I had a big brew day yesterday, unfortunately I also had a very absent minded day…I started the day off by bottling a batch, very proud of my work I glanced around only to see my priming sugar sitting on the counter. Swearing myself off while uncapping 48 bottles and recapping I decided that was my one and only big oversight, until later. I also brewed a beautiful looking honey brown, moved it to the fermenter and patted myself on the back for a day well done. As I’m brushing teeth four hours later and wondering why there was no airlock activity on my honey brown, I once again looked up at the counter to see my yeast in the smack pack sitting there…
I thought at least you guys would like a good laugh but it got me wondering what other simple oversights have been done by my fellow homebrewers?!
Was trying to crash cool a yeast starter in the freezer real quick to get the yeast to settle out. A few hrs later remembered, looked in the freezer and had a nice yeast slushy. Yeast did survive and did make a good beer.
On my first batch i hadn’t thought about a way to measure the amount of water i was using. somehow it turned out well and i was only down maybe a half gallon into the carboy. also forgot to put my IC in the boiling wort to sanitize so i had to extend a boil once.
Drained 12 gallons out of the mash into the 80qt that was sitting on the kitchen floor. Then I realized that I’d never be able to dead-lift the thing up onto the stove without serious injury. :-\
I got 10 minutes into my boil and ran out of propane…ran into get my wallet and car keys and looked at the in-line guage I just bought 2 weeks before and had not installed…luckily the propane exchange is only 2 minutes away so all was good!
back when I used glass carboys, I accidentally forgot to turn the hose on for the water side of my plate chiller. opened up the spigot to allow 212df wort to come rolling out. luckily I caught it before losing more than a quart or 2, but the bottom of the carboy shattered out.
I was siphoning sanitizer out of a 6.5 gallon carboy and into a corney keg on brew day. My plan was to fill the keg, then put the additional into a bucket. It was taking a while and I had a lot on my mind, so I walked away thinking I’d be right back. 20 minutes later, I froze and cringed. Came back to a gallon and a half of sanitizer on the kitchen floor! D’OH! :
I did the same thing after my fist decoction mash…Thank God for neighbors! It would have took me 45 min round trip to exchange if it wasn’t for my neighbor.
Think my dumbest yet was at the LHBS, shortly after I began AG. My first few recipes were totally off. OG, SRM, all that. Turned out, I was reading the scale wrong. I was reading it as 1.5#, or, 1 1/2#, etc…when actually 1.5 on the scale meant 1 pound 5 oz. Man did I feel like I douch-weasle when I figured that one out!!! ;D
Sanitized a keg with starsan hooked up a cobra
tap to run the starsan out of the keg and to sanitize the tap and lne
I put a rubberband around the tap to hold it open
ran out the starsan filled and pressurized the keg
hooked the tap back up with out taking the rubber band
off. Didn’t lose too much beer but felt like a complete moron.
Actually, the fact that you didn’t make a starter is a much bigger mistake than this. During the summer (and even sometimes during the winter) I regularly let the wort cool over night to pitching temps. Not making a starter can make the difference between good (or more likely, so-so) and great beer - and, if you are regularly not making a starter and getting activity over night there’s a pretty darn good chance you are pitching too warm too. (yeah, I know, you weren’t looking for a critique but I can’t help myself).
I’ve been using foam control boiling inside with good luck. One day I was making a starter and figured I didn’t really need to watch the boil closely as I had plenty of room in the pot. I was a 2 qt starter in a 6 qt pot. Well I suddenly heard a noise and it was a massive boil over and the stove my wife cleaned that afternoon. It took hours to get all that sticky burnt on wort up and made a long day out of a simple starter.
I just picked up a new to me Springfield 1903A3 (what can I say… I’m a well armed liberal who likes to shoot for the challenge of it).
Set it on my chest freezer above a couple of carboys of almost finished cream ale (I was letting them come up for a d-rest). Pulled the bolt to inspect the barrel and set it down on top of the freezer. Turned my attention back to the barrel and heard that ominous metal rolling sound. Looked down in time to see the bolt come rolling off the freezer lid and start falling right towards one of the carboys. Time did the slow down thing as I tried to reach for the bolt, but to no avail. pingcrack and 5 gallons of fresh cream ale pouring out onto the dining room carpet through a carboy length crack.
Once had some buddies over and brewed up a batch of a two hearted clone and then a belgian strong ale. Had a few beers which I very rarely do during the brewday. As I was pouring the starter into the belgian, I realized it was the starter I had made for the two hearted and the starter for the belgian was already in the bucket with the two hearted. Felt like a complete jackass. Beers came out tasing OK, but would’ve been awesome if I would have used the correct yeast!
While brewing i generally try to get other things accomplished. Most of the time its get the next batch of beer started so I don’t waste a lot of time. I tried to bottle wine once while brewing a double batch. I left the bottling buck spigot open from when i cleaned it. end result was about $100 worth of pinot grigio ended up on my kitchen floor. My house is over 100 years old and slopes very slightly. Most of that wine ended up going into the floor vent.
New rule after that experience: always triple check to see the spigot is closed and never siphon into the bottling bucket without being there to watch it.
I brew out on the deck. I pump the wort through 35’ of line to the 27 gal ferminator in my wine cellar.
One RIS batch I forgot to remove the safety weight from the OPV valve.
The ferminaror filled about a gallon and a half.
The pressure popped the fill tube (a drilled #7 stopper in the lid) out.
The remaining 10+ gallons of 25°P RIS flowed onto the lid and then the floor of the wine cellar.
I spent the next three months unloading racks, mopping, cleaning and drying the floor, and reloading racks.
