Any funny disaster stories...?

[Aaron]

Hi guys...

I was just reading another thread and saw a reference to 'bottle bombs' that got me thinking.

Has anyone had any brewing disasters (of any kind, not just exploding bottles) that you are now able to look back on and laugh about?

 

[dx4100]

Hi guys...

I was just reading another thread and saw a reference to 'bottle bombs' that got me thinking.

Has anyone had any brewing disasters (of any kind, not just exploding bottles) that you are now able to look back on and laugh about?

I would suggest you take a look at my thread titled First Brew :)

 

[graysalchemy]

My only brewing disasters have involved acetobacter and 120l of vinegar. Both disasters are still raw and very painful. Mind you I have got 6kg of pickled onions on the go as a result :lol:

 

[oldbloke]

There's a post somewhere called "3 tshirts in one day"

 

[adomant]

2 years ago during a lager brewday, I popped down the pub for a swift half between mashing and boiling. It turned out to be about 10 pints, when I got back I switched on the boiler and went inside for a "powenap".

I woke early the next morning with a thick head and a feeling that I had forgotten something and immediately rushed to the garage to find about 12 litres of thick caramalised wort.

With no idea what to do, I mixed up a tin of golden syrup with boiling water and added it with a few hops before chilling.

I fermented for 3 weeks and conditioned for another 3 before bottling and leaving for 2 years.

I opened a bottle the other day, it was bright and very strong, it felt like 4 pints after a glass of it.

Although it is drinkable, I wont be submitting it in any competitions!

 

[abeyptfc]

ive had one mishap-not really a disaster- i was making up a brew and had washed the fv out a few times with water. i went up the stairs to my cornie that i thought was full of starsan, went back down the stairs and emptied the full cornie into an unsanitised fv and the smell of beer hit me in the face, i paused for a second thinking'ooft that starsan is strong' then realised i had emptied my cornie full of summer ale into the bucket! nightmare man. i managed to pour it all back in and luckily didnt catch any infections from the unsanitised fv!

 

[Aleman]

One nasty one was pulling the tap out of the boiler while attaching the counterflow chiller . . .Yeah Didn't do that twice . . .but did try and stop the (boiling) wort coming out of the hole with my bare hand . . .twice . . .

Then there was the time when I attempted to set fire to my left testicle using blow torch

from Here

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No . . . . Seriously . . . . I kid you not

 

[eggman]

I think the stupidest thing i did was after cleaning one of my barrels i started syphoning my brew in and then turned my back for a few mins when i came back to it i'd left the tap open and i had about 5 pints of stout soaking into my carpet
Won't be doing that again

 

[Dr. B]

None with beer so far, but about 12 years ago I tried making a raisin wine in a glass demijohn.
Picked up the jar one day to give it a swirl and the bottom fell off, with a gallon of sticky sweet wine soaking into the landlord's brand new carpet!

Last year, I tried raisin wine again, with the demijohns perched on a windowsill.
One day, picked it up to swirl, popped it back down, and the thing shattered dumping another gallon down the wall, behind a radiator and all over my laminate flooring!

Hasn't happened to any other wines.
I'm not trying raisin wine in glass demijohns again.

 

[aneray]

This one wasn't funny back then, but looking back on it after all these years, I can now see why all my mates had tears of laughter in their eyes at the time. This really did happen.

When I first moved to Cornwall in 1990, two friends and I moved into lodgings for a couple of years. Money was tight back then, so I decided to make a couple of gallons of peach wine from kits which were to be used as presents for Christmas. Back then, we were the biggest wind up merchants, always trying to out do each other. Once the wine was bottled, I took a couple around to the local shop next door where I used to work for sampling purposes. Everybody tried it, customers, the shop owner, even down to a local parish councillor. They loved it and asked for more.

What I didn't know was that once fermentation was complete, one of my mates had taken both demijohns into the bathroom and took great delight by peeing into both and adding a small sample of a number two to both of them.

No wonder both were reluctant to try it.