Brew day fail stories?

[fury_tea]

I just misaligned the malt pipe on my robobrew (3/4 of the legs were in place but the 4th wasn't). Let go and sent a good few litres of my lovely hard earned wort flying across the kitchen. Managed to catch it and save the rest, burnt myself mildly but saved the majority of it. Could've been much worse and it's shook me up pretty hard.

Anyone got any funny fail stories to cheer me up while I nurse my wounds?

 

[Horners]

I just misaligned the malt pipe on my robobrew (3/4 of the legs were in place but the 4th wasn't). Let go and sent a good few litres of my lovely hard earned wort flying across the kitchen. Managed to catch it and save the rest, burnt myself mildly but saved the majority of it. Could've been much worse and it's shook me up pretty hard.

Anyone got any funny fail stories to cheer me up while I nurse my wounds?

At least a couple n my brewday thread from today.

Other notable mishaps include brew #1 2 years ago almost to the day. A wherry kit that I had nurtured and cossetted more than the children until during racking the stool the pressure barrel was badly balanced on gave way resulting in 20 pints a over the heated tiles of the utility room under washing machine etc. I just stood there practically sobbing while missus mopped it up. First and last time for using laundry room.

First time using immersion chiller, had copper sat in kitchen sink connected via window to garden tap - something popped off and it was like a water cannon all over our open plan living area.

One of first forays into kegs, for some reason connected up line with no tap to highly pressurised keg of saison - 20 pints hosing down the entire brew cave. Still finding sticky patches 18 months on

 

[Richie_asg1]

I think it was the second time I was using a bottling wand when the end fell off and I just kept on filling bottles rather than stop the syphon and loose it. Then capped all the bottles.
Trying to figure out which one contained the end of the bottling wand was fun. As was trying to rescue it and keep things sanitary.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

I built a pulley system to raise my BIAB out at the end of the mash to drain which works really well. A few weeks ago, however, I must have got a bit complacent and didnt secure the pulley rope as well as I should. As I was walking off I heard an almighty splash and turned around to find about 10-15 litres of hot sticky wort spread over a large area of my lawn and patio!

 

[SteveH]

I mashed in a few brews back and spent quite some time looking for the top screen for the malt pipe.

Eventually realized it was at the bottom of the mash!

 

[Dutto]

If we were totally honest, I believe that most of us could write a book! After brewing on and off for over 50 years, in the last two weeks I have:

• Moved a set of shelves, forgetting that I had attached a CO2 cylinder to them with a length of string so that I could see the pressure. The result was that the CO2 cylinder was pulled over and went south taking the two attached Growlers with it. This resulted in the Growlers severely denting a tin of LME, opening both taps and dumping some 5 litres of beer onto the floor of my shed!
• Having sucked up the beer with a Vax Carpet Cleaner, a few days later I transferred a finished brew to a Wilco Keg, but left the tap open at the bottom of the keg. Out came the Vax again, this time to suck up another couple of litres of beer!

The "good news" is that although the shed and carpet are brand new, it smells like a brewery in there already!

 

[Rodcx500z]

My biggy was chucking the grain in the strike water without the false bottom in scooped it all out with a big ladle and carried on, was a good brew as well

 

[An Ankoù]

irst time using immersion chiller, had copper sat in kitchen sink connected via window to garden tap - something popped off and it was like a water cannon all over our open plan living area.

A couple of years ago making an Irish stout. Put immersion chiller in and went off to walk the dog. Came back to find the kettle overflowing. My 20-odd year old wort chiller had developed a pin hole and the cooling water was leaking into the beer. Collected two fermenters full of "mild" at OG1030. It wasn't spoilt by the coolant and turned out to be a rather good mild.
I should add that I leave my kit set up on the terrace all through the season and I think a particularly sharp frost got to my chiller, which I hadn't drained properly. The new one comes indoors with me now.

 

[Drunkula]

https://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

Search for 'disaster' on each year. Some of the stories will make you scrunch up into a ball.

