What was your biggest mess up when doing a homebrew??

[fettersp]

I just want to hear some stories where something went completely wrong or you forgot to do something or messed up

 

[bracconiere]

got a surprise once with hot wort and a glass carboy.....

 

[Keith81]

Biggest mess: Brewing in the garage because it was 18 F for the high that day and snowing. Was filling the mash tun with garden hose to clean it. Heard a loud sound that gave me flashbacks of when a water pipe broke and flooded the basement once. In a panic I ran inside and downstairs expecting to see water everywhere, thankfully it was fine. Got back to the garage to an overflowing tun and still had a flood to clean up. Never figured out what the sound was.

Biggest Mistake: Probably when I plugged the element of my RIMS tube into the extension cord instead of the Inkbird PID, I think the mash got into the 180s before I discovered the problem. Beer still turned out pretty good.

 

[BrewerBrad82]

Once got yeast starters mixed up and accidentally pitched Hefe yeast into imperial stout wort. So gross.

 

[Spartan1979]

Many years ago I went to put Polyclar in a finished beer to clarify it and after I did it, I realized I grabbed the wrong container and put a cleaner in it. The only batch I dumped in 28 years of brewing.

 

[Dland]

Other than problems due to lax sanitation (does not happen anymore, hopefully), I forget to add the Whirlflock at end of boil every now and then. It has always happened when someone was visiting while I was brewing.

I used to bother with gelatin in those cases, but now I just call it a IPL or something.

My biggest fear is that I pump a whole batch to cellar with fermentor open or something, probably will happen some day...haha.

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

Once pumped 15 gallons from the mash tun to the boil kettle. The boil kettle still had the valve open. I had started transfer then went inside to do something. Came out to probably around 8 gallons of wort on the ground. Thank goodness I was outside. Still gutted, but if I would been indoors it would have been a nightmare.

 

[IslandLizard]

I brew in the kitchen. Was using a bottling bucket as my Starsan container. Suddenly wondered why there was all that water on the floor... Of course I had stepped on the spigot.

Filling the kettle with lautered wort from a bucket, and getting a weird sensation down below. You guessed it, I left the valve wide open!

 

[Jag75]

Didnt adjust the psi in my keg when using the diy bottle filler. Causing a massive explosion of stout over every wall and the ceiling as well in the room .

 

[jimmayhugh]

Forgot to put my false bottom into my mash tun. I pumped in the strike water, stirred in the grist, started my RIMs, and clogged the entire system with grist. I managed to drain the wort, scoop out the grain, clean the pumps and tubing, put in the false bottom, wort and grain, and re-start the process. The beer actually turned out well, and now checking for the false bottom is on my checklist.

It was a 10 gallon batch.

 

[Dave Sarber]

Transferred about 8 gallons of tripel to 2 big mouth bubblers in freezer to condition at 50°. Checked about 3 days later, and found the only BMB I have that is equipped with a spigot was leaking, had about 2 gallons of beer in bottom of freezer. Great fun to clean.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I drank Coors Light once.

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

I drank Coors Light once.

[/END THREAD]

 

[Novacor]

I brew in the kitchen. Was using a bottling bucket as my Starsan container. Suddenly wondered why there was all that water on the floor... Of course I had stepped on the spigot.

Filling the kettle with lautered wort from a bucket, and getting a weird sensation down below. You guessed it, I left the valve wide open!

I swear that there are spigot gremlins in my apartment who open up spigots that I've double checked to be closed.

 

[str1p3s]

I was making a big starter for a lager plus some extra to save for later, so the starter was around a gallon in a 5L flask. I was boiling the wort on the stove in the flask. I heard a cracking sound and knew exactly what was happening immediately. Tried to grab the flask off the stove to put in the sink before the wort got everywhere and the whole bottom broke off and the entire gallon starter ended up all over the brand new floor that I had just put down a few days before.

