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

[Brew_DD2]

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.

I was just about to quote your last post, but you've covered it here. It takes a masterful hand to brew with fruit and and do both the base beer, and the fruit justice. A Geueze is such a wonderful, complex thing.

 

[Dutto]

TODAY I filled Keg “E” with 10 litres of Ruby Red Ale.

The Range FV (1st time I’ve used it) fell from 20 litres to 10 litres! So far so good!

With only 10 litres remaining in the FV and the siphon tube being 1.0cm above the sediment, I moved on to Keg “F”.

I was just starting “Memo to self -“ on the whiteboard when I noticed that Keg “F” was overflowing on to the shed floor!

Rapid action kept the amount lost to a minimum but:

1. The siphon never lost suction.
2. The “Memo to self - Keg F only has about 8 litres in it.” still hasn’t been written!

Guess who will calibrate his FV before the next time he needs it for a brew!
:hat:

 

[sifty]

Apart from newbie errors like underpitching and poor temp control, I can recall:

• Tossing the rubber bung out with spent grain (recovered).
• Dropping the aeration paddle into the fermenter (left it there till complete).
• Doing a brew whilst drinking with a mate. Everything went wrong, worst beer to date.
• Leaving the heater plug out on the inkbird socket for a few days.
• Breaking umpteen hydrometers while cleaning them, normally when flicking to dry. Plus 2 sample tubes.
• Adding grain with top screen also on the bottom of the brewzilla. Did not discover till looking for top screen, had to drain, retrieve and start again.
• Believing the graduation marks on my cheap fermenter/bottling bucket. Checking with calibrated jugs proved the marks were way out.
• Not double checking the seal on s/s fermenter lids.
• Not using a blow off tube on a very vigorous RIS.
• And yes the occasional tap left open...

Nothing too bad and normally caused by rushing things. Haven't tossed a batch yet...

 

[Shaft]

This is an apt thread, I've just kegged and bottled my last brew, which is a lager / ale hybrid. Thought I'd try a high carbonation for the bottles, so aimed for a Belgian target of 3.5 volume.
All good, used the brewers friend calc as usual, and did think to myself, blimey that's a lot of sugar, but dismissed it as was aiming for more carbonation than my usual brews. Finished bottling then sat down and suddenly realised I calced for 2 LTRs of beer, but used 1 ltr brown swingarm bottles, so have basically doubled the sugar..

Would be equiv of 6 volumes and now not sure what to do to save the beer. As pretty sure bottles will just blow if I leave as is... THOUGHTS?

 

[Sadfield]

This is an apt thread, I've just kegged and bottled my last brew, which is a lager / ale hybrid. Thought I'd try a high carbonation for the bottles, so aimed for a Belgian target of 3.5 volume.
All good, used the brewers friend calc as usual, and did think to myself, blimey that's a lot of sugar, but dismissed it as was aiming for more carbonation than my usual brews. Finished bottling then sat down and suddenly realised I calced for 2 LTRs of beer, but used 1 ltr brown swingarm bottles, so have basically doubled the sugar..

Would be equiv of 6 volumes and now not sure what to do to save the beer. As pretty sure bottles will just blow if I leave as is... THOUGHTS?

What type of keg and how did you carb it? You could pour the bottles into the keg and then re-bottle.

 

[Shaft]

What type of keg and how did you carb it? You could pour the bottles into the keg and then re-bottle.

So I had about a 24ltr batch and filled 19ltrs into a corny keg, added some gelatine and am cold crashing that. I was planning to put that on Gas in a couple of days to carbonate. The leftover 5ltrs I bottled and have added 20gm table sugar to each 1ltr swing arm brown bottle.

I could chuck the bottle contents into a spare corny I guess and let it carbonate under its own sugar (there's no room in the other keg).

 

[Shaft]

So I had about a 24ltr batch and filled 19ltrs into a corny keg, added some gelatine and am cold crashing that. I was planning to put that on Gas in a couple of days to carbonate. The leftover 5ltrs I bottled and have added 20gm table sugar to each 1ltr swing arm brown bottle.

I could chuck the bottle contents into a spare corny I guess and let it carbonate under its own sugar (there's no room in the other keg).

ALthough actually not sure what pressure the corny can take? 60psi? what pressure will the fermentation exert?
Or, I suppose I could just chuck the bottles back into a fermenting bucket and ferment out the extra sugar for a week. ?

 

[Sadfield]

I could chuck the bottle contents into a spare corny I guess and let it carbonate under its own sugar (there's no room in the other keg).

