Stupidest Mistake You've Ever Made

[MyQul]

Putting my mash/pot in the oven to keep it warm during the mash. Unfortunately I had the oven on 165C instead of 65C. Denatured the grain and had to chuck it. Fortunately it was only 5L

 

[Leemond]

Firstly, many thanks to everyone for replying as you've made me feel so much better about myself! :lol:

I once overfilled my airlock and then moved the fermenter - the change in pressure sucking some of the sanitiser back into the wort. If that wasn't silly enough I immediately chucked the batch before asking advice on here and finding out it may very well have been fine . I now move the fermenter to its destination BEFORE adding the airlock.

This weekend I (supposedly) connected my wort chiller up and turned the hose on (from outside) while the chiller was in the wort... the fitting wasn't tight and water spurted out with some going into the wort. I'm hoping it was still hot enough to pasteurise the water but time will tell! Next time I will test the fitting BEFORE I add it to my beer!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I once topped up a DJ with Milton steriliser instead of water fortunately it was less than half a litre and it didn't taste any different or ruin the wine.

.

 

[IainM]

My favourite though has got to be force carbing my new cornie with the black disconnect attached as well. Luckily it wasn't facing my way, but the kitchen blinds caught the lot. :-?

I'm glad you mentioned this, as I had no idea that they had to be disconnected before ramping up the pressure. :thumb:

 

[Simonh82]

A Cornie at 80psi would release 105 litres of CO2 when vented so not so life threatening. Still not a great thing to do though.

Glad I can tell my girlfriend she and the kids were never in danger. I know it certainly had quite a dramatic effect on me. I was decidedly dizzy for a few minutes.

 

[Covrich]

Putting my mash/pot in the oven to keep it warm during the mash. Unfortunately I had the oven on 165C instead of 65C. Denatured the grain and had to chuck it. Fortunately it was only 5L

Why chuck it?

You'd never make a beer from it but on the plus side you had an enormous flapjack

 

[MyQul]

Why chuck it?

You'd never make a beer from it but on the plus side you had an enormous flapjack

Never thought of that. I do like a flap jack

 

[MickDundee]

I am amazed so far no one has said getting married!

They’d have to be pretty talented, and have a very understanding wife, if they can get married whilst brewing!

My second ever kit brew was the first one I didn’t use carb drops for. I read that a teaspoon per bottle was a good rule of thumb (it isn’t), and I assumed that the teaspoons we have in the house are a “standard” 4g teaspoon size (they aren’t). Finally, I though on top of the kitchen units, above the kettle, was a good place to store bottles I’d brought in from the shed whilst I was waiting for room in the fridge.

You can probably guess what happened - I had the kettle on to make a cup of tea when *bang* one of the bottles above my head exploded. I had 500ml of beer to clean up from the kitchen cupboards, and glass has flown at least 20 feet (around a corner) and hit the front door. It took quite a lot of force to pull the neck of the bottle out of the kitchen wall after it had embedded.

I got a teaspoon and weighed a level spoonful of sugar - 7.5g. From then on I only get enough beer out of the shed to fit in the fridge, and use the Brewers Friend priming calculator for calculating the sugar I need.

 

[Thumper]

Why chuck it?

You'd never make a beer from it but on the plus side you had an enormous flapjack

I do not have a dog or a compost heap, so I threw away the grain from my first BIAB. And that made me a bit sad, because there must be something useful I can do with it.

Hello, malted flapjack!

 

[darkbright]

Getting hammered and falling asleep just as the boil started. Still not sure how long that boiled for.

Spilling 20L of beer onto my spare room carpet. I'm now not allowed to have fermenters in the house.

 

[Ajhutch]

I do not have a dog or a compost heap, so I threw away the grain from my first BIAB. And that made me a bit sad, because there must be something useful I can do with it.



Hello, malted flapjack!

Use a boatload of honey or syrup. We have after all extracted all the sugar from the grains during the mash.


