Yummy mistakes -Any stories?

[gunhaus]

Over the past 30 years, I have on a few occasions made a delectable brew that I was unable for various reasons to reproduce. Normally such a thing was my fault, and involved sloppy note taking, geezery memory, over indulgence during a brew session, or something of the sort.
One is supposed to lament such things, but honestly I have always looked at them a unique memory to be enjoyed and remembered fondly.

A couple of days ago, we kicked a keg of mistake that was PHENOMENAL, and not my fault for a change! It all started when I went to the LHBS to fill a grain bill for Jamil's Dortmunder recipe from Breweing Classic Styles. It is basically: 8.5 lbs of Pilsner, 4 Lbs of Munich, and a couple ounces of melanoidin. Simple beer, that I have made several times before. I handed the guy my grain bill, went to the bar in the back and had a brew and a chat with everyone, and went home to brew.

Now everything went smoothly right through the mashing, UNTIL, I began my vorluf. This beer is generally quite light in color, but what came out this time was a DEEP copper/amber, almost as deep a a dark mild! Hmmm. It cleared quickly, I drained, sparged, and in the end I was standing there looking at a big bucket of really dark sweet wort. The numbers were actually almost spot on So off to boil. No since wasting a tasty wort!!!

Now, I had intended to brew this as a lager. But since i had NO IDEA what was in it for sure to make it that dark, and couldn't see anything to lose, I decided to mess around a bit. I went a head and hopped it with the Dortmunder schedule since the numbers were close anyway, and I decided to use a couple packs of 34/70 I had getting old, and to brew this like a CA common. So to the fermenter at 62, and off to the chamber. 10 days later I kicked it up to 70 for a couple days, crashed, gelatin, keg, chill, and a couple weeks later finally we dipped into it.

Ya know I said I don't generally regret the non-repeatable mistakes - On this one I might feel a twinge of regret! In fact I may mess around and try to sort out a duplicate! This stuff was great. When you poured a pint, it was crystal clear, very dark copper/amber, with a thick creamy off white head that really lasted. The first smell was strongly malty, with a faint hint of what almost seemed like white grape (It was so subtle you could not finger it - yet it was there and very pleasant!) Then the taste: There was a nice little bitter bite, followed almost immediately by a BIG blast of malt, and some sweetness, then a remarkably dry finish again with a slight bitterness. It was a quite interesting taste sensation that made you want another sip, and another, and another. The malt character only grew as it warmed! There were several little funky notes I don't know how to describe, but that you will know if you have ever made a common of some sort. All in all it was damn good beer although a cannot say what I would call it!

Anyway - anyone else have any happy mistakes they want to share?

 

[grampamark]

A couple of years ago I picked up the ingredients for a Cream Ale and a Porter at the LHBS. I brewed the Porter first, and in the course of taking the bags of grain out of the box they came home from the store in, the packages with the flaked corn and oats for the Cream Ale got placed on the counter next to the bag with the grist for the Porter. So, the adjuncts got dumped into the MLT along with the grains.

In my process I put the grain in the MLT and underlet the strike water by gravity from the HLT. About half the water was in the tun when I realized I’d put the adjuncts in with the grain instead of back in the box from the LHBS. Nothing to do at that point but continue brewing.

The beer turned out so well that I’ve brewed it on purpose that way a couple of times since. Cream Porter isn’t such a bad thing, after all.

 

[S-Met]

No mistakes, ever. Only unplanned, undocumented, unscheduled and unintentional recipe changes.

I wouldn't call it a mistake, but I did make a training wheels Berry kettle sour the day I was kegging a berry cider. I was debating between belgian vs saison for yeast. I kept staring at the yeast cake... and starting... and decided to use a cider yeast instead. Ended up fermenting down to 1.006 and was a great summer wee-heavy light beer @6.5%. Good enough that I'll probably do something similar after my ciders are done this winter.

 

[Dgallo]

My lucky mistake happened the 3rd time I used imperial dryhop yeast. I was happy with the ester profile I was getting running it at 68*f. On this third time I lost fermentation control overnight on the first day and it is was at 72*f by the morning, by late that second day it was 74*f. On the third and forth day it was at 76*f. It then slowly feel to 70 where is sat til the cold crash. I was so bummed thinking I was going to have a huge fusel alcohol note in the finished beer, however, the first pour from the keg was amazing with a tremendous peach/nectarine and citus ester profile.

For science I brewed the same beer again and this time purposely used that fermentation schedule and got the same ester profile. I’ve been using Imperial dryhop and this fermentation schedule for most of my hopforward beers ever sense.

 

[marchuk96]

While the following story isn't really a mistake made in brewing practice...it was a mistake made by being careless...did a pale ale recipe one day when I was off with both my kids home...all things started off just fine...no issues at all..now I typically mash in my kitchen in a 10 gallon round cooler and usually after I settle in the mash I pick it up off the floor and set it up on the counter till its time to sparge...for some reason probably due to kid distraction...I didn't that day..my daughter..roughly about 2 at the time rolled into the kitchen being curious..I was getting some other equipment and putting other things away in the next room over...a dinning room off my kitchen...my attention after a minute was then redirected back into the kitchen and as I walk back in the kitchen i walk into a giant pool of wort all over my kitchen floor...my daughter had opened the valve on my mashtun...(and no the safety lock didn't fall into place on the handle)...draining I'd say like 70-80% of it...approximately 30 mins or so into the mash...thankfully she did not get burned by the wort coming out but did end up with a soggy diaper..after 2 full rolls of paper towels later and multiple profanities under my breath.. I drained what minimal amount of wort was left and did some quick math...heated up some more water and did a giant sparge...end up collecting enough wort to make boil volume for a 5 gallon batch..started the boil and fixed gravity with some DME...I ended up hitting my targeted gravities and the beer actually ended up tasting fantastic...I ended calling the beer saving grace pale ale[emoji23]