Your worst home brewing mishap?

[Vandulus]

In the days before I bought a wort chiller, I used to pour the hot wort into a glass carboy that sat in a tub of ice water. I had done it a few times before without any problems, but on my third batch I went to lift the carboy out of the tub and the bottom literally fell out! There was no sign that there was any problem when it was cooling as the glass sheared off exactly where the bottom was fused to the sides.

Not only did I get pissed since it was a major mess, waste of 5 gallons of good wort, and many lost hours of work, but mainly it was a carboy that my grandfather used to make wine in. The carboy was at least 30 years old! I've since learned my lesson and use a wort chiller for cooling.

 

[bendog15]

Most of my mistakes involve stuck sparges- I batch sparge in a tall round igloo cooler. And hey, I have been know to overload my grain bill from time to time!
But my most memorable mistake came from the malt extract kit days- I made a high alcohol amber, it was so dense the poor yeast most have been buried under all that fermentable sugar. After a few days of no visible fermentation, I started to get worried. I took the carboy out of the chest freezer and started to rock it, shaking it back and forth. Well you can guess what happened next- I painted my ceiling. Wort shot out of the carboy, blasting the airlock off, hosing my whole upper body and the wall. I managed to save about 2/3 of the beer.
Btw- the beer turned out great.

 

[JB_Brewing2]

When I started brewing in 1997, I used a 5 gallon glass carboy filled with water to obtain the correct amount of water for the 2nd extract recipe I was about to brew. Pouring the water from the carboy into the brew kettle would allow me to keep track of the correct water quantity. So...whilst pouring water into the BK, my hand slipped off the bottom of the carboy allowing it to come into catastrophic contact with edge of the kitchen counter. (Did I mention we had guests who up until this point were impressed with my ability to brew.) I was wearing an old t-shirt, a pair of new jeans worn for the first time and new wool socks. The mostly intact bottom of the carboy, with one long shard still attached, attacked the new jeans and continued on to impale the long shard vertically between my big toe and the toe next to it. Miraculously, just the sock was ruined. That wasn't the case where the fractured carboy bottom came into contact with the new jeans. The jeans were cleanly sliced open for approximately 8 inches with a resultant slice of the flesh of nearly the same length. Sutures and butterflies ensued and I still wear that scar today. Now I use nothing made of glass larger than a mason jar.

 

[geoffey]

In the days before I bought a wort chiller, I used to pour the hot wort into a glass carboy that sat in a tub of ice water. I had done it a few times before without any problems, but on my third batch I went to lift the carboy out of the tub and the bottom literally fell out! There was no sign that there was any problem when it was cooling as the glass sheared off exactly where the bottom was fused to the sides.



Not only did I get pissed since it was a major mess, waste of 5 gallons of good wort, and many lost hours of work, but mainly it was a carboy that my grandfather used to make wine in. The carboy was at least 30 years old! I've since learned my lesson and use a wort chiller for cooling.

Sorry to hear that. Shocked the carboy lasted as long as it did! That's a 170 degree temp change in seconds. Not good for glass. I'd bet any newer glass carboy would have shattered immediately.

 

[SEndorf]

The recipe said IRISH moss...... Not PEAT moss!!

 

[Kirkwooder]

I boiled a 6 gallon batch of my house IIPA last winter and set it on my snow covered picnic table with the immersion chiller hooked up and running. I thought that the 6" of snow would help the chiller drop the temp quicker.

Well, the table was sitting on a slight slope and there was about a 1/2 inch of ice under the snow coating the table top. As the snow under the pot melted, the melt water further lubed the ice under the brew pot, and caused my $50+ pot of IIPA to slide ever so slowly to the edge of the table and come crashing down, sending a geyser of hot wort, hops, and coil, spewing into the air like Old Faithful.

Luckily, or not, I was just far enough away to be a front row witness but not close enough to get drenched with hot wort, or save it. At the time I was fresh out of my favorite brew and flat broke. It was several months before I had the spare cash to spend on a batch of this beer.

 

[drainbamage]

Fairly early in my brewing exploits, I tried to make a Czech pilsner. Since I didn't have proper temperature control, I tried to just leave the carboy in the fridge for several weeks, which of course stalled the yeast stalled out halfway. When I went to bottle everything and left it to sit and room temp, the yeast woke back up. No bottle bombs (thankfully), but it was a whole batch of gushers.

 

[m00ps]

Easily my #1:
Ive always loved unibroue and tried to step up a bottle of their dregs. Little did I know that they filter and bottle with a champaign yeast. Cut to me trying to ferment a 1.080 belgian dubbel with champaign yeast. Led to an ENTIRE BATCH of bottle bombs. I remember putting on my leather jacket, 2 pairs of jeans, safety goggles, and winter gloves to carefully move them all into a cardboard box and they blew up one by one on my deck. I didnt touch that box for a year...

 

[lumpher]

I used to use a bottling bucket as a fermenter, and i didn't have a fermenting chamber at the time, so the bucket was sitting on the floor in a corner of my home office fermenting an ipa. a visitor didn't know to stay away from the bucket. he kicked open the spigot. i didn't notice for a few days. ruined the carpet and padding, lost the ipa, and i ended up tearing up the flooring and laying down tile in the office. the office sure gets a cold floor in the winter now...

