what was your most dumb move in brewing?

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Ok, here's a good one. Getting ready to bottle, made my priming solution. Cleaned everything and soaked it star san. Emptied my bottling bucket and poured in my cooled priming solution. Grabbed my BB which had my beer in it and set it on the counter. Readied my auto siphon and was just about ready to rack to the bottling bucket. Noticed some fluid in the bottom so I emptied it into the sink! Realized I just dumped my priming solution!

And I was not drinking!
 
Not keeping a thorough log of what I was doing on my early brews. As a result, when I decide to make a favorite recipe again, I have to think, "Where the heck did I mash this? I know I substituted the hops in this recipe, but with what?" and on and on, and if the second batch is different, I have no idea why.
 
I fall into sleep after bring brew pot to boil.a few hours later there was .5 gallon of wort remaining in pot when i waked up.
 
Was making a yeast starter on Christmas night after some family celebration. Boiled the DME with the right amount of water, put it in the flask and pitched the yeast at about 210F BEFORE cooling. Realized right away that I was an idiot and luckily had another pack of yeast in the fridge.
 
After a day of having a few while brewing, I went to add my dry hops to the keg so I could rack my DIPA into it. Since whole hops like to go everywhere, I put them in my big funnel and grabbed the first thing I had handy to get them to to through, my hydrometer. The first 2.5 oz went great as I was being very careful then on the last 0.5 oz, it broke and all my wife could say was, I knew that was going to happen. Sadly I did too but it worked for most of it so I figured I could get away with it. Needless to say I will never be using a hydrometer to jam hops through a funnel again, I'll just run upstairs and grab a wooden spoon.
 
Dumbest would be using One-Step instead of dextrose to bottle with. It was my first batch and had both in small zip lock bags. I didn't notice until I finished bottling and was cleaning up.

Other one comes to mind is flaming the opening of a glass carboy, clacked the second the flam hit it.
 
Mine was deciding not to pay attention to the recipe on my first kit, adding spices to it (including clove instead of nutmeg) and pitching it way too hot. Satan's anus indeed.
 
Worst was when I half-assed the cleaning on a carboy and didn't use bleach on it before getting ready to put a batch of beer in it. I did use sanitizer but it wasn't clean. Lo and behold I got my first infection.

Second dumbest was accidentally switching up the yeasts for two batches I was doing almost simultaneously. The beers turned out fine but definitely not how I had wanted them to.

That's it for now but I'm brewing this weekend so who knows, maybe I'll have something else to post after Saturday.
 
never taking notes! cranked out a fantastic brown porter as a rush attempt to replace half a batch of infected beer, but now i have only a vague idea of what the grainbill was.
 
I was filling up the mashtun with hot water to preheat it for a second batch, seeing out the patio door that I was about to boil over on the first 10 gal batch, ran out to avert that disaster and forgot about the mash tun on the kitchen counter. 15 minutes later I remember the mash tun, the kitchen was flooded, dining room was flooded, so I proceeded to squeegee and mop up the mess. The water cascading down the dishwasher front has rendered it almost inoperative, it only works on high temp pot and pan scour with high temp dry. so now it melts all the Tupperware and plastic glasses if they go in the dishwasher. My wife has no idea why the dishwasher is messed up. but she was happy that I was nice enough to mop the floors while she was out getting a pedicure.
 
Not waiting for the trub to settle in my fermentor before racking to the bb. 1/4-1/2 inch of yeasties in the bottom of every bottle. Its a pain to try to pour into a glass without adding the unwanted bits.
 
Doing my first extract kit and adding the stepping grain to the muslin bag over the boiling pot. The grains came out much faster than expected and spilled into the boiling pot.
 
The dumbest move I made was getting into this hobby by splitting a starter brewing system and extract kit with 2 other guys. It's no fun brewing and only getting 12-18 beers out of the deal. This went on for the first 3-4 batches before I finally branched out on my own and "bought them out". I don't mind sharing beer, but when I own most of the equipment and do all of the setup, brewing, and clean up you can see where this whole partnership wasn't quite equal.

