What is your strangest brewing mistake/story?
You start first.
OK,
I was traveling from Orlando to Cleveland for thr '97 NHC via commercial airline. A friend asked me to carry a corny keg of beer for him to be entered in the keg-only competition. He assured me that the pressure had been released from the keg. When I got to the check-in counter the attendant asked what the keg was. I told her it was beer, and all of the pressure was released. She proceeded to take her pen and use the point of the pen to push down the poppet valve on the outlet side of the keg.
Beer sprayed everywhere, including all over the attendant, me, the ceiling, the counter… Standing there with beer dripping off of her chin, the attendant said, “That’s pretty tasty, what kind of beer is it?”
We cleaned up the mess, the counter attendant apologizing the whole time, me embarrassed and pissed off that I hadn’t checked the relief valve. The keg was checked in, but as the baggage crew brought the keg out to the plane, the pilot spotted it and refused to allow it on his plane. It was carried to Cleveland later on a cargo-only plane, and my friend won third place in the competition.
This isn’t “strange” per se, but a few weeks ago when it was about 15 degrees F outside and I decided to brew, I accidentally left my beautiful (and expensive) stainless steel immersion chiller outside, FILLED WITH WATER. Nothing broke (that I can see) but the ice expanding and contracting warped the coil something fierce. I have no ideas about how to fix it except for the fix that involves buying a new one. At least I still have the counterflow…
I’ve left spigots open when transferring precious liquids. But everyone’s done that right? 
The worst was picking up a fermenter and the spigot comes flying off. After a second pause and a yeast plug there was a huge quarter-sized gush of beer. I quickly jammed my thumb over the hole- luckily there was a freshly sanitized keg in the kitchen. I saved almost all that beer by letting it rip into the keg. Had to set everything with one hand. Good to know I still have reflexes.
That is so precious and classic it deserves to be in a movie… Reading this I hadn’t laughed so hard in a good while. Thanks man. ;D
Nothing so amusing, but yesterday was a bit of a nadir in brewing…found out that an aging beer of mine was covered with white film mold, and that my CO2 tank had run empty unexpectedly, in the same two minutes… Ah well, I suppose if that’s the worst of my brewing hobby its a pretty nice thing. Oh, and the day before my autosiphon snapped at the neck, DURING a brew session. So the brewing gods were a trifle annoyed with me this weekend. Perhaps they were angered with my neglect! I must brew more.
Everyone has a set amount of uncontrolable unfortunate events in the lives. Sounds like you used up quite a few of yours all at once. Should be smooth sailing for a while…
I adhere to the principle of Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives.
Xferred 8 gal. of pils into a 10 gal. keg yesterday for fermentation. I had the keg lid hanging partway open to cover as much of the opening as possible during the xfer from kettle to keg. As I reached to put the lid on, it fell into the keg. At least, one side of the lid had been sanitized.
You’re lucky. Only half of the batch will be infected 
Haha! +1 ;D
Denny did you fish it out or just put another lid on?
I do this from time to time but foil works better IMO.
AH HAH! That’s your secret! Dry lidding in the fermenter.
So that’s how you achieve that… je ne sais quoi.
I almost drainpoured a batch that was still in the kettle. As it chilled, hundreds of gnat sized bugs started appearing on top of the wort. I sanitized a strainer and started scooping them out but there were always a few more. Thinking my malt was full of weevils I almost just abandoned it but then I decided to taste a bug and they were hop seeds.
I got one, a sort of beginner’s decoction mistake, or just plain lack of knowledge about certain processes… and it’s sitting in the carboy right now.
I have been doing simple infusion mashes for awhile, and have done a few steps from 122 for Belgian whites, but the last white I did I decided to do a decoction. Steps at 110, 122 then decoct, then 158, and 170 with mash out.
Well I should have read up on it a little more… I thought I had a fair idea of the process and completed everything correctly (in my mind) only to discover recently that I probably botched this batch pretty good, although I am anxiously awaiting its completion so I can see how it turned out. Guess I should have finished reading more before I did it, and I have read many different books, but the part about decoction and also about lagers/pilsners I largely skipped or quickly browsed since at the time I had not been brewing that way and figured I would just come back when I needed to.
Anyway this is what happened… my ferulic acid rest went fine and I raised the temp to 122 and let it rest. I then pulled off my 2.1 gallons of liquid wort (yep) and brought it to a boil. I fired up the tun to 158 to rest while the wort I pulled off sat in the kettle simmering. I then mashed out at 170 combining the first and second worts. While I was sitting there thinking that this probably isn’t right, it did go smoothly. I now know that this most definitely was not correct, but I am very curious as to what it will turn out like. My brewhouse efficiency was still at 75% however I normally get around 77-78% so not to bad in that respect, but the fermentables may be a bit different. I put it in the carboy 1 week ago today and it still is bubbling, but the krausen is now starting to settle down which seems a bit longer than normal.
So what do y’all think that will taste like?
Andrew, I sympathize with your potentially terrible , terrible mistake. I hope it all turns out well for you. These things happen. Just let it go and don’t let it disturb your sleep. If you are going to be a home brewer, you have to man up sometimes.
All the Tubercle ever did was dump 6 gallons of wort on the ground when he didn’t have the boil kettle correctly positioned on the burner. My bad!
RDWHAHB
It’s why they invented the expression.
;D
nah, no sleep lost for me. It was more of a hand slap to the forehead and then move on kinda deal… should’ve read more into it before not after. :
I thing the 6 gallons on the floor it probably harder to take!
+!..now that is funny as hell!
My story isn’t nearly as funny but… I was going to replace the dip tube o-ring on one of my cornies and not thinking that the keg was pressurized with some starsan while in storage I began to remove the outlet stem and proceeded to spray starsan all over myself and the room.
That can be pretty dangerous - depending on the pressure, the dip tube could act like a lance and do some -serious- damage. For me, kegs are treated like firearms - handle with extreme care, and if you ever have to do anything to them, never make any assumptions about whether they’re loaded (pressurized) or not. These days whenever I’m doing anything to them I first pull the release valve and wait, then I keep it pulled while I take the lid off, THEN I assume it’s safe to do stuff.
I just put another one on. It would have been pretty much impossible to find it at the bottom of a full 10 gal. keg without doing more damage to the beer.
Just recalled another one when I touched 2 carboys together and they both shattered, dumping 10 gal. of double decocted pils down the drain in the garage floor. That was the last time I used carboys.