubber grommet on my lid into the fermenting bucket. I left it there worried about putting my arm in it and messing it up. I put a better bottle top in the hole upside down and stuck in an air lock. That beer turned out pretty damn good.

Then, this last batch I just did, an imperial coffee stout, I did the same thing!!! Instead of leaving it in there this time, I reached in and retrieved it. Haven't tasted the beer yet, but I bet it'll be fine.

 

[k2brew]

One of my college friends came over while our girls went to a bridal show. We drank a few homebrews and he asked me how to brew. Since I was planning on brewing the next day we just started it up. Yeah got so drunk I forgot to add irish moss, sanitize my primary and I didn't check the temp I pitched at (I stuck my finger in and said "Eh that's good enough".

Darn good pale ale, darn poor brewing teacher.

 

[mr_fungle]

Great thread for us beginners! Puts a lot of fears at ease.

I'm only three bathes deep, but my first batch was a bit of a gong show. Started off boiling the wort on an electric stove. After almost 2 hours with no signs of boiling, I started racking my brain for other heatsources. Realized I have a gas sideburner on the BBQ, so I moved everything outside, fired up the burner and started up again. After 10 minutes it started to smell like burning plastic, and I realized the pot was so wide it pushed the flame towards the plastic rim around the burner - which was now on fire. Everything went back inside, I put out the fire, unscrewed the plastic piece, carried everything back outside, and finally got it boiling. A process that should have taken 2 hours ended up taking 5. The wheat beer was one of the best I've ever had, and I already have another batch on the go.

 

[SaltyDog620]

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.

 

[Marius]

Once I took a gravity reading after pitching the yeast, I poured the sample into a glass. I left it in the balcony for three weeks (83ºF), mosquitos went there to taste it everyday.

After those three weeks I bottled it, I put that bottle back again in the balcony, waited three more weeks, then one week in the fridge and... Voila!

It was quite good.

Since that day it was much easyer for me to RDWHAHB when I felt something was wrong in my brewday

 

[MultumInParvo]

Wow, I just spent a lot of time reading all of those...

I am by no means a vet here, but on my first batch I didn't fully understand that a 5 gallon pot should have 5 gallons of wort in it (as Revvy brought up over 100 posts ago). Well, I also didn't really understand the hot break either. The pot was sitting there, completely full or wort, and not yet boiling. I look down, grab my beer and finish it up. In the total of 5 seconds I didn't spend watching the pot suddenly there was a huge mass of foam about to boil over. Clearly not thinking I grabbed the stainless steel pot full of boiling water with my bare hands and moved it off. I think some of my hands stuck to the nice new pot, wort got all over, and the boiling water on my hands certainly didn't feel good. It also burnt off all of the hair on my hands up to my wrists.

Beer turned out pretty good though!

 

[JoeMama]

Well, add 1 to the list. I brewed 2 seperate batches but kegged them around the same time. A brown ale, and an IPA.

Dry hopped what I thought was the IPA for over a week.
Tapped what I thought was the IPA and it was much darker than I had hoped (I was miffed) and it tasted 'funny'

Tapped the 'brown ale' today to find that it was the IPA...
Now I have an IPA (with no hop aroma - still TASTY!) and an overly hopped brown ale with conflicting hop profiles. (Still good)
But a noobish mistake.
-Me

 

[khanti]

Kinda late to the party on this thread, but I'm just getting started and found this wonderful discussion of all of my worst fears turning out OK!

Aside from dropping the seal from the hole in the fermenter bucket lid into the wort, I've only messed up one in my first 5 batches in any significant way... In batch #4 (an IIPA), my first full-boil extract batch with my new turkey fryer, I forgot to 'season' the pot and was afraid I'd have a metallic taste. Then I pitched a White Labs vial at 68* and nothing happened for 5 days. It was then that I learned how to read the sticker on the vial to realize it was nearly a year old. Threw two packs of rehydrated dry Nottingham and it took off, but still spent far longer in the primary than I would have liked. (learned that lesson and used a starter in batch #5). It's been in the secondary for 4 days now and just drew a sample. Came in at 1.017 which is better than I though it would be given the rough start, but does have a metallic taste to it.... I'm hoping that will fade with time. Anyone have any idea if that's a realistic hope?

 

[RunBikeBrew]

I bottled 5 gallons of Haus Pale Ale with a fly drowning in the bottling bucket. Beer is fine...

(How can you not get an infection from a fly? Those guys are disgusting...beer must be tough.)

