Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I thought it would be fun as we wind down the year to share our less-than-shining moments as homebrewers. So let's here it, what was your biggest F-Up this year or in the past!

I'll get this party started with a recent event. I had promised Paul S. I would brew a Kolsch for him. Things went well and it was tasting pretty good after lagering for a couple of weeks. So I carbed it up and get ready to start serving it. In a previous mishap the beer line I was going to use had burst a few inches up from the ball-lock. I hadn't ordered a replacement line yet so as a temp fix I cut line line above the problem area and reinstalled the MFL and ball-lock. I cleaned the line and hooked it up to the keg. I poured a sample and it was yummy. After a quick glance in the fridge again everything looked good, no issues. The next day I went out to the garage and there was beer all over the floor! Crap! I opened the fridge and beer was everywhere and the the Kolsh keg was empty!

So lesson to self, make sure to check the MFL connections to make sure they're tight enough every time! 2 1/2 gallons of tasty beer on the floor. Huge mess. Total F-Up!

This was a number of years ago. I was brewing several back-to-back beers for an event that I was doing and for the dessert beer, I was making the clone of Southern Tier's Crème Brulèe stout - a very big beer. So to ensure a good fermentation, I put the wort on top of the yeast bed from a beer that I had just racked to secondary. Brew day was uneventful and after cleaning up, I went upstairs to make dinner. All of a sudden I hear what sounds like an explosion outside, so I open the patio door to the deck to listen outside - nothing. After cleaning up after dinner, I go back to the basement to check on the beer - WHOLLY COW! The "explosion" that I had heard was my beer blowing the entire airlock assembly out of the carboy and smashing it into the ceiling 4 ft above! The fermentation had taken off so aggressively that the krausen had clogged the airlock within a matter of a 2-3 hours, over pressurized the carboy and shot the entire assembly out like a rocket! The plastic airlock shattered into several pieces when it hit the ceiling. Beer was flowing out of the carboy like a lava flow from a volcano! By the time that I could get a blow-off tube into it, I had lost well over a gallon of beer - on the floor, walls and ceiling. What a mess to clean up, too! And now, I have a permanent stain on the textured ceiling in my basement, which serves as a good reminder to keep a watchful eye on your fermentations and don't assume that they'll take a long time to get started!
This is how much beer was lost from the initial explosion and subsequent blow-off during fermentation.

Ashtray-scented scotch heavy from burning it on the element in a stuck recirculating mash a few years back, that one was pretty bad. Tossed the element and the batch, it was unsalvageable.


Haven't had a disaster in a couple years now!

I tried to smoke my own grain with apple wood last year. The grain smelt really nice and tasted good. Made the beer, fermented it, conditioned it and after all that hard work got to taste it carbonated. I used tap water to soak in Spritz the grains during the smoking process.

Chlorine.

I made 5 gallons of the most expensive Band-Aid flavored beer you could ever find. And dumped it.

Does this count if beer turned out great? Brewed a golden strong with my neighbor. We got in to some good bottles of beer during the brew session and got smashed. Really smashed. I do not remember much after starting the mash. The next day I had a beer in the fermenter and everything was cleaned up, which I do not remember. Could not figure out if I added sugar or not until I found the empty sack in the garbage. Yeast starter was gone so I must have pitched it. Turned out to be my best golden strong to date. I guess when you have a process down...

That's called muscle memory.

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carrisr wrote:That's called muscle memory.

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And beer amnesia?

Matt must have "brewer's instinct" to be able to complete a batch when he's not even sentient.

Anyway...

I remember a batch where I forgot to put the screen in the bottom of the mash tun. The sparge that never cleared and kept clogging the pump during recirculation! Do-oh!