 

[david_42]

When I was first getting started, my friend had purchased the makings for a rye IPA; except he bought twice as much rye as the recipe called for. The resulting "mash muffin" was consigned to the compost heap. We were close enough the the brew store that we salvaged the day with a simple extract IPA.

 

[AQUILAS]

As of right now, none of my mistakes can really be construed as bad, but if I had to choose one, it would be my first all grain recipe. I adjusted the recipe to make it for a 5.5gal batch, but it didn't occur to me until after brew day that I should have adjusted the grain bill, too. Ended up with a session belgian wit. Luckily, it didn't really take away from the beer. It's a nice and refreshing 4%'er.

 

[Brewernaut51]

Tried to catch a glass carboy as it slipped from my hands while cleaning it. Sliced my left hand up in multiple spots. Needed stitches on three of the cuts. I use Better Bottles now.

 

[TheMadKing]

My very first batch I made a 5 gallon extract batch... From a 3 gallon kit

I made slightly yellow water

 

[pvpeacock]

I dropped the stir bar into my conical fermenter when I pitched the yeast starter. I didn't think much about it until I went to drain some yeast out of the dump valve on the bottom of the fermenter. When I went to close the ball valve it got stuck open. That's when I realized the stir bar must have wedged in the ball valve so it wouldn't close. I ran around the garage trying to figure out how to stop the inevitable flood of beer that would run out onto the floor once the yeast finished draining. Luckily, I had an extra tri-clamp ball valve, so I just attached a new valve to the valve that was stuck open. Didn't lose a drop of beer. That batch had so many other problems, it was ridiculous. I ended up calling it "Murphy's Law IPA"

 

[chickypad]

I dropped the stir bar into my conical fermenter when I pitched the yeast starter. I didn't think much about it until I went to drain some yeast out of the dump valve on the bottom of the fermenter. When I went to close the ball valve it got stuck open. That's when I realized the stir bar must have wedged in the ball valve so it wouldn't close. I ran around the garage trying to figure out how to stop the inevitable flood of beer that would run out onto the floor once the yeast finished draining. Luckily, I had an extra tri-clamp ball valve, so I just attached a new valve to the valve that was stuck open. Didn't lose a drop of beer. That batch had so many other problems, it was ridiculous. I ended up calling it "Murphy's Law IPA"

Wow, impressive save. The yeast must have been pretty compacted luckily.

 

[Subdivisions]

I find it odd at times reading the newbie posts where they are freaking out about some abnormality, an infection, forgetting to add an ingredient or making a mistake. I get it, there is a lot of time and effort, and cost that goes into a homebrew session.

What newbies have to understand is that failure is par for the home brewing course. Everyone has screwed up homebrew,

What was your worst moment? I've had too many to list, but once my wife backed her car into my kettle as I was about 10 mins to completion. That was a mess.

I'll start by saying that every user should use the SEARCH function before asking questions. If you can't find your answer in the search then you're probably not inputting your data correctly. Just about every possible situation has been covered in the years that this forum has existed.

Otherwise, My worst mishap was reading this post.

 

[iijakii]

I've had two bad mash experiences that still produced good beer. First was a braided cooler MT that I somehow totally collapsed. Couldn't drain at all, wasn't a stuck sparge so much as the braid totally flattened and was ruined. I dumped it into my kettle and used a kitchen siv to fish all the grain out. Then a similar experience with a cheap BIAB bag. No issues other than some stress.

 

[TheBigLebrewsk1]

One time I thought it was small to cool my wort down using snow. Yeah, that was a mess.

 

[CJ-3]

The recipe said IRISH moss...... Not PEAT moss!!

But I bet it had comples earthy notes.

 

[bionut]

I brewed my first all grain beer without much know how about brewing, probably just the mash temp interval and the mash time.
I used homemade malt with hell lot of roasted malt. I didn't knew it takes so little to make a ambr brown beer. It turned out a tar black beer. Not really a bad thing. For hops i used some hops sold for anti-insomia tee. No hop smell at all.
I didn't had a chiller so i chilled in the yard in a tub of cold water. It took about one hour. And i didn't had a cap for my keggle, i improvised with a chopping board from the kitchen.
After cooling i realised that i don't have a siphon, or a hose to use for this, so i transfered the wort with a big plastic cup.
For fermenting i used some yeast slurry that i kept from a extract brew made a few weeks before.
The beer had a small sourness, but not too vinegary, some friends liked it. Not me.
It passed a few months until a brewed again, having all the things for making a good beer.

 

[SeraW]

I've been pretty fortunate so far, but I'm waiting out one possibility: my wife knocked the airlock off of a carboy of cream ale that had been finishing up for a good day or so. So when I opened up the brew bag to check on it, I saw the airlock on the bottom of the bag next to the carboy...and a roach crawling around the inside of the bag.

If it's drinkable, it will surely be renamed for the roach. If it's not, well, it'll be my first bulk aged sour...or a dumper.