That always lingers in my head when debating moving to 10 gallon batches, but if i'm drinking 75% of the beer, i can handle staying with 5.
 
Dumbest so far was doing what I thought was an american ale. However about 3 weeks into fermentation I realized I pitched it with american LAGER yeast. I bottled it and will see how it turns out in about 3 weeks from now.
 
dwinkjr said:
Dumbest so far was doing what I thought was an american ale. However about 3 weeks into fermentation I realized I pitched it with american LAGER yeast. I bottled it and will see how it turns out in about 3 weeks from now.
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Sweet! You accidentally made a California Common (Steam). :rockin:
 
1) Breaking thermometer in the pot
2) Breaking thermometer in the carboy, after I finished cooling the entire batch and after I added yeast. Getting temperature reading was the last step and I had to dump the batch.
3) Made Baltic Porter during hot NYC summers. I was able to maintain proper temperature for the primary, when it got to secondary there was a huge spike and I could not keep it cold enough. The beer turned out bad and had to be dumped.
 
The dumbest move I ever made was thinking that the wort these two guys were boiling in the fraternity smelled gross and waiting 9 years to start brewing myself.
 
thinking that One-Step was cleaner AND sanitizer. Strangely enough, none of the 3 batches we've made without using StarSan or a sanitizer in the process taste bad from unsanitized supplies.
 
Indyking said:
Buying 2 brand new beer bottle cases for 19 bucks each because I could not wait to bottle my first extract brew...

Now I find it hard to handle the several bottles I got from craigslist and bars for a fraction of the price or, more often, for free!
Click to expand...

A case of Sam Adams bottles at Costco is in the 20 dollar range, and get this, they come with 2.25 gallons of Beer free!!
 
Dumbest mistake so far. Setting my hydrometer on the sanitized plate and reached for my beer and watched the hydrometer roll off the plate and hit the floor. My first brew I have no idea what the FG was. Tasted really good however. Im glad hydrometers are cheap.
 
Thought of another...

Aerating my wort with my floating thermometer still in the fermenter.

2-3 good shakes of the bucket and the glass thermometer a'sploded everywhere.

I totally forgot it was in there. I fermented it out, strained the steel shot and glass and was left with one metallic-tasting Amber ale.

Still waiting to see if that off-taste falls out.
 
Just made another one.

My current batch required a blowoff. Since I wanted to keep it cool (it was pretty warm, in the mid 80s), I was letting my carboy sit in an ice bath. Once it started bubbling through my airlock, I attached the blowoff hose and just let it drain into my ice chest.

That was two and a half weeks ago. I decided to go ahead and get it out of the ice bath since the temps are back into the 60s this week. As Han Solo would have said, "What an incredible smell (I) discovered." Blowoff that has sat for almost 3 weeks is very nasty.

On the bright side, I was able to see an enormous yeast cake at the bottom of my carboy.
 
The dumbest thing I've done so far? Hmmm,...let me think...LISTENIN TO YOU MFKR'S! lolz,jk. So far,I'd have to say 1) not going from wine making to beer brewing years ago. 2) not listenin to all I've read,seen,& preached about not following the instructions verbatim & counting on the top up water to cool the wort down to pitch temp!!
Gotta use the ol' ice bath from now on. Now if I could spare the $$ to get filter #2 & lines hooked up to the ice maker...But,darn it,I need more brewing stuff!
 
For getting to put corn sugar into bottling bucket, and realizing it after bottling...
:-|
 
Begin2Brew said:
Ok, here's a good one. Getting ready to bottle, made my priming solution. Cleaned everything and soaked it star san. Emptied my bottling bucket and poured in my cooled priming solution. Grabbed my BB which had my beer in it and set it on the counter. Readied my auto siphon and was just about ready to rack to the bottling bucket. Noticed some fluid in the bottom so I emptied it into the sink! Realized I just dumped my priming solution!

