Mistakes Good or Bad

[corby_brewer]

It would be interesting to know about some of the mistakes other members of the forum have made on brew days, be it kits, extract or all grain.
Mine was when I made the move from making kit’s to my very first AG. I sort of went into AG blind, ok I read a few posts on this forum and had spoken to a couple of people in chat about it . So when it came to the big day I didn’t fully understand the concept of mashing. (extracting the fermentable’s from the grain) So once id finished everything I proceeded to add 1 kilo of sugar to the FV. Ok so it wasn’t a total disaster as I ended up with a very drinkable beer at around 6% ABV. But its something I wont do again.

 

[dodgyal]

Just did my first AG and had a few problems.

1. My temperature sensor (digital) sat at the bottom of my mash tun so it was right next to the burner, caused inaccurate temp reading and I was way off mash temp, had to reheat the mash
2. Had a valve on my inlet to my March May pump, after reading the pump thread realised it could have damaged the pump, valve should only be on the outlet
3. I had nowhere to put my first runnings, boiler had water in it for the batch sparge, needed a third vessel, ended up using a fermentation bin.
4. my converted barrels had no measurements on them, had to measure all the liquid with a 2 litre jug, need some sight tubes.
5. My counterflow cooler leaked water all over my garage.

So it was all a bit stressful to begin with, but I'm sure it's all about knowing you're kit and experience! :wha:

 

[unclepumble]

I made plenty of mistakes on my last 2 brews

Filled a 150ltr HLT with cold water and waited for a 2.2kw element to get to mashing in temp (won't be doing that again as it took about 10hrs) however I did it to see what the equipment was capable of.

Forgot to add the salts to the mash on brew2 until about 20mins from the end of the mash, It turned out ok though.

I ran out of gas 20mins into the boil on brew 2.

I didn't insulate the FV well enough on brew 2 leaving an sg of 1027 after 7 days (result I have a 220ltr blue barrel next to the radiator in my kitchen tonight, it has woken it back up well) My Wife does not think I have the X Factor I can tell you!!!!
(I didn't take more notice of this brew because the ferment started like a dream see photo)

However Brew 1 (The lager) has turned out pretty good, currently at 1012 from 1050, and tastes bloody good, and doesn't seem to have minded the cold!