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Fail Thread (Mistakes You've Made) 2018


ben 10

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Overflow top pipe and grain stopper fell off due to my over vigorous stirring the grain. Dont think any harm done but was a pain trying to retrieve. All good and brew is on schedule.

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Giving the bottling wand a quick rinse before sanitizing,  minutes before bottling and I forgot about the little plastic pin in the end bit. 

It fell out and dropped straight down the sink hole.. Didn't even hit the sides or anything, just 'swish' straight down the drain. 

3 brews later and still yet to replace it, just using the wand and end bit minus the pin. I have to turn the  tap on and off each bottle and have got a drip tray for the beer that slowly drips out in between each bottle.  It goes toward the hydro sample so its not wasted ?

Also have to be a contortionist to get the last couple bottles in...

 Cheers, Lee

 

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I chopped about 5cm off a spare bottling wand and slipped some silicon tubing over it. I put my usual bottling wand in the other end of the tubing. The 5cm end goes in the fermenter / bottling cube tap, then I line up all my primed bottles and fill with the bottling wand in the other end of the tubing. I put the bottles onto a plastic tray to catch spillage. Makes the filling part quick and easy!

After filling each bottle I grab a cap out of a bowl of Starsan and sit on top. I cap all the bottles with my bench capper in one go after the whole lot is filled.

The tubing and bottle wands are permanently stuck together, so they get a sodium perc soak after use with the fermenter, then another soak with the bottles and Starsan before use the next time. 

Cheers, 

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not so much a fail on my part but on the last yeast starter I did, I couldn't use the heating function on my stir plate. I pulled it apart today and found that the 3 pin end of the temp probe lead was rather loosely sitting in its socket inside the case. Enter the soldering iron and a bit of solder on the pins and it's snug in there and the function is working again. I'll definitely be needing it on the next starter as overnight temps are getting a bit low for ale yeast at the moment.

Cheers

Kelsey

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I'm a kit and kilo brewer. A friend told me she uses Woolies Homebrand kits. I decided I'd give a Homebrand lager a go, except my Woolies didn't have any Coopers BE2 or BE3 in stock for me to add to it so I improvised by adding 1kg dextrose and 500g LDM.  Ended up with a beer that almost tasted like wine due to the high ABV. Note to self: Stick to approx 1kg of fermentables in future.
The upside to my fail was I drank 6 long necks on the afternoon of May 19 and slept through the whole royal wedding telecast in the evening. Winning. ?

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Made a big mistake today. Went to pour a beer and got distracted. Left the garage and went back 5 mins later. Beer was still pouring. All over the place. Not sure how much i lost but wow what a fkn mess. Not sure if the photo says it all.

20180630_114506.jpg

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Sorry to laugh but couldn't help it. Not a great thing to have happen though.

Muzz, you can use more than a kg of fermentables, but it's better the other way around i.e. 1kg malt and 500g Dex. Or the whole lot malt or something. Large amounts of Dex  will thin out the beer and probably lead to it tasting crap. The other thing you need is more yeast if you use more fermentables.

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Attempted an Arrogant Bastard clone.

Mashed in, temperature was too low, so I heated up my mash. Did not circulate mash enough, so got a false reading on my thermometer, checked after 10 minutes and it was at 74c. This I'm sure would have prevented all enzymatic activity, but it didnt matter.

Boiled regardless.

Made starter, left for 24 hours in temp controlled fridge, unplugged temperature control unit and left fridge to crash starter down so I could pitch it. Got up in the morning and starter was frozen.

Made a second yeast starter and pitched it.

Tasted after 3 days, and it tasted like burnt cigarettes, I had scorched the wort while heating up my mash. I have a an ekeggle with exposed elements, so whether it burnt when when I was reheating my mash or when I was ramping up to boil I dont know.

Lessons learned, I will not be reheating my mash again, and I will be stirring constantly while the wort is below boiling and the elements are on.

The elements were scorched so badly I couldn't get the burnt shit off them.

$85 in ingredients and $15 worth of elements, my most expensive brew day and nothing to show for it.

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36 minutes ago, Hoppy81 said:

Sorry for your loss!

Thanks mate

It was an Aussie Lager (Carlton Draught sort of clone). The FV samples were delish. I have a shameful liking to Carlton Draught. Maybe it was a sign from the Craft Beer Gods. 

Cheers,

Dave. 

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Trying to get the hang of this London ESB, well that's what I was thinking.

First EB stopped at 1.017 with a full bodied mash. I drop the mash temperature aiming for a medium bodied mash, rinsed the original yeast and pitched again. The result 1.005 and a 5.8% brew.

Cheers

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1 hour ago, Scottie said:

Trying to get the hang of this London ESB, well that's what I was thinking.

First EB stopped at 1.017 with a full bodied mash. I drop the mash temperature aiming for a medium bodied mash, rinsed the original yeast and pitched again. The result 1.005 and a 5.8% brew.

Cheers

Oh no Scottie

Silver lining: If you bottled it would be around the 6.2/6.3% mark.

Maybe that’s the ESBIPA............?

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My toaster is one of those ones where you always have to put the toast down a second time to actually toast it, but you have to pop it up manually half way through or it will burn. 

So I frequently burn my toast while reading this forum in the morning...

And for a more beer related fail, I misjudged what I thought would be an early cold snap in early autumn and tried to brew a lager at ambient temps. After an initial few days of perfectly cool weather for it, it jumped right up and got again. Months later I now have a lager that is perfectly balanced on that point between a definite tipper or one you can get through. I currently assess that on a bottle by bottle basis.

Until I get a bfew fridge I should just stick to ales.

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On 6/30/2018 at 2:49 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

Sorry to laugh but couldn't help it. Not a great thing to have happen though.

Muzz, you can use more than a kg of fermentables, but it's better the other way around i.e. 1kg malt and 500g Dex. Or the whole lot malt or something. Large amounts of Dex  will thin out the beer and probably lead to it tasting crap. The other thing you need is more yeast if you use more fermentables.

Cheers Otto. That's good to know.

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I like to call it extreme cold crashing.

 

pulled out the dry hop and chucked it back in the FV freezer for another 9 days, till I get home from work.

unfortunately this means another week without trying this beer but oh well. It’s only beer. 

Captain

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On 6/9/2018 at 10:53 PM, #granted+brew said:

Giving the bottling wand a quick rinse before sanitizing,  minutes before bottling and I forgot about the little plastic pin in the end bit. 

It fell out and dropped straight down the sink hole.. Didn't even hit the sides or anything, just 'swish' straight down the drain. 

3 brews later and still yet to replace it, just using the wand and end bit minus the pin. I have to turn the  tap on and off each bottle and have got a drip tray for the beer that slowly drips out in between each bottle.  It goes toward the hydro sample so its not wasted ?

Also have to be a contortionist to get the last couple bottles in...

 Cheers, Lee

 

Exactly same thing happened to me .... oh welll..... need to turn the tap on and off each time as well

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