whats the worst brewing accident you have witnessed or been a part of?

[tripplehazzard]

I know everyone has a stroke of bad luck every now and again. I want to know what's the worst brewing accident you have done. Anything from broken hydrometers.. to bad yeast... or maybe whole batches being spilled

 

[gcdowd]

Spilled a whole batch of hot wort all over myself, that sucked

 

[runningweird]

i placed my propane burner too close to my freezer and melted part of the temperature control plate.

 

[PeterPan]

I was siphoning my cooled wort into a carboy. I stepped out for a minute and when I came back the tubing fell out. I lost half my wort

 

[Double_D]

I was planning to do a party gyle one time and ran everything into the same pot. And when I first put together my keg system my liquid lines froze solid because they were run through the freezer. I pulled the liquid line off the shank and didn't disconnect the gas (IDK what I was thinking) but I came out the next morning and heard a dribbling in the kegerator. When I opened the door about half the keg ran out onto the floor of my garage.

 

[qwiksilvr00]

(First batch) I could not for the life of me get my siphon primed so I was forced to suck it through with my mouth :-( That batch is still in 2nd stage.. Hoping for the best.

 

[fizgig]

I was siphoning my cooled wort into a carboy. I stepped out for a minute and when I came back the tubing fell out. I lost half my wort

I was tempted to start bringing my gear into the house last night, but I thought I better watch it. sure enough, it started to tip out of the kettle so I stood there and held it. The colder the tubes got, the weird they acted, it was about 25 degrees out.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

Dropped a carboy full (of water) into the laundry room sink, punctured the sink, and knocked out the hot water valve; hot water everywhere. Warped the wooden floors for a couple months.

MC

 

[seigex]

Picked up a Carboy full of wort after just pitching the yeast, bottom of the carboy fell out, spilled perfectly good wort everywhere. Luckily I was outside, so I didn't make a huge mess, but licking up the wort so it didn't go to waste wasn't as easy.

 

[Braufessor]

Dropped Carboy with water in it through the bottom of my washtub sink onto tile floor in my basement and it broke into about a million pieces that spread remarkably far across my basement (luckily I did not get cut or hurt - considering I did not have shoes on, I probably deserved to.)

Also placed a bucket awkwardly while draining finished wort into the bucket for fermentation. At about the 5 gallon mark, it fell over and I lost it all. Sticky Wort = no fun to clean up

 

[seigex]

Not an accident, but the most egregious mistake I've made. I dumped an entire corny of a Hefeweizen (my second batch of beer) because I mistook the heavy banana flavor caused by high ferm temp as an infection

 

[flars]

Packaging a 6-pack of Speckled Heifer for my sister-in-law. Bottom fell out. Top of one of the bottles went into my thigh. Four hours and three stitches later back home replenishing lost blood. Sister-in-law had cleaned up the brew room floor. Wife cleaned the blood out of her car.

 

[Antler]

(First batch) I could not for the life of me get my siphon primed so I was forced to suck it through with my mouth :-( That batch is still in 2nd stage.. Hoping for the best.

I did this lots without any problems, I'd always swish a mouthful of vodka first. If it does get infected I'd bet it's another problem.

 

[markm2151]

I was there in spirit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

 

[Lucky7s]

Picked up a Carboy full of wort after just pitching the yeast, bottom of the carboy fell out, spilled perfectly good wort everywhere. Luckily I was outside, so I didn't make a huge mess, but licking up the wort so it didn't go to waste wasn't as easy.

Similar here except my new carboy was seeping. Tried to get it in the bathtub, but bottom just broke out. I was left holding the neck in one hand and bottom in the other...with 5 1/2 gallons of chocolate peanut butter stout everywhere. No injuries but a lot of cleanup. It also cost me new carpeting in the adjoining master bedroom.

 

[andvari7]

This past January, I was siphoning to bottles, from a plastic bucket. About two-thirds of the way into it, the 2-gallon bucket, which was perched rather precariously on the bathroom sink counter, tipped over. I was covered, and I lost the rest of the batch. Just as well; the beer was plastic-y and undrinkable.

I'm not taking any chances next time: I'm siphoning on an inverted five-gallon bucket, and keeping the bottles in a Rubbermaid bin whilst bottling.

 

[BamaProud]

I cleaning an old (light blue-green glass) carboy that belonged to my Father N Laws mother. Just as I was finishing it up, the bottom fall out onto my bare feet. Cut me pretty good. I wasn't planing on using it, just cleaning it up for display.

Brewing mistake: prior to bottling my plastic valve came loose and started slowly leaking. In a mild panic I tried tightening it, but turned it the wrong way making it nearly fall out altogether. Luckily my wife was around so after about 1/2 gal spilled she held the valve in place while I cleaned another fermenter and racked it to safety. She won't let me bottle in the kitchen anymore.