 

[applescrap]

I love these stories, i think there is already a big thread on this, would be nice to combine and resurrect, its something about biggest mistake but beer turned out. I dropped my towel in the beer once it was cool right before pitch! It was a kitchen towell no less that I had been cleaning spills etc...well when I leaned over to pick up kettle it fell in!

 

[Soulshine2]

I just want to hear some stories where something went completely wrong or you forgot to do something or messed up

walked away from an open valve during BK to fermenter transfer...the tubing jumped out of the carboy and I had almost a half gallon of wort on the ground in literally 10 seconds.

 

[kh54s10]

Over flowed the kitchen sink once cooling the wort. Other than that just some boil overs. I pay attention when brewing and will never have a problem with glass carboys. They are too dangerous to risk using, IMO.

 

[RealRayDizzle]

Tried making a bourbon barrel aged cherry ale a few months ago.
everything was going great, tasted just like an old fashion cocktail after being in barrel 10 days, left it another 5 days because I did not have the time to keg it. whole thing soured in that time. ruined the barrel, beer was undrinkable (think old fruit flavor).
went from amazing to gross in less than 5 days.

 

[WeHeavy]

Accidentally knocked a FULL Igloo mash tun off it's step stool, in the kitchen, in front of the wife. She just turned around and walked out. What a mess!

 

[gunhaus]

Brewed a foreign extra stout, and a red ale on the Wed before Thanksgiving. Was screaming proud to have FINALLY planned ahead enough to let these sit and age a bit for St Paddy day. Put them in their fermenters, set the temp controls, installed blow off tubes, and went away for the weekend. Got home monday to zero signs of activity . . . Probably because I had never pitched any yeast. There was nothing untoward visibly growing in them, so with nothing to lose I hit each with pack of Notty, and in the end they were not all bad at all! Expected maybe some kind of wildlife would have moved in - but they tasted pretty normal all in all.

 

[NewJersey]

Too many mistakes to count over the years. I've recently switched to eBIAB and brewed my first on this setup. Well, forgot to put the damn bag in the kettle and only realized as I was done dumping in the grain.

 

[Jag75]

Too many mistakes to count over the years. I've recently switched to eBIAB and brewed my first on this setup. Well, forgot to put the damn bag in the kettle and only realized as I was done dumping in the grain.

Ohhhh fuuuuudge lol

 

[Spartan1979]

I was making a big starter for a lager plus some extra to save for later, so the starter was around a gallon in a 5L flask. I was boiling the wort on the stove in the flask. I heard a cracking sound and knew exactly what was happening immediately. Tried to grab the flask off the stove to put in the sink before the wort got everywhere and the whole bottom broke off and the entire gallon starter ended up all over the brand new floor that I had just put down a few days before.

I had a similar thing happen with a brand new flask. Fortunately I was out in the garage. I won't buy off brand flasks any longer.

 

[corkybstewart]

I brewed a wit on a Saturday. We had to go to a wedding at 4 PM so I started at 6 AM. Everything went well until I added the dried orange peel for the last 10 minutes of the boil. It swelled up and clogged my pump and wort chiller. I had to remove all the wort(11 gallons) from the kettle, strain out the peel, clear the pump, hoses and fittings. (Luckily wits are low hop beers so that wasn't a big problem when I cleaned everything out) By then the wort was cool so I had to reboil to prevent infection. By now it's 11 AM, still plenty of time. Then I realize all the ice I bought to chill the wort had melted, so as soon as the wort had boiled another 15 minutes I drove back to town and bought more. I start running the wort through the chiller(combo immersion with counterflow) and a connection on the counterflow comes off and a gallon of wort flows across the driveway. My wife comes out and says to pour it out in the yard, and come get ready for the wedding. At 2:30 PM it's finally flowing to the fermenters(2 7 gallon buckets) and by 3 I'm done. I pitch the yeast, take a shower and off we go. The next day I go into the brew room-the blowoffs on both fermenters have plugged and the lids have blown across the room and there's krausen on the floor, walls and ceiling. Wifey tells me again to pour it out and start over. 2 weeks later I'm drinking one of the best wits I've ever had, and I certainly never made one that good again.