I'd probably do that, as the easiest option. The keg will be fine for pressure and can be vented to get the desired carbonation. Safer than heavily carbonated glass.

 

[AJA]

Actually, just thought of the mistake which got me in the most trouble.
My wort chiller is connected to my outside tap, and goes back to the outside hose reel, to save water.
Failed to checked the jubilee clips were tight on the chiller, so was gleefully watering the garden with the warm water, when the other half shouted at me for filling the kitchen surfaces and floor with water.
Thankfully, this didn't impact the beer whatsoever.

 

[Rodcx500z]

The max rating of a corny keg is 120psi and they will have 30psi redundancy built in as well, to stop people over doing it the prv is set at 60psi for a reason

 

[Shaft]

The max rating of a corny keg is 120psi and they will have 30psi redundancy built in as well, to stop people over doing it the prv is set at 60psi for a reason

So am I right that 1 Co2 volume = 15psi, so 6 volumes would expect to exert 90psi ? I.e. nothing to worry about?

 

[Rodcx500z]

So am I right that 1 Co2 volume = 15psi, so 6 volumes would expect to exert 90psi ? I.e. nothing to worry about?

Not a clue mate, i used to work in a bakery and we used cornys for putting the cross on hx buns, thats what we were told by the engineers

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

I once got a little too enthusiastic on brewday with sampling previous brews (like you do).
I went back in the garage to see how the wort chiller was doing, tripped and knocked the Brewzilla off it's stand.
Another smashed lid and sticky wort all over my new Monkeybike.

 

[MickDundee]

EDIT - think I misread the post I was replying to and jumped in with 2 feet

 

[Cheyne_brewer]

Not brewing often enough and running out!

 

[Agentgonzo]

This is an apt thread, I've just kegged and bottled my last brew, which is a lager / ale hybrid. Thought I'd try a high carbonation for the bottles, so aimed for a Belgian target of 3.5 volume.
All good, used the brewers friend calc as usual, and did think to myself, blimey that's a lot of sugar, but dismissed it as was aiming for more carbonation than my usual brews. Finished bottling then sat down and suddenly realised I calced for 2 LTRs of beer, but used 1 ltr brown swingarm bottles, so have basically doubled the sugar..

Would be equiv of 6 volumes and now not sure what to do to save the beer. As pretty sure bottles will just blow if I leave as is... THOUGHTS?

If you've got swing top bottles, it's easy to open them to relieve the pressure and reseal them every few days. You'd have to go largely by guesswork as you won't know how much co2 and sugar is in solution. I've done this when I've had overcarbed beer. Carbonation wasn't consistent, but it was better than exploding bottles.

Given you've got double the amount of priming sugar than what you intended, you could unlock the top swing cap, but then leave it sitting closed (ie, so that the rubber grommet still forms a seal but it isn't clamped down). This would form a rudimentary airlock as it should allow excess pressure to be released. Then seal then after you think half the sugar has been fermented... Maybe a week ? Then check every so often to make sure you don't have a small collection of bombs.

Throwing it into a keg is the safest, but I thought I'd give another option that may be simpler

 

[YeastFace]

Guess who left the valve open whilst filling the fermenter... Luckily was only 100ml or so.

Edit - also forgot to put the dip tube back into the fermenter before filling.

 

[Agentgonzo]

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.

I've just bottled a raspberry saison. I think I'll leave it to the pros in future though.... A lot of hassle and a lot less yield as you say

 

[cockerhoop]

Putting a 5 gallon fermenting bucket on the kitchen worktop and using a rolling pin to tilt it forward when siphoning into keg.
And doing all of the above at 11pm.

 

[UK Yank]

Saw this thread and just had to share - I finished the boil in my new grainfather and when I went to pump through counter flow chiller into my glass carboy fermenter, nothing came out. No amount of scraping the filter with my long paddle helped. I panicked and felt the overwhelming need to get access to the filter in the bottom, fast. Without thinking (and with judgment clouded by a few home brews consumed over the brew day) I lifted the heavy full grainfather and poured the (very hot) wort into the glass carboy thinking it was the only available sterile place that I could move the wort to until I could clear the pump. Didn’t take long before I heard a loud bang and felt hot liquid on my feet. Wort flooded my kitchen and I felt quite stupid. I attach a photo of said carboy.
I have since removed the inner bits of the little valve in the line coming up from the pump as that had been the issue - not the bottom filter - which I’ve no doubt many of you will have already known.