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[MyQul]

Leaving a tap open/or a tap failing on an FV is my worst brewing fear (I dont know what Id say to MrsMQ if this were to happen, as I ferment in the kitchen). So non of my FV's have taps and I just use a syphon when necessary

 

[Jakeyboi]

Testing my freezer before I turned it into a kegaarator. Put three cornies in and plugged it in thinking I will have a nice cold pint in a few hours..... next day I come home from work and I had three frozen kegs. Luckily the kegs survived and the beer turned out good.

 

[foxbat]

I got a teaspoon and weighed a level spoonful of sugar - 7.5g. From then on I only get enough beer out of the shed to fit in the fridge, and use the Brewers Friend priming calculator for calculating the sugar I need.

Crikey that's about 5 volumes of CO2. I'm surprised the whole lot didn't go off like some kind of artillery barrage!

 

[MickDundee]

Crikey that's about 5 volumes of CO2. I'm surprised the whole lot didn't go off like some kind of artillery barrage!

I was lucky. The other bottles were all gushers but no explosions.

 

[IainM]

I just made another mistake. Namely leaving the corny beer line on the kitchen counter with a 4yo in the house. "What's this Daddy?", "oh, nothing" as I grab it and put it away not realising that he had loosened the nut around the John Guest disconnect. Later, the wife goes up for a shower so I check to see if the force carbonation has worked, and up goes a fountain of Munich Dunkle. Realised pretty quickly and stopped it before it turned into a disaster (they don't call 'em quick disconnects for nothing), and luckily I'd dropped it to 5 PSI to avoid a glass of foam. Just about managed to finish cleaning it off the ceiling by the time she finished. :lol:

 

[foxbat]

After a run of dare I say it; boring and routine brew days I think I had it coming today.

1. Adding lactic acid with syringe and open bottle in one hand. Tilted hand to direct syringe towards water. Tipped lactic straight from bottle into water. I guessed about 2ml went in and I know I needed another 4ml so not too bad and the mash pH worked out right for the pilsner I'm brewing.
2. Shuffling around the kettle and under hoses to get in position for stirring while the chiller's in. Knocked over and broke a small ceramic ornamental statue thing bought for my wife by her nephew and niece. I thought it was butt ugly anyway which didn't lessen the bollocking one bit.
3. Transferring to the fermenter. Did the classic of leaving the fermenter tap open. About a litre of sticky wort all over the kitchen floor before I noticed it. Much cursing ensued as mopping the floor was added to the usual cleanup tasks.

Despite all that I hit all my numbers and got 24 litres of a hoppy german pilsner into the fermenter and into the fridge where it's safely out of my reach for the rest of the day. I need to lie down.

 

[Petrolhead]

Whilst tidying the shed, sorry brew house, last weekend for a brew up I chucked a hank of fine wire wool into a cardboard box on a nearby shelf.

Sadly, I had forgotten that I had stored a motorcycle battery in the box. If you have never seen wire wool flare up like that you will never understand how fast I moved to throw it out.

Never mind the shed only had all my home brew, paints, petrol and gas welder in it........

 

[AdeDunn]

Hmmm, it's a toss up for me, between:-

1) Spending a small fortune on beer kits when I first started out, instead of using the money to buy the kit to BIAB.

or:-

2) Forgetting to pull the blow off tube out of the bottle of Starsan before I started racking the finished beer in my bottling bucket... In my defence, I was distracted by my wife talking to me whilst I did it. She isn't usually in the room when I rack ready to bottle. lol Still, the beer has carbonated nicely and tastes delicious. lmao

 

[Sadfield]

Tried to squeeze a third brewday in during a week off work. With both FVs in use, I took a punt on using the 15L Youngs bucket I use a to weigh grain out, as an Fv. To compound the problem it was a 2.5% session Ale, so didn't take long for a lactobacillus pelicle to form. Only batch I've ditched. A reminder of why breweries keep their grain and fv separate and that we only sanitise, not sterilise.

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