BIGGEST Balls up to date!, what’s your biggest fail?

[Monkhouse]

So I haven’t brewed since December last year since I’ve been busy fixing up my daughter’s bedroom (big job zero spare time) so naturally I was very excited about my brewday today.
I did an over night mash for a Belgian golden strong and got up at 5am to start recirc, first runnings and sparge. It was cold in the house so whilst the wort was draining off into the boiler I went to make up a fire before the family got up ready for school.
Came back after 10 minutes and looked in the mash tun which seemed empty but looking at the boiler I couldn’t understand why the wort wasn’t up past the valve….

Then my eyes were drawn to the kitchen floor in front of the boiler…I’d left the boiler valve open without realising.
Spent the next hour cleaning up the sticky floor and trying my hardest to figure out how much fresh grain to dump on top of the 8.5kg spent(ish) grain that was already in the tun. In the end I went for another 6kg of grain with another 24l water and re mashed for an hour then drained that off into the boiler.
I’m basically running blind though right now plus I’d planned on doing another full batch (comet pale ale) straight after the Belgian. Not willing to change my plans so I’m just going for it and trying to turn a major balls up into a good double brew day!

 

[starseeker]

Good luck,
looking forward to seeing how you get on with it :)

 

[Rodcx500z]

Wow that is some cock up, hope it turns out ok. my wife would have killed me

 

[Erik The Anglophile]

Yeah the kitchen brewing license might be revoked after that...

 

[MashBag]

Mate I feel for you. I have left stuff running "be back in a minute" thought quickly turns to "Aaaarg".

If however it was a cunning ploy to get planning permission for a brew shed well done, your secret is safe here.

 

[Clint]

Wow that is some cock up, hope it turns out ok. my wife would have killed me

How would she kill you?
Slowly over several months with a concoction of household chemicals?
Or...a swift but brutal battering with a chip pan full of solid lard?

 

[Baldylocks Brewery]

I’ve done the same but spotted it earlier thankfully.
My latest episode which left SWMBO with hands on hips and foot tapping, you know the look, was an amazing gusher!
Was a stout bottle which I knew had lots of trub in the bottom so decided to open in the kitchen sink. When I cracked it the cap didn’t come fully off and beer was spraying all over so I gave it another go and if flew off.
The resulting solid jet of dark beer shot straight up to the ceiling and then bounced off to shower the whole kitchen.
Bottle was empty in the blink of an eye.
One educational note is that the shepherd neame bottles used must be almost impossible to explode due to over carbonation
Been banished to garden to open beer for now
Ps spent planned Sunday brew day repainting to kitchen ceiling instead!

 

[Deadhead]

Ouch!!!

I am always screwing up something when brewing. What does wort have to be so sticky and gross when it gets everywhere?

 

[Rodcx500z]

How would she kill you?
Slowly over several months with a concoction of household chemicals?
Or...a swift but brutal battering with a chip pan full of solid lard?

Painfully

 

[6Trails]

The day I decided that I always had my pH close enough that I wouldn't bother measuring it, coinciding with it being the same day I got the water from a different outside tap.....one that was fed from the attic bathroom tanks rather than the well.

 

[Ross1974]

Threw my last packet of "normal" yeast all over the floor yesterday, and then broke the airlock.
If this SMASH turns out ok, it'll be luck rather that good planning.

 

[thehitch]

I used to use a small wooden table to put the Brewzilla on - turns out that the legs were too close to the middle to bear the weight of a full kettle that was slightly off-centre. 25L of water at 55ºC came tumbling (?) out, and now the Brewzilla is slightly ovoid. Luckily I brew outside so it was just the patio that got a watering (and that I hadn't started the mash!).

The silver lining - since then, my efficiency has gone up a couple of points; the bottom grille no longer fits snugly into the mash pipe, but doesn't leave enough gap for full grains to escape. Somehow I assume I am getting better circulation.

 

[fluketamer]

im 52 ive done a lot of stupid things in those years.

in terms of homebrewing theres been a number of fails.

one off the top of my head was desciding to pour 2 gallons of stout wort into a mr beer fermenter that was teetering on a the three inches of counter that are in front of the sink.

another one was not cleaning up the wort the ran under the fridge. it was caked on the floor real good months later when i replaced said fridge.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

I decided that the glass shelf in my brew fridge would be strong enough to hold a fermenter with 23 litres of wort in it. It wasn't.

I also managed to melt my scales. I put them on the cooker hob and somehow managed to accidentally turn the ring on beneath them. It took me ages to figure out where the burning plastic smell was coming from.

 

[Stu]

I decided that the glass shelf in my brew fridge would be strong enough to hold a fermenter with 23 litres of wort in it. It wasn't.

I also managed to melt my scales. I put them on the cooker hob and somehow managed to accidentally turn the ring on beneath them. It took me ages to figure out where the burning plastic smell was coming from.

