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

[BlackRock]

My wife and I brewed up our first ever batch which initially went great. We hit our numbers, cooled the wort, transferred it to the fermenter and just as I was whisking a bit of O2 into the batch the whisk fell apart dumping a cups worth of sand, fibers, plastic, glass and metal into our wort.

Basically whatever they swept up off the floor in the Chinese whisk factory and tossed in the handle for weight went into the beer. After I used a magnet to pull metal chunks out of it we tossed the whole batch. It was just too gross to keep after that.

 

[gcdowd]

I mentioned earlier about scalding my arm with hot wort but I found a picture so I thought I'd post

 

[Chadwick]

I mentioned earlier about scalding my arm with hot wort but I found a picture so I thought I'd post

That is a nasty looking burn. I sincerely hope it turned out to be an excellent beer.

 

[gcdowd]

That is a nasty looking burn. I sincerely hope it turned out to be an excellent beer.

Unfortunately, the beer was not meant to be. I basically spilled the entire wort. It was a lost cause

 

[day_trippr]

That burn pic reminded me of a near disaster I witnessed at a brew-fest a few years ago. Fellow was nearing the end of an all-grain boil and decided his OG was off enough that he needed to add in some DME.

The guy cuts open the bag, prepares to pour it into the kettle - and with the burner still fired up proceeds to miss the kettle with about a half pound of DME. Which immediately ignites in a huge fireball, momentarily engulfing our brewing hero, who emerges with every hair on his face and head terminated with a tiny ball of fused keratin.

Props to the comrade whose immediate reaction was to hand the crispy conflagree a beer...

Cheers!

 

[beerbeerbeer123]

A bunch of dingle berries came to my house which is for sale unannounced and distracted me causing me to ruin my batch of beer and had to dump it before it made it to the boil kettle..its killing me right now..i want to put my head thru the wall

 

[Channel66]

After moving the first priority was to hook the kegerator up, so I could serve the folks helping us out. Well one of said folks didn't realize what the fridge was and piled boxes up against it unevenly, later in the day someone shifted the pile of boxes and the top box leaned on the tap handle opening it, no-one noticed because it was pretty buried. Needless to say Irish stout colored curtains and area rugs were not on swmbo's short list of decor.

 

[Brewvy]

Reviving this one. A couple years back I was prepping for bottling, started a transfer of 12 gallons from countertop in kitchen to bottling vessel on the floor. My plan was to start the transfer then run to lhbs to pick up bottle caps. Upon returning I noticed liquid on the floor with the valve wide open! I threw down some towels to soak up the beer, but seemed like I only got a gallon or two. I ran downstairs to the apartment I rent out, only to find nothing dripping from the ceiling, but it was soft , so I put a bucket on the floor and poked a hole in the ceiling. Collected a few more gallons, not sure where the rest ended up. I then poured a gallon of bleachy water on my kitchen floor. I sold the house a few months later. I'd hate to see what's growing there now.
Another time bottling, I finished heating priming sugar, then proceeded to put 5 gallon carboy on stovetop getting ready for siphon, seconds later the bottom of the carboy separated from the top splashing 5 gallons of beer into stove and floor.
I only keg now.