Brewing mistakes you really wish you'd avoided...

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Connect a heating belt to the InkBird controller's Heating output but not locate the temperature probe securely so that it dropped out and was telling the InkBird the ambient room temperature. So the InkBird tried to make the room hotter by driving the heating belt constantly. Resulted in a meltdown (literally) where the unrestrained heating belt (why don't these have limiters?? ) happened to be touching gas pipe from a brand new SodaStream cylinder. Doubled my carbon footprint for the day :-(

Oh nooooo

 

[AJA]

2nd ever brew, knocked a partly finished coffee mug into the fermenter, just before pitching yeast.
Still proceeded as normal, fished out said mug from the trub post bottling.

 

[KGB]

- burnt out a wall socket and extension lead by running my hlt (2.5kw), induction hob (3kw), homemade herms tea kettle, inkbird and two pumps from them. though i suspect that might have more to do with the dodgy electrics in my house. or maybe my homemade herms.
is it weird that my fuseboard didn't trip from that?

- after i insulated my brew kettle, i underestimated how much quicker and more aggressively it'd boil. stepped out for a cigarette before the hot break. kitchen flooded!

- knocked a large picture frame off the wall and smashed the glass on my recently-bought induction hob.
that one upset me a lot and i didn't go back to brewing for months. couldn't go back to using gas as i'd added insulation to my boiler...
tried to source replacement glass and eventually gave in and bought a replacement induction hob (£208). i'm being very careful with this one and it lives in its box when not in use.

 

[AJA]

- burnt out a wall socket and extension lead by running my hlt (2.5kw), induction hob (3kw), homemade herms tea kettle, inkbird and two pumps from them. though i suspect that might have more to do with the dodgy electrics in my house. or maybe my homemade herms.
is it weird that my fuseboard didn't trip from that?

- after i insulated my brew kettle, i underestimated how much quicker and more aggressively it'd boil. stepped out for a cigarette before the hot break. kitchen flooded!

- knocked a large picture frame off the wall and smashed the glass on my recently-bought induction hob.
that one upset me a lot and i didn't go back to brewing for months. couldn't go back to using gas as i'd added insulation to my boiler...
tried to source replacement glass and eventually gave in and bought a replacement induction hob (£208). i'm being very careful with this one and it lives in its box when not in use.

You can easily draw 40A from a 30A breaker before it trips, even after that it will take a while. I would have thought the 13A extension lead fuse would burn first though. When plugging extension leads into sockets, please check that the socket itself is on the ring main and is not itself a spur. Had to replace some of my sister's wiring after she made this error!

 

[KGB]

You can easily draw 40A from a 30A breaker before it trips, even after that it will take a while. I would have thought the 13A extension lead fuse would burn first though. When plugging extension leads into sockets, please check that the socket itself is on the ring main and is not itself a spur. Had to replace some of my sister's wiring after she made this error!

aye, i thought it was odd that the wiring in the extension lead melted without the fuse blowing. i buy more decent leads now.
admittedly i am still using that same replaced socket with the same load these days, thankfully without issue. it's the only socket on the kitchen island where i brew. i should have checked with the electrician who repaired the socket whether it is on the ring main or not. the other option is to have extension leads trailing across the kitchen, which i'd definitely trip over.

there is some electrical weirdness in my house - the tv flickers when the fridge kicks in, microwave clocks run fast, and there's this disturbing-looking junction box in the garage that electricians won't go near. i suspect the previous tenants may have carried out some electrical works themselves...

 

[Sadfield]

When I first started brewing, listening to what brewing forum members had to say. The worst being, "I have been doing this for years" Since researching answers to questions, and getting the right answers my brewing improved 100 fold.

It's ironic that 'I've been doing this for years' line is often used as the counter argument to practices educated professional have employed for centuries.

 

[An Ankoù]

2nd ever brew, knocked a partly finished coffee mug into the fermenter, just before pitching yeast.
Still proceeded as normal, fished out said mug from the trub post bottling.

What were you doing making coffee mugs at the same time as brewing. Had you put the glaze on?

 

[AJA]

I meant I'd half drunk it! Not done pottery on a brew day (so far)

 

[Rodcx500z]

My first ag brew, chucked the grain in with no bag in the kettle, you live and learn

 

[mishking]

Pumping my DIPA into the fermenter i used to store the spent grain....

No idea if it would of turned out ok but the lot went down the drain

 

[Sadfield]

Putting fruit in beer at or after fermentation. I've arrived at the conclusion that almost no beer in the world is improved by adding fruit and it makes more work an decreases yield.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Putting fruit in beer at or after fermentation. I've arrived at the conclusion that no beer in the world is improved by adding fruit and it makes more work an decreases yield.

. I've recently done 2x 1 gallon demijons with this as an experiment reason to play with things. I haven't opened any yet to try it out. Oh well, nothing lost .

I do particularly like a kriek though.

 

[Sadfield]

. I've recently done 2x 1 gallon demijons with this as an experiment reason to play with things. I haven't opened any yet to try it out. Oh well, nothing lost .

I do particularly like a kriek though.

Krieks are nice, but I'd take a straight Gueuze over them. Purely personal preference and I've edited my post, remembering the bottle of Cantillon Cuvee Florian I once had.

 

[AJA]

We're veering off topic, but I'm in partial agreement here. Why do almost all sour beer offerings have to be fruited nowadays? Sometimes I just want a straight gueze, lambic or Berliner weisse

 

[St00]

1) Not doing brew prep the day before
2) Being blasé about water amounts
3) Overcrushing the grain
4) Adding fruit to beer
5) Ignoring out of date yeasts
6) Forgetting to put the temp probe in the SWH and spargeing with boiling water (fore the record it was fine)
7) Forgetting to turn valves off whilst transferring
8) Not priming the pump
9) Pretty consistently forgetting the pump is on (the RipTide is soooooo quiet) and removing the recirc arm
10) Starting far too late in the day
11) Wearing my wife's pink flip flops when going to empty the malt pipe and falling A over T

I really could go on. Somehow I have managed to make some excellent beer despite being a habitual ****ing moron. . . .

 

[St00]

Oh, I threw away a part of the malt pie whilst emptying the spent grain once.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Oh, I threw away a part of the malt pie whilst emptying the spent grain once.

I've done that... fortunately I gave the grain to some friends who fed it to their chickens, so they gave it back. Otherwise it would have gone in the bin, never to be seen again.

 

[St00]

I also put the Spunding valve on my liquid out post on the Fermzilla, that was maybe 3 or 4 brews ago.

 

[jayk34]

Where do I start

• Developing a leak in the tap of fermenter and having to "sanitise" my arm and put it into the beer to tighten up. Bottled the beer but binned the majority of it due to infection.
• After a brew day, I found a one of my hop additions that has fallen on the floor without me knowing about it.
• Smashing 2 full bottles of beer all over the kitchen floor whilst trying to cap them.
• Putting my arm into the VERY hot water runoff from the chiller that I had diverted into hlt in an attempt to clean it.

I'm sure there are others that haven't come to mind !

 

[marshbrewer]

Btw , what are the little rubber rings around the arms on the lid for ? )

What, the red ones? They are spare post seals.