My most recent was forgetting to put the brew bag into my mash/boil pot, pouring it into a garden trug, putting in the bag, picking up the trug to pour it back and the handle snapping off mid pour. It had been brittle-ised by sunlight.

I looked like I'd fallen asleep with my back against a wall and spewed up 9 packs of sugar puffs over myself.

 

[Deathstar]

Well today has been one of those days for me.
All went well to begin with, set the mash going nailed the strike temperature and left it to mash away happily.
Then...when I came to sparge, I was only able to pull out around 3 litres to put back into the mash tun. Tap wide open, nothing. set the fly sparge going got a head of around 1 inch above the malt, still nothing.
Decided to give it a bit of a stir, and check the filters at the bottom, realised id installed them the wrong way around and the they had blinded up. Has to resort to muslin bag on the tap and pul the filter out.
Issue 2, post boil and chill went to dump into the fermentation vessel nothing. Tap blocked, hop back had fallen off, blocking up the outlet. Sieve and muslin bag, and decanted out.

Hit the OG and volume, hears to hoping that I have not contaminated and introduced any infections off flavours.

 

[Stib]

Made 5 of the same batches that I didn't like, thought I had recipe of the one I liked, I'm not a fan of citra hops and these batches only had and quite alot of it gggrrrr

 

[Clint]

I've not had any major disasters...yet.I forgot to put the filter in the kettle a few times.
A stark realisation which I'm glad I acted on was that it's not good practice to carry 20 odd litres of hot wort across the kitchen to the sink so I can use my wort chiller. I extended the hose leads instead.

 

[South Coast Brewer]

Decided to buy grain in bulk to save money, poured the sack into a "budget" airtight plastic container, lifted it to waist height and ..... crack, 25 kilos of golden promise over the floor and that stuff spreads far and fast!
Same weekend, walked away from my counterflow chiller for 2 mins and the hose disconnected pouring water full speed all over the floor unattended for two mins at full pressure..... that`s a lot of spill

 

[cossie.j]

Bought myself a hop spider for today’s brew......... and forgot to use it! What a plank. I seem to be the only person having issues with my filter clogging up whilst transferring to my fermenter. Oh well there’s always next week :-)

 

[An Ankoù]

Bought myself a hop spider for today’s brew......... and forgot to use it! What a plank. I seem to be the only person having issues with my filter clogging up whilst transferring to my fermenter. Oh well there’s always next week :-)

It may well be that clogged filters are such a regular occurrence that they don't get a mention. I've heard that hop spiders don't let the hops circulate very well and I've got one that I haven't used yet. I've got some ideas about how to get the best out of it though. Just keep forgetting to try them out.

 

[South Coast Brewer]

Bought myself a hop spider for today’s brew......... and forgot to use it! What a plank. I seem to be the only person having issues with my filter clogging up whilst transferring to my fermenter. Oh well there’s always next week :-)

what system are you using?

 

[Rodcx500z]

I have ordered a hop spider today for the very same reason, I am fed up of sanitising my arm,

 

[cossie.j]

It may well be that clogged filters are such a regular occurrence that they don't get a mention. I've heard that hop spiders don't let the hops circulate very well and I've got one that I haven't used yet. I've got some ideas about how to get the best out of it though. Just keep forgetting to try them out.

I have actually heard the same with regards to not getting the full benefits whilst using a hop spider, but I’m not overly concerned about that to be honest. Its just a pain having to fiddle with the tap and the chiller and having to keep scraping the pump filter at the same time, and this is also after doing a whirlpool with a paddle and drill for possibly 5 mins? However I’m becoming quite a custom to it now and the whole process is actually getting easier ;-) (I’m vey new to all grain)

 

[cossie.j]

what system are you using?

It’s the grainfather system, I was actually toying with the idea about getting a false bottom for it? I’ve heard the robobrew one works just fine? So that might be a possibility

 

[DavidHatton]

Not had any really, once forgot to put the Ss Brewtech trub dam in once, was ok though the water was only at 30c