Your worst brew day ?

[Aschecte]

Well I felt compelled to share my great ( because I love to brew ) but most difficult and BS brew day I have had to date. I have taken a new brewer under wing to help him get a feel for how to do all grain batches so I was a bit distracted from my normally neurotic process. from the mash I forgot to add my rice hulls and my stabilzer 5.2. My sparge was fine but I forgot to install my hop screen in my kettle until it was like 2 gallons deep and I had to screw it in the best I could with my hand in 170 degree wort. My boil was fine except I forgot to add my servomyces until the last 5 minutes. Now the real kick in the ass I chilled just fine but my screen clogged while draining and I couldn't get in unclogged I had almost 2.5 gallons of trub / hop material in my kettle I guess the whirfloc / chilling really does work. so long story short I couldn't squezze any more of the wort out than 3.75 gallons of 1.078 OG wort out and like a dummy I said I really want 5.5 gallons so I topped it off with 1.75 gallons of water not even thinking about my gravity duhhhh I diluted it to 1.053 I actually dilluted it under my pre boil gravity of 1.55 !!!! I need to pray to the Gods of beer next time and get my head out of my butt. Whats your worst brew day ?

 

[akimbo78]

i was really really really hungover yesterday. didn't want to brew, but had already made the starter and had the grains milled the previous day. i decided to fight through it. made an ipa and with every hop addition i wanted to puke. forgot to treat my strike water. first boil over. i nailed all my numbers, so i guess it wasn't that bad. i will never brew hungover again.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

The day I stumbled with a pot of boiling water, splashing my chest, and producing a fist sized blister.

 

[supe_kitchen]

Was using a cooler conversion mash tun with a SS braided screen at the bottom and I accidentally knocked the screen off of the hose that went through the spigot (stirring the mash). This caused the valve to clog and I really had no easy way to get my wort out of the mash tun. I ended up picking up the whole thing and pouring it through a SS colander I have into my kettle. It was very heavy and I was spilling hot wort all over the kitchen floor, it was pretty much a disaster. I also didn't chill my wort very well and had a pretty lackluster fermentation. This was the beginning of my all grain brewing so at least I got the disaster out of the way early. Now when I have a minor mishap I can always say "at least it wasn't as bad as that one time."

 

[stikks]

About 5 weeks ago I made a winter spiced ale that was supposed to be at 1.064.Well when I chilled the hose clamps on my IC were not tight and it leaked about 1/2 gallon of hose water into the kettle.I didn`t catch it till it was time to rack.Anyway I took a reading and was at 1.051.I go to pitch the yeast and dropped the White Labs vile in the fermenter so I dump the carboy into the bucket to get the vile out and have to re-rack the beer.I am drinking 1 of these
brews as I type this.It actually tastes pretty good considering that it finished at 1.020 and I only have a 4.1 ABV instead of 6.0.Needless to say I have learned to check my equipment prior to brew day and use starters from now on so I don`t have to worry about vials slipping out of my hand.

 

[ghpeel]

You guys are wimps, except for Kirks.

I brewed a Cream Ale (ended up pretty tasty) and right after I was done pouring it into the No Chill tank, I walked into a patch of Spanish Moss hanging from a tree and lacerated my cornea on a stick hidden in the moss. A few hours later, at the emergency room, the technician shines the light on my eye and let's out an audible "WHOAH." they called my girlfriend over and said "look, the tear is in the shape of Texas!" I was blind for 2.5 days. Oddly, it hurt so bad to open my GOOD eye for some reason, I pretty much stayed on the couch the entire time. 2 years later and I get weird stabbing pain in that eye occasionally. Beer turned out very good.

Beyond that, I dropped the digital read-out part of an electric thermometer into a boiling brew kettle. it made a wonderful rainbow of color on the LCD screen then slid gently into that good night. Beer turned out very good as well.

 

[FreakNasties]

I brewed a Cream Ale (ended up pretty tasty) and right after I was done pouring it into the No Chill tank, I walked into a patch of Spanish Moss hanging from a tree and lacerated my cornea on a stick hidden in the moss.

OK, admittedly not as bad as a stick in the eye, but I had my stainless steel braid come off in my mash tun full of grain (plus strike water). I had to dump it all out, fix the piping hot braid, and get it all back in.

But yes, the beer turned out just fine. :rockin:

 

[Homebrewtastic]

That would be the day that the fasteners on my IC ( where the hose meets the copper) decided that they didn't want to stay on anymore. The second I turned it on it started spraying water everywhere. I was brewing well into the night (decocted mash) so no hardware stores were open for me to get new fasteners. So my pilsner with plenty of late hop additions had to cool via ambient temperature instead. Beer turned out okay. But not as goods I was hoping from all the effort I put in.

 

[Warthogrugby]

Just two weeks ago. I had most of my supplies on Tuesday and began my starter. I had big plans to be snowed in and have the chance to brew on Thursday. Much to my surprise the power went out Wednesday morning... I didn't really perceive this as much an issue till I learned that my gas range has an electric meter so it wouldn't work. Having already milled my grain Tuesday I put brewing out of my head till the power came back on Sunday morning. With a pounding head from the libations the night before I start heating my water. About 10 minutes into the boil I realized that I forgot to buy about 2 pounds of honey. I made due with the extra DME and some other honey I had on hand, but this omission set the stage for the rest of the brew day. During the boil I began transferring one batch in the primary into the secondary. With everything transferred I began washing the primary to ready it for the Wort boiling on the stove. With the carboy all cleaned up I sat it down on the granite counter, not realizing that I set it down at a very slight angle. That slight angle produced enough localized force to shatter the carboy in my hands... My heart pounding I look down to see about a 2 inch gash on my middle finger and a 1.5 inch cut on my palm draining fluid. I was able to quickly tourniquet up the finger enough to toss in some hops at the 30 minute mark and run upstairs to take care of the bleeding. It took a good 5 minutes to clean myself up and another 10 minutes to clear up all the glass, but I was now a carboy short and a primary non the less. My other primary was currently only a week into fermentation so that wasn't too much of an option, but I did have another brew in a secondary that I could bottle a week early. 15 minutes left to the boil I throw in some more hops and begin sanitizing bottles. I'm about half way through when it came to the 60 minute boil mark. I rush out side and drop the chiller in and fire up the water. I still had about 12 22s to fill and a carboy to clean. it took another 8 or so minutes to fill up the bottles and with my temperature reaching 90. I sanitized, poured and pitched the yeast at about 4 minutes later at 72 degrees. I have absolutely no idea how the batch is going to turn out... I figure in the fluster I missed something important. I guess time will tell. But overall, it was a ****ty brew day.