Post your screw ups and what you learned from them

this makes me laugh. i mention this, without fail, to my brewing partner every time we mash. its always the same:

us: (already pouring water into mash tun)
me: um, the valve is closed right?
him: no, its wide open.
me: (shaking my head)

never spilled any though, but always super paranoid.

 

got home this weekend, and checked on my fermentors... SOB my Chocolate Stout has a brett infection. After wondering what went wrong (checked tubing used to transfer, maybe the orange peel even though it were soaked in vodka for 3 days), it dawned on me, I transferred it into a carboy that had just held a brett pale ale. I has moving around a lot of beer that day (1 bottling, 2 transfers for secondary, and new brew on a yeast cake).

Lesson learned: Be more thorough in cleaning. I should have soaked the entire carboy in oxyclean, but instead put in a little and tried cleaning with the bottle brush. I was in a hurry because I had a long to-do list that day. Which is the other lesson... don't pack too much stuff into a brew day. I have been brewing a lot lately, and most likely too much especially since I only really have every other Friday to work on brewing task.

 

Make sure you dump your StarSan out of the fermenter before you rack your wort into it... the beer is still tasty, but not exactly what it should be.

When you buy a used plastic conical make sure that it isn't infected before you send multiple beers through it in succession and repitch yeast from it.

 

Vent a keg before opening it. I lost half of a barley wine when I opened the keg it was dry hopping in. It went all over the kitchen counter top and floor.

 

For shit's sake, don't be too proud to ask your wife for help when dumping a kettle full of wort into a fermenter.

 

Today...brewed my first Barleywine...took my first pre-boil gravity...forgot the OG due to pitching on a cake...first time pitching on a cake...procedures and process are great...until you change them and have to adapt : )

 

I've done both these things. I pump the exterior of the auto syphon. I'd rather stir things up than remove the hose again

 

Now that's a screw up story worth telling! Freekin hilarious.

 

I don't want you and your wife to strain your backs, and I hate for you to spill your wort. How about using a siphon instead?

 

It's not the pirate way. LIFT WITH THE BACK, MAN!

 

Excellent topic.

Lemme see:
--Check to make sure your spigot is closed on your bottling bucket before your rack your beer down into it. Your floor will thank you.
--Once you start feeding CO2 into your keg, check to make sure you don't have a CO2 leak on the posts, the lid, or anywhere on the regulator. Then, double-check it the next day. You'll save lots of money and lots of frustration.
--Make your starter a bit too big--especially when making a lager. I always think I'll shake it every time I walk by and only shake my starters 2 or 3 times. The only lager I made finished 20 points high.

 

Speaking of priming sugar, make sure you take your final gravity readings before you add the priming sugar. My first couple of brews after I got my hydrometer I added the sugar first then measured the stuff that was going into bottles, and I couldn't figure out why the gravity was so high.

 

2 lbs of sugar in a 2 gallon batch of beer produces rocket fuel.

Still got a bunch of bottles of that beer in the basement. I like to occasionally bring it out at tastings to mess with people.

 

Two new ones, I think:

• Remember to check/tighten the fasteners that keep the hoses attached to the copper tubing of your immersion chiller. They often leak right into the wort if not tight.
• Don't forget to do the mash-out step if you BIAB. I was too busy bottling a batch and completely skipped this step - had terrible efficiency (~50%) and it took me days to realize why!

Two already mentioned that I'm guilty of:

• I've definitely learned the hard way to use a blow-off tube.
• I also tried to ferment 5G of wort in a 5G carboy - lost at least a gallon of beer this way (but it exited through a blow-off tube that time!)

 

The first time I brewed a RIS I did an extract recipe with steeping grains. There were LOTS of steeping grains. So much, that I had to pack them into the bags I had on hand to get them all to fit. So after steeping, I remove the bags and start to empty them and Immediately notice something funny. The grains in the middle of the bag are dry. So I panic, fill the bags back up and start squishing them to move the grains around inside the bags. I throw them back in the pot for 10 minutes, take them out and squish them up again and put them in for another 10 minutes. After I rinse them, I decided to squeeze them to get every last drop out. As you can imagine, the beer was an awful tannin bomb. I drank about 12 bottles before I swallowed my pride and dumped the rest.

 

Brewed an Imperial Porter on Saturday and came up with a new 'screw up' for you guys!

So about 2 months ago I bought a chest freezer/ferm chamber as I was tired of not brewing during the summer months because of the heat. It's been treating me well and I've had a few nice brews this summer as a result. Learned a few lessons this weekend!

Cue Saturday's brew session and my immersion chiller can't get the wort below 95 degrees or so after about 25-30 minutes of work (I know I don't stir enough during this step, working on that...). I take the cue after sending countless gallons of water down the proverbial drain and decide to transfer to the carboy and toss'er in the chest freezer to bring it down to pitching temperature.

Genius me decides that cranking the freezer down to 45 degrees would get this done so much quicker! At about 1AM I head out to the garage to check on the temperature of the wort and it's hovering around 70 degrees (the outside of freezer is mysteriously HOT, I wonder why!? Will lower gradually next time, I realize I overworked it.). 70 is close enough I say(!), though I normally prefer to pitch a a few degrees lower. I pitch, aerate with oxygen and adjust Johnson Controls unit to 64 degrees. I hit the sack excited to see what tomorrow brings.

7:30AM - I wake up, and first things first, run to the freezer hoping to see a beautiful krausen. My hopes are dashed. I think to myself that 6 hours without activity isn't unheard of and I say RDWGEB (Relax, don't worry, Go Eat Breakfast - too early for homebrew). I read the Johnson Controls temp gauge after shutting the freezer door and it's reading a VERY COOL 50 degrees. Hmmmm...didn't I set it to 64 degrees last night? (Damn insulating properties and how very effective they are!)

Anyway, long story short, pulled the carboy out of the freezer and left it in the garage to warm up. Had a nice krausen going this morning (30 hours later) and freezer was approaching 62 degrees so i tossed her back in.

P.s. Should I pitch some more yeast nutrient since I probably stressed those guys out during this whole debacle?

 

I would not.

 

Thanks, Vike!

 

Shaking a 5-gallon glass carboy to with about a gallon of sanitizer in it, the outside was kind of ... slippery, yup, fell out of my hands, bounced off the counter top, yes bounced, and crashed onto the glass-top oven, smashing it. 3/4 of the price of a glass top oven is the .... glass top. About a $850 screw up. Beat that.

 

You win....however no beer was harmed so that loses some points.