 

[JoeMama]

Thats what you call a Fly Sparge

I brewed a Haus Ale and overboiled it so I ended up with less beer than anticipated, pitched the yeast too hot (and stressed the hell out of them) RE pitched with some bread yeast and its all estery/bananna-y right now on tap. The estery smell and flavor is slowly fading and the beer is getting closer to tasting normal. (A little on the hot side cause I had more concentrated wort cause I boiled so hard) but getting better.
-Me

 

[bonzombiekitty]

My first batch, I was an idiot and couldn't figure out how to get the siphon to start. So I used my mouth. Beer seems fine so far.

 

[dficker]

I had trouble starting my siphon to rack my cooled wort to the primary, mainly b/c I was trying to keep a kitchen strainer attached to it. I usually fill the tube with water to get the siphon going, but i my haste I used my mouth, I got a mouthful and it took my by surprise, so i spit it in the fermenter...crap...so I washed the bucket out quickly and started the siphon using filled water and ditched the strainer.

We will wait and see.................

This is a holiday ale I plan to give away for gifts...don't tell anyone ;-)

 

[BrewRI]

One time when I was pouring my wort into my primary I told my girlfriend that if she went out more often she wouldn't have to be so clingy all the time. To my surprise the beer still came out awesome!

 

[JoeMama]

I seem to make a mistake or 2 every single brewday. Its not intentional, it happens. I think I have YET to have the 'perfect' brewday where everything goes off without a hitch. Thus far I dont think I have had a batch that I didnt want to drink.

This weekend consisted of my very first ever FWH of centenials.
My recipe called for Magnums at the beginning of the boil and centenials at the end. I ended up using an oz of cents in the FWH, and the magnums at the beginning of the boil. I somehow forgot my centenial addition at the end of the boil. So now I am going to have a superbly bitter brew with a nice aroma when I dry hop it with 2 more oz of centenials. Its an IPA, but a little different eh?
-Me

 

[Walker]

Biggest mistake was made on my first batch ever (1997).

Me and my roommates had a carboy for a fermenter, but were too drunk and inexperienced to figure out a clean way to siphon the beer into the bottling bucket, so I just sucked on the siphon hose to get it started.

We had the input end of the siphon too deep in the carboy, and I got a huge mouthfull of trub, which I choked on, and I coughed a mouthful of beer and sludge into the bottling bucket. The beer started flowing in on top of this.

We all stood there thunderstuck and by the time we thought "Hey, we better stop the siphon, dump the tainted beer, and start over to salvage what we can", we had let a large portion of the beer already drain into the bucket.

We went ahead and let it finish and bottled it. It was great. No contamination.

Of course, my roommates were probably thinking "This has Walker's spit in it" when we cracked the bottles open a few weeks later, but they apparently got over it pretty quickly because we drank the whole 5 gallon batch in just 2 days.

 

[duffman2]

Ok, this was just brewed Monday, so I have no idea if it will turn out fine, but....

Had a couple of days of Mon - Thurs, so I thought I would brew close to thursday, but Monday morning the SWMBO called to let me know that she was going to have to put her 200 pound puppy dog down due to a congenital defect that caused him too much pain in his neck to handle. She was crushed, so I told her I'd take her out of town for a couple of days.....moving brew day up to Now! I let her know that I would brew and bbq for every1 and try to get her mind off her dog before taking her out of town.

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.

I thought that it was a bad omen after the first two animals died, and wondered if my grandfather's 16 year old border collie that I have in my backyard would be the next one on the list. Now I know that it was my Belgian White that became the 3rd casualty!! Morale of the story is, if you're too busy to brew, don't brew! Stay tuned for the results!!

 

[ThreeSheets]

Oh boy...

So I learned what that plastic wand with the spring tip (bottle filler) that came in my kit was the day AFTER bottling my first batch.

Me and my brother couldn't figure out how the heck to fill up 48 bottles with a continuously running siphon. We tried lining up bottles on floor and moving the hose quickly from bottle to bottle. But we spilled so much on floor. Then we got smarter and put the bottles in a cooler to help catch the extra beer. It didn't help that my brother was also spraying all the bottles towards the end to top them off. That was by far the messiest bottle day ever. And talk about aeration!!!

All in all the beer came out fine, nice and carbonated.

 

[Vuarra]

I had had one bottling under my belt (not counting the meads and wines, which I like still), and so I had my carboy in my carpeted bedroom. I had found it to be a PITA to try to put 5mL of dextrose in every dang bottle, so for some reason (maybe I had a RDWHAHB? or twelve?) I decided to put the beer in first, then the sugar. No, I did not wait for the carbonation in the fermenter to come out of solution. The sugar took care of that.

Yes, this was before I came to this website, and before I realized that the instructions on the can were useless.