I've decided that my glass shelf is under way too much strain. I'm going to replace it with something wooden.
I'd like to use metal, but my metal-fu is terrible and would probably bend.

Unless anyone can suggest a suitable material.

 

[Benbrews]

I made a wooden stand for my fridge to support a 23l ferment or or PB. Worked a treat until I picked some Rhubarb to make a fruit beer. Couldn't be bothered to make it and the days turned into weeks and months. When I finally opened the fridge it was a proper gag job. Took weeks to get the smell out but the wooden stand was ruined. Couldn't be bothered to make another one but happily found a breeze block that does the job.

My biggest cock up though involved making a Wee Heavy, twice. First time BIAB. 10Kg grain bill, mashed, hoisted bag out and brought to boil. Halfway through smelt burning and dumped the batch. The element was ruined, didn't realise I was supposed to stir on the lead up to the boil.

Made again on the stove top, a gallon batch using two saucepans and it was the best beer I've ever had. A few years later I decided to make a 5 gal batch this time using my cooler mash tun.
10Kg grains, 1.5L strike water per Kg of grain and literally came to within an inch of the top of my cooler.
Calculated the needed temp, stirred in the grain but by the time it was all mixed in my temp came out at 60° instead of 68°.
No room to top up with hot water I had to decant some mash into a saucepan and bring to the boil and add back in. Did that twice to hit target temp.
After mash I drained off the wort and for some reason I drained the entire batch which I've never done. I did the vorlauf but the wort just sat on top of the heavily compacted grain bed. I tried everything to get it moving with no joy so I lined a bucket with my brew back and poured the mash tun into that.
Added the grains back to the mash tun to batch sparge but again it refused to drain. Had to pour into a bucket again through my brew bag. Did that twice.
Finally got my preboil volume and started to bring to the boil. Clearly the wort was much thicker using brew bag instead of being filtered through the grain bed so I stirred coming up to the boil. It was taking ages and stirring was slowing the process plus the footie was on in a bit so I didn't stir as much as I should have.
Ten minutes left of the boil I started to smell burning.

The beer tasted smoky but not burnt. The element was black with a hard caked on layer of beer particles that took me an hour to restore with a dremel. The brew day took all day instead of a few hours and we lost at footie. I have never had such an awful day brewing. Everything that could go wrong did and then some!

 

[Galena]

I've decided that my glass shelf is under way too much strain. I'm going to replace it with something wooden.
I'd like to use metal, but my metal-fu is terrible and would probably bend.

Unless anyone can suggest a suitable material.

Yeh I decided from the outset not to risk the glass.
I have used plywood, drilled with a holesaw to allow heat to move around.
Apply several coats of varnish so it's easy to clean and doesn't develop mould and it's good to go.

 

[Stu]

Yeh I decided from the outset not to risk the glass.
I have used plywood, drilled with a holesaw to allow heat to move around.
Apply several coats of varnish so it's easy to clean and doesn't develop mould and it's good to go.

That's a good shout. I previously built a hamster house out of thick plywood and varnished it using yacht varnish.

That stuff makes things super solid (as you can imagine). Hard as nails.

 

[Slid]

d OK, so here is my contribution to this thread. The 3 women I live with have just about forgiven etc.

21st Jan this year I am making a US Stout, fair sized grain bill, maybe 6kg, 8% Black, 8% crystal rest base malt.
I had got into the practice of not much bothering with the silicon thingys on the Grainfather bottom plate, as it takes half the brewday to fit them.
Also, I had got into a now and then go-to of speeding up a slow (stuck) sparge by "handballing it", adding water and stirring it with a mash paddle...

So on the day, I get pee'd off with the sparge taking a long time and start trying to speed things up by giving each sparge addition a bit of assistance by stirring it up to get the wort into the bottom.

At one moment, I feel a hot sensation on my face and realise that the raised grain basket bottom has basically collapsed, the grain has hit the wort at the bottom of the GF and there is now grain on the kitchen ceiling. the walls and also over much of the Slid. The said 3 females (wife and 2x daughters) get very excited and start clearing up, whilst I get on with the serious business of saving the actual beer (some derision at this point...but priorities are what they are).

In conclusion, got rather poor BH efficiencies from the brew, but perfectly drinkable beer in the end. The kitchen ceiling still needs repainting, but WTH, it needs doing every couple of decades anyway. Also got whinged at a bit by SWMBO, but that just happens.

 

[Ross1974]

Threw my last packet of "normal" yeast all over the floor yesterday, and then broke the airlock.
If this SMASH turns out ok, it'll be luck rather that good planning.

Turned out rather fine. Having used the only suitable yeast " Belgian ", its quite similar to my last Leffe clone. Easy to drink.