And I was not drinking!
Click to expand...

^I think this was the best so far.

My biggest so far (this is my first batch) was not checking temprature prior to pitching. That was at 4PM and I was bubbling when I woke up the next morning so I guess all is well. It's still in the primary, so the result is yet to be seen.
 
Begin2Brew said:
Ok, here's a good one. Getting ready to bottle, made my priming solution. Cleaned everything and soaked it star san. Emptied my bottling bucket and poured in my cooled priming solution. Grabbed my BB which had my beer in it and set it on the counter. Readied my auto siphon and was just about ready to rack to the bottling bucket. Noticed some fluid in the bottom so I emptied it into the sink! Realized I just dumped my priming solution!

And I was not drinking!
Click to expand...

I did the EXACT same thing once... felt like a complete moron.
 
I didnt check the clamps for the hose on the immersion chiller, sprayed some hose water in the finished batch before i could shut off the hose and run and get a screw driver, luckily the water was still pretty hot so hopefully didnt effect anything.
....just this past Saturday and was my first real batch ever so i guess its good that's the only thing that went wrong (I hope)
 
Mine is definately not paying attention to the settings on my temp controller and letting my heat wrapped fermenter get to 78 degrees before I realized what a bonehead I was. ALWAYS check the jumper settings on your Johnson Controls controller (cooling/heating/cut-in/cut-out). Luckily it was only at that temp for about 3 hours. I'm still waiting to taste that batch to see if I messed it up. Did I mention that I just did this 2 weeks ago? Oh well...
 
My dumbest thing would have to be my first All grain brew. I knew you had to take a first running off the mash tun, but had no idea what to do with the malty goodness. So i threw out the first 2qts in the grass.

I have made other dumb mistakes, but learning from them all...makes us better brewers. :mug:
 
Brewing after I had too much beer. I dropped my Better Bottle while aerating. Thank God that only a few drops sprayed out and sprayed me in the face....
 
I posted my dumbest but another mistake is having a few too many homebrews before/during a brew day. Has led to dumb things like: forgetting to put the manifold in my mash tun, putting my manifold in with the slots facing up, boiling off too much, water/starsan all over the kitchen floor, failure to oxygenate, starting pumps with wrong valves open..

Oh well. What's a good brewday without friends, good beer, and chaos.
 
Hey, some yeast survived.
aggiejay06 said:
First batch: I rehydrated my yeast in cold water, then read it was supposed to be 70-75F. Freaked out and through it in the microwave for 15 seconds (yeast still in the water mind you). Popped out at a 100 degrees or so. Talk about frying your yeast. Fermentation took 4.5 days to get going.
Click to expand...
 
I was fabricating a hook out of a wire clothes hanger. I was doing this to hang my floating thermometer to the side of my brew kettle for quick reading. I bent up the end for the thermometer and sized it up to fit for the kettle and made the next cut. Turns out I wasn't holding on to the thermometer. Glass and little metal balls all over the place. Why I didn't do it over the counter or take off the thermometer, I do not know... :eek:

I bought another thermometer and made a hook. I do recommend making one. Its the next best thing to an electronic thermometer.
 
1. Pitching to hot the first three brews I made, resulting in dead yeast.
2. Forgetting to sanitize my bottling bucket before bottling. Everything turned out ok though.
3. Not knowing of a blowoff hose for my first batch. Came home to a mess flowing out of the airlock.
4. Taking OG readings before toping off with preboiled water.
5. Taking OG reading with wort at 200 degrees.
6. Not storing a few in the closet to drink months later to see the difference.
7. Not getting into this earlier.
8. Drinking light beers for years.
9. Not watching the hot break, boil over. Not fun to clean.
10. Left room to get carboy cork and airlock, came back to find dogs tongue down the carboy.
 
Dumbest move:

Forgetting to EAT something while brewing! :mad:

This just leads to all types of disaster, and turns me into a dumb, irritable brewer.
 

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