 

[bleme]

I bottled 4 gallons of beer, then put 1 gallon in secondary with some brett dregs just to see what it would do. As I am cleaning up, I notice that I have another gallon jug on the counter. Turns out, I used an unsanitized secondary. Oh well. I put it all away and basically forgot about it for a year. When I finally dug it out, I had a very nice gallon of malt vinegar.

 

[seatazzz]

Took a very nice homebrew-inspired nap during the boil for a hop-heavy (read: expensive) IPA. What was supposed to be 5 gallons turned into 3, and my ABV went up to about 9%. Darn good beer though.

 

[firerat]

Had about 20ish bottle bombs go off in a closet.

I swear I can still, 10 years later, find little pieces of glass every now and again in that closet. That incident tested my marriage.

 

[jonny24]

Forgot the filter tube in my cooler a couple times. That involves scooping hot mash into a bucket to get at the inside of the spigot. I've tried to do it blind with oven mitts in a garbage bag, but the wire mesh opening is too flexible, you really need to be able to see it to coax it on.

The worst however, was when I was setting up my taps on my bar. I have a 6 tap tower on the bar on the main floor, with kegs in a fridge in the basement below it. I had gotten one tap hooked up just in time to show off for a party, and it worked flawlessly. Two weeks later I hooked up another keg. Connected the beer line, headed upstairs. I DID remember to check to make sure the tap was closed first. Pour a pint, worked fine, stand there looking at the tap.

Drip.

From the back of the tap.

Hmm... I wipe it, and lean closer to see where it comes out.

Drip. From the next tap.

At this point I decided to disconnect the beer and tighten some things. Go downstairs, open the fridge, and beer is SHOOTING out and spraying all over the inside of the fridge. Just everywhere. It was coming out of my homemade trunk line, it had backed up all the way back around the outsides of the beer lines. Got soaked trying to pull the line off the keg.

What I ended up figuring out was that the O-rings on the built-in shanks on the tower were broken. By some miracle, the first tap I hooked up was the ONLY one with intact seals. ALL the rest were broken, and since the first tap worked I thought I had gotten everything right.

I had to pull my trunk line all the way back out of the wall/floor, deconstruct it and replace all the insulating foam and plastic wrap that was soaked in beer, reassemble and replace. And wrapping/zip tying all the beer line is NOT a fun or easy task.

 

[Professor Frink]

I made a cider once, boiled up some corn sugar to boost the ABV. Didn't cool it and poured it in to my plastic fermenter before adding the juice. Melted the crap out of it.

 

[BrewMan13]

Once did an imperial stout with a bunch of added stuff (ie: an expensive brew) and after the boil I put the kettle on a glass table on my back deck while I got the chiller situated. I had my back turned when I heard a crash, and my deck was now covered in hot wort and shards of glass. The wort attracted honey bees which buzzed around while I cleaned up the glass.
Edit: another great time was when I (stupidly) used to not securely attach the hose to my kettle when pumping the wort through the chiller. It came loose and I managed to re-attach it, but 2 of my fingers got torched with hot wort through my gloves and had skin peel off. And the beer wasn't even that good.

 

[BBBF]

Trying to cold crash a mead outside, in a glass carboy and forgetting to take it back inside when the temperature dropped.

 

[bracconiere]

not really the worst mistake, but just recently my immersion chiller sprung a leak, needless to say i had to bring 14 gallons, of what started as 10 back to a boil....