 

[WroxBrew]

I wasn't around when it happened, but my roomate witnessed the whole thing. He was on his computer in the living room when he heard a champagne cork popping sound come from the kitchen. He then heard what sounded like a strange gurgling noise and went to investigate. What he found was my 5 gallon carboy shooting a beer geyser straight up and hitting the ceiling (old colonial with high ceilings). Nothing he could really do about it so he watched until it fizzled out. Turns out the blow off tube got something stuck into it and the pressure just built up till the stopper blew. Beer everywhere! I wish he had a cell phone with a camera at the time, but alas no pics.

 

[Mojzis]

(First batch) I could not for the life of me get my siphon primed so I was forced to suck it through with my mouth :-( That batch is still in 2nd stage.. Hoping for the best.

I've been doing this for over a year without any issues at all. While you shouldn't.... You certainly can.

 

[tripplehazzard]

I was there in spirit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

Holy mother of all that is beer! That has to maybe the worst beer accident in history. Wow! Maybe you are one of these poor souls reincarnated .. how did you run across this bit?

 

[tripplehazzard]

I was there in spirit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...GWhoBo&usg=AFQjCNFRCPRzqW3u9pSM4HYn0krLV6OGPw this one is pretty horrible also

 

[NoHawk]

My roommate and I were bottling a Ginger IPA. I had to leave to catch a meeting I forgot about, and he finished up the bottling. He mixed up the clean, sterilized bottles with the oh-dear-god-what-is-growing-in-there dirty bottles... We ended up tossing half the beer because of the dirty, Lovcraftian horrors in the bottles...

 

[mageac]

Was trying to pop the inflated bag inside a party pig after I left it sitting outside for a week in a Texas summer (I know, I know). Took one puncture with a pen before it blew with such force that my ears were ringing.also covered me with nasty, hot oatmeal stout.

Another one with the party pig; thought it was a good idea once to activate the bag before I put in inside the pig and quickly stuff it inside then tighten the lid since I'd always had problems activating it with a hand pump
.what I didn't know at the time was that the bag inflates soo quickly.quick enough in fact that by the time I activated the bag, stuffed it inside the pig and started tightening the lid I had beer shooting up to my 8 ft ceiling and everywhere else. There went about 2 g gallons of beer. After that,I bought cornies and gas and gave the pig away.

 

[Ostomo517]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.examiner.com%2Farticle%2Fbeer-disaster-on-i-95-near-daytona-beach&ei=DF81UZ6xCOLiyAGWhoBo&usg=AFQjCNFRCPRzqW3u9pSM4HYn0krLV6OGPw this one is pretty horrible also

Eh its just Heineken, no biggie

 

[lumpher]

made an ipa and put it in a bottling bucket i was given. couple weeks later, a guest kicked the spigot open. didn't notice till the room started stinking, and i was going to keg the ipa, but the bucket was empty. he admitted it later, after i tore out the nasty carpet and rotten padding and tiled the room...

 

[Mb2658]

I had a freshly carbed keg of my pale ale that I went out to check on the Saturday before I was supposed to take it to a Superbowl party. The picnic tap managed to get pressed against the side of the keg when I closed the door and drained the keg into the crisper drawers and onto my a garage floor.

 

[iluv2brew]

My very frist brew was ginger beer. I followed the recipe, but the beer took longer than the recipe stated. Back then I didn't have a hydrometer, so I just bottled up the Ginger beer and then placed it into the fridge. That slowed down the fermentation but didn't completely stop it. It was very tasty and bubbly. We gave several bottles away before coming home one night to find the the floor behind the bar thick with sticky soda and the mini fridge a total mess.
We were telling this story to one of the couples that we had given several bottle to. They then told us that they had set the bottles on their dryer and forgot about them until they heard a real loud pop. They had ginger beer all over their clean clothes. Thankfully I had used plastic bottle instead of glass.

 

[tripplehazzard]

Eh its just Heineken, no biggie

I thought that too still a lot of $

 

[Ostomo517]

I did a 2.5 gal. IPA that I must have been super eager to get into because after bottling it I looked on the stove and there sat my priming solution D'oh!!!!! I proceded to open and empty all the bottles back into the bucket as carefully as I could, the brewing gods must have appriciated the chuckle because I didnt really notice any effects of oxidizing though I did drink it pretty quick just in case.

 

[jhall4]

I had a thread about this not too long ago.

So I was brewing a partial boil extract batch with specialty grains. I had just added my extract and was going to dump the extra wort that had drained out of the specialty grains when the grains spilled into the now (nearly) boiling wort. I decided to pour the wort into a fermenting bucket, rinse the boil kettle, line it with my grain bag, pour the wort back into the kettle, then remove the grain bag and any grain the was in the wort.

This went fine until the pouring. A spigot on the bucket popped off as I was lifting the bucket to pour. The hot wort came spewing out and gave me 2nd degree burns on my foot. This naturally made me drop the bucket, making the wort splash - all over the kitchen ceiling, walls, and cabinet. All this as wort continues to pour out all over the kitchen floor. It got behind the dish washer, the stove, and the fridge. Did I mention this was a partial boil extract batch, so the wort was extra sticky?

Took the rest of the afternoon/night to get that cleaned up...