 

[bassbone]

I made a long list of mistakes my first batch, and it still turned out great.

- Did not know the proper way to start a siphon, so I did it the unsanitary way
- knocked the airlock seal into the primary. could not fish it out with the sanitized spoon. Ended up reaching into the wort to grab it
- ended up pitching the yeast about 15 degrees too hot.
Many more similar issues with the first few batches. Both turned out ok.

 

[mikeysab]

Wow, I love this thread. Pure genius to have started this one, Revvy. I wish I had some cool story, like my Chihuahua fell in the boil kettle, or my daughter threw her used diaper into the fermenter, but I'm so new that i don't have an interesting story. The only thing I can scratch up is on my last brew, first unhopped extract. First time using my new turkey fryer kit and first time having to cool wort, first time adding things to a boil, basically first time for a lot of things. It was a Belgian Quad, so it came with a HUGE plastic bag full of extract. It took me about 20 minutes to get the sack into the kettle, then another 20 to return it to boil, as I didn't want a boil over. Missed the last hop addition, missed a spice pack addition, and missed a sugar addition. The spice pack I TOTALLY forgot to add, which I remembered as I was carrying 5 gallons of boiling wort through my living room, so I returned it to the boil and added and boiled an additional 10 minutes. Then I threw the pot in the bathtub with a bunch of water and ice bottles, 2 feet from the toilet to cool. First time using my brand new auto siphon, which didn't work, so I had to use lung power to sipon from the kettle. Lost about half a gallon of clear wort on the bathroom floor. My socks stuck to the floor for a day or two after brew day. 1.100 OG was probably to thank for that. So far it's been in primary for 2 weeks and secondary for a week and I don't see any problems. Actually tasted a hydro sample today and seems to be my best brew yet. But then again it's my first brew away from Coopers kits, so that coul be part of it. Got a Winter Warmer planned for tomorrow, so tomorrow night will probably be my next addition to this thread. First extract with steeping grains, so that probably just got changed to a definitely.

 

[msa8967]

Just curious in leanring to make our own recipes...What if someone used too much wheat extract? For example, as a NOOB I may be looking at a wheat extract recipe that calls for 6 lbs of Wheat/Barley LME and I end up using 6 lbs of DME as an oversight? I know that the weight of the DME should be less than the LME but what would happend to this brew given the amount of yeast stayed the same?

Not looking to do this intentionally but I am curious to know if anyone made this mistake before?

Mick

 

[Apollofrost]

Ok, I'll bite.

I've got what I like to call the mad inventor gene and it leads me to interesting results through unorthodox methods. My second batch of cider I underpitched my yeast, 1 gram without a starter for a 1g batch with a sg of 1.090. Well yeast crapped out about 1.040 so I cold crashed it and siphoned off a little bit to try... it was paint thinner.

Oh what a difference two weeks makes. I back sweetened it with a little honey and ended up with an amazingly smooth refreshing golden still cider.

 

[thirdedition]

I brewed a Scotch Ale two days before I left for a weekend trip. I put it in my 5 gallon better bottle and threw on the airlock and left the next day.

I got home Monday at 4 in the morning, go downstairs to check and find my air lock on the ground. I have no idea how long it had been sitting open and I had no idea what got in there. I washed and sanitized the air lock and threw it back on. I should also add that the thermostat was turned off as well so I have no idea how hot or cold the house got. I kegged it a few days after I got back, it is now on tap and it tastes fantastic.

Not a huge mistake, but I was sure worried about it.

 

[Lordsoth]

Measured wrong and ended up mashing in with a grist ratio of 3:1, while brewing a hefeweizen, instead of the intended 1.75:1 (don't ask). Basically, my mash looked like wheat & barley soup. All told everything went great, though. OG of 1.062, FG of 1.012. The beer tasted great, had a nice, creamy body and well balanced flavors, my best hefe to date.

 

[flyerwire]

Measured wrong and ended up mashing in with a grist ratio of 3:1, while brewing a hefeweizen, instead of the intended 1.75:1 (don't ask). Basically, my mash looked like wheat & barley soup. All told everything went great, though. OG of 1.062, FG of 1.012. The beer tasted great, had a nice, creamy body and well balanced flavors, my best hefe to date.

ha, i was just coming to basically post the same thing. With a few friends over and a few drinks going beforehand, i had a temporary lapse of memory with some new equipment i marked. I thought my marks were 1 and 2 gallon marks, but they were half and 1 gallon marks. Needless to say it was half the amount of water needed, i sparged to make up for it after i realized my mistake. This was on an oktoberfest. I took it to a haloween party and 5 gallons was gone in under 45 minutes... so apparently everyone loved it