 

[Jaybird]

First time using a Teflon coated plastic carboy (this is about 20 years ago) we decided to put the hot wort in it so we could float it in my pool (in the winter) to cool it down to pitch. Well about 1/2 gallon in the carboy shrunk to about 1/2 size. It was hilarious.
We absolutely learned our lesson. NO BEER BEFORE BOIL

Cheers
Jay

 

[Rackrunner]

Two quick ones:
I use a grainfather, which has a grain basket you lift out after mashing and set on top to sparge. Decided to press down on the screen a bit to "get that extra little bit of liquid out". Bottom screen gave way and I dropped 14 lb of grain back into the now-200 degree wort coming up to a boil. Only brew day I've ever had to dump outright, and damn near burned my face off with a wort volcano!

Second one was pure stupid - collecting hot water from the counterflow chiller for use in cleanup later and just plain old forgot to turn the water off after the xfer to fermenter was done. Unfortunately this was indoors (basement) and had quite a bit of water cleanup to do

 

[day_trippr]

[Knock on wood/cross self thrice] Really only one exciting event in all the years but it was a beaut: the first brew on my first dual-pumped three vessel rig, I was swapping the wort pump output hose from recirculating the mash to draining it to the boil kettle and I thought I had shut off the wort pump. Wrong, I had switched off the hlt pump. That was one hot mess, especially as the pump switches were at the bottom of the rig...

Cheers!

 

[day_trippr]

...I mean, as differentiated from random stupid brewer stuff...

Like, about 10 minutes ago, sitting in my office, sipping a stout, scanning all of my little computer minions scattered around the premises, and discovered ferm chamber 2 - which I just loaded with two carboys filled with the days brew - is ignoring its controller telling it to turn on the fridge compressor.

Went down to the humble brew space, checked the controller - yup, it wants cool, now - then check the fridge itself. Which was turned off.

Stupid stuff like that happens weekly 'round here. My minions save my dumb ass

Cheers!

 

[Soulshine2]

I bottled 4 gallons of beer, then put 1 gallon in secondary with some brett dregs just to see what it would do. As I am cleaning up, I notice that I have another gallon jug on the counter. Turns out, I used an unsanitized secondary. Oh well. I put it all away and basically forgot about it for a year. When I finally dug it out, I had a very nice gallon of malt vinegar.

probably the best salad dressing vinegar ever

 

[Soulshine2]

not really the worst mistake, but just recently my immersion chiller sprung a leak, needless to say i had to bring 14 gallons, of what started as 10 back to a boil....

i knew there was a reason I set up my IC and test it every time before I dunk it.

and there it is.

 

[Soulshine2]

Forgot the filter tube in my cooler a couple times. That involves scooping hot mash into a bucket to get at the inside of the spigot. I've tried to do it blind with oven mitts in a garbage bag, but the wire mesh opening is too flexible, you really need to be able to see it to coax it on.

The worst however, was when I was setting up my taps on my bar. I have a 6 tap tower on the bar on the main floor, with kegs in a fridge in the basement below it. I had gotten one tap hooked up just in time to show off for a party, and it worked flawlessly. Two weeks later I hooked up another keg. Connected the beer line, headed upstairs. I DID remember to check to make sure the tap was closed first. Pour a pint, worked fine, stand there looking at the tap.

Drip.

From the back of the tap.

Hmm... I wipe it, and lean closer to see where it comes out.

Drip. From the next tap.

At this point I decided to disconnect the beer and tighten some things. Go downstairs, open the fridge, and beer is SHOOTING out and spraying all over the inside of the fridge. Just everywhere. It was coming out of my homemade trunk line, it had backed up all the way back around the outsides of the beer lines. Got soaked trying to pull the line off the keg.

What I ended up figuring out was that the O-rings on the built-in shanks on the tower were broken. By some miracle, the first tap I hooked up was the ONLY one with intact seals. ALL the rest were broken, and since the first tap worked I thought I had gotten everything right.

I had to pull my trunk line all the way back out of the wall/floor, deconstruct it and replace all the insulating foam and plastic wrap that was soaked in beer, reassemble and replace. And wrapping/zip tying all the beer line is NOT a fun or easy task.

its stories like these that confirm why i dont use pumps and why I still bottle