Homebrew Funeral

Over on HBT they evangelize never pouring a beer and that time will often fix the worst of problems. I think that's a great idea, but I have a hard time tying up a keg with questionable beer. I've DP'd one keg and a bunch of bottles. Neither of the beers were infected but one was gross (mis-measured specialty grain) and the other I didn't care for the style (and don't personally know anyone that would enjoy it either.)

 

i share your sentiment. life is too short to drink beer you don't want to drink, and too short to stare at a closet full of undrinkable crap. if it's gross i just drain pour, make another one and learn from the experience. what does it cost me, 10-30 bucks in ingredients?

 

Wait...what site am I on again?

 

Diacetyl that gets worse with time suggests infection.

 

So I've read.

 

My pumpkin ale became part of the stock for many a pumpkin risotto. But I think I was compromising my ristotto. I should have tossed the beer. I also should have tossed the blueberry wit - it was a noble effort, interesting at first, but did I need 5 gallons? I never ended up cooking anything with it.

On the other hand, my sour grape berliner weis, while too sour for me to enjoy on it's own, helps out in crock pot stews, where it replaces vinegar and a portion of stock. I also keep meaning to try it mixed with a dark biere de gard that I still have in the fridge; I'm wondering if the residual sweetness of the BDG and the sourness of the gBW might combine to resemble a Sour Brown Ale.

 

Petite Saison....give it time! Intimidated???? By a bunch of beer nerds with bellys arguing over the validity of the protein rest?

 

I've been pretty lucky. I've had one failed batch, and that was due to an error in calculating priming sugar (and adding too little by 75%). It never carbed. I tried various additional ways to carb it and gave up, using the beer for cooking. it was fine for that, but you can only cook with so much beer, so most of it got dumped.

I've also had a few single bottle infections, but not very many. After I got a few infected bottles I jacked up the standards for friends bringing their bottles to me for bottling. They have to be triple hot water rinsed, completely dried upside down, then covered with foil. Any moisture or material in the bottle is grounds for rejection.

I partially credit my lack of drainpours to heavy involvement (or at least reading threads) on BA and AHA, partially credit it to learning from a master on my very first batch, and partially from reading how to brew before starting.

As a corollary to the above, I credit fermentation temperature control as having much to do with my success. When I started brewing I had a closet that was a very steady 68F, which worked well. Now I have a freezer/controller. This is probably the biggest single thing that I do that works well. I could improve elsewhere. However, if you could improve in this aspect, most of the "elsewhere" won't make much difference till you get fermentation temperatures under control. Now I use 64 as my temperature (which occasionally varies a degree or two but is pretty darn steady).

Obviously some of my beers have been better than others, but they've all been drinkable. My best beers have been unexpected, blonde ale, elderberry wheat, bravo/munich smash, and cascade/willamette IPA*. I've had some trouble with English IPAs, and with a CDA, in that they were brown and muddy (probably tried to use too many grain types and failed to KISS), but they were still plenty drinkable.

Overall I find that I learn more from reading/responding to threads as the most useful tool. You get lots of examples of what other people do that works (and sometimes that fails) and you get feedback on your own issues and questions.

*but the APA IPA is in bottles now, so it may take the lead when it's ready! Also my PtE pseudo-clone is pretty damn amazing, but it's a double IPA, so different category.

 

Haven't had to drain pour yet, but a Belgian Dubbel from December just never really carbed. Very flat and disappointing - and considering it was one Mrs. Pointyskull was looking forward to ratchets up the bummer-ness.

 

I would still drink the rest out of spite. I'm still working through a pumpkin beer I brewed 2 yrs ago.

 

A milk stout that didn't fully attenuate. I was a brew n00b and didn't know any better and I bottled the beer with the full amount of priming sugar. Every bottle I opened foamed completely out. Fortunately I didn't get any bottle bombs. Then a brown ale with coffee additions that tasted like cooked green peppers. Not sure where the pepper flavor came from, as the beer tasted great prior to bottling. I did use a bunch to cook with, but dumped most of it.

 

I've only been faced with that decision once, and I drain poured it. I would do it again if necessary. (It was a Belgian Golden Strong ale, about which I had some pretty bad advice about how high to take the fermentation temp. Don't believe everything on the internet.)

 

I had gone about 6 years since having to dump any. Then this experiment happened:



Luckily it was all "free" ingredients.

The one 6 years ago was this one:

 

That can be bad or stale/oxidized coffee.

 

I think most people have at least one crappy brew, I know my first 2 were. That's when I decided to start making 1 gallon brews. They are much easier, faster and cheaper and the best part is if it taste like death there are only like 9 bottles worth.

 

But if it's delicious it's gone that much sooner. You play a dangerous game, my friend.

 

Baby shit and garbage water had a love child...

I appreciate your little video. Those things look like chicken cutlets.