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Fail Thread (Mistakes You've Made) 2020


ben 10

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Got a fairly tight schedule today and need to be done by 12. Put the water in, checked all my grain, weighed and milled, set my alarm for when the temp should be right. Go out to check temp and the power wasn’t turned on......... muppet!

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I have a stout I accidentally over-carbed. It's a little proddy so I've been careful about opening and pouring - even bought some lock down stoppers to use when I pour the 1st glass.

It's been cool and they are in a cupboard in the garage so I figured I wouldn't need to refrigerate.

Result: Maybe 500ml beautiful coffee stout eventually in the glass, maybe 100ml over the bench and in the sink and maybe 150ml sculled down under pressure as foam as I covered the bottle with my mouth to get it to the sink. 😄

Next one is in the fridge NOW, chillin' for tonight. 😄

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I have 4 "failed" beers in a row, which is a pain, as I'm not looking forward to plough through them, they're so underwhelming. Lesson learned - don't try new stuff all the time, always brew a known entity every 2nd brew.  So next up are the Abbey Blonde and Scotch ale to right the ship.

I brewed a English bitter and amber malt that was over bittered, but came good after a month in the bottle, but still lacks malt flavours. The lesson is always check the kit IBU first and work out if you need to do a boil. With the EB, I'd say not.

I did a 'brown' ale with Coopers dark and amber malt, crystal grain steep and some hops. Got a bland generic dark beer. Will not use the dark ale again, can't see me getting a beer I like from this.

Did a Real ale with Amber malt, grain steep and some steeped and dry hops. Got a bland nondescript beer. The Real was ok last winter, but felt it needed amber malt - but it actually made it more bland.

Did the MJ Tyneside Brown ale kit, with pale malt tin, grain steep again, and only dry hop. Got a bland brown ale. Even checked the IBU on the can, only 13 IBU - it needed a short boil. But I thought if I left the boil out out, I'd get more of the malt profile of a English Brown. Nah, it needed some bitterness, or more malt... or something.

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4 hours ago, Lab Cat said:

I have 4 "failed" beers in a row, which is a pain, as I'm not looking forward to plough through them, they're so underwhelming. Lesson learned - don't try new stuff all the time, always brew a known entity every 2nd brew. 

I feel your pain, Lab. It seems every time I try something different in my brews it turns to poo. Harvesting Coopers commercial yeast - fail. Added oats to a stout - fail. Cinnamon in a dark ale - fail. And although it's not finished yet, a Coopers OS Lager with salvaged Euro lager yeast tastes like it's going the same way.

Your try something new only every second brew theory has merit but because brewing is a slow process there's also an element of "I can't wait to try this or try that" as well. Brewing can be cruel. 😉

 

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Cloves.  Didn't count 'em or strain 'em, and they ended up in the FV for the duration of a stout.  Ruined, totally undrinkable.  Used 4 cloves in my latest ginger beer and ensured there was ONLY 4, and they were strained out.  Lesson learned - some spices pack a punch!

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11 hours ago, Lab Cat said:

I have 4 "failed" beers in a row, which is a pain, as I'm not looking forward to plough through them, they're so underwhelming. Lesson learned - don't try new stuff all the time, always brew a known entity every 2nd brew.

Bloody hell mate. That sucks.

I've had some nice beers using almost some of those ingredients.  e.g. Coopers Dark can, LDME, a mash of caramalt, rye choc malt, coopers ale malt and some light crystal. Could it be that you're steeping instead of mashing and so not getting everything out of the grains?

6 hours ago, MUZZY said:

Added oats to a stout - fail

I add oats to most of my beers - I like what it does for mouth feel and head. But they are mashed along with Ale malts and usually something like crystal. What are you calling a fail?

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14 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

I add oats to most of my beers - I like what it does for mouth feel and head. But they are mashed along with Ale malts and usually something like crystal. What are you calling a fail?

It could be my unrefined palate but I didn't notice any difference in mouth feel to other beers I've made without oats. Head retention was below average. It actually tasted OK.
I also got 'neck ring' inside the bottles. This won't deter me from drinking it and it never has when it's occurred before but it's not very good aesthetically. I won't share beers that have neck rings in case my friends have more delicate stomachs than me.

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7 minutes ago, MUZZY said:

It could be my unrefined palate but I didn't notice any difference in mouth feel to other beers I've made without oats. Head retention was below average. It actually tasted OK.
I also got 'neck ring' inside the bottles. This won't deter me from drinking it and it never has when it's occurred before but it's not very good aesthetically. I won't share beers that have neck rings in case my friends have more delicate stomachs than me.

I haven't noticed neck ring but then wasn't really looking for it so I could have been washing it out in bottle cleaning time without realising. The mouth and head thing - I don't think I imagined the difference but it's been a while since I've done a beer that is not grained. The 2 I have in kegs right now for the experiment are both simple beers though - K&K with some hops tea. I will pay attention and see if I notice a difference.

Did you mash the oats? Just wondering if there's much difference between steep used by @Lab Cat and mash in the effect it has.

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1 minute ago, Journeyman said:

I haven't noticed neck ring but then wasn't really looking for it so I could have been washing it out in bottle cleaning time without realising. The mouth and head thing - I don't think I imagined the difference but it's been a while since I've done a beer that is not grained. The 2 I have in kegs right now for the experiment are both simple beers though - K&K with some hops tea. I will pay attention and see if I notice a difference.

Did you mash the oats? Just wondering if there's much difference between steep used by @Lab Cat and mash in the effect it has.

The neck ring might be attributable to something other than the oats because it has happened on occasions before ie. slack hygiene processes, wort not fully fermented before bottled etc.
I steeped the oats on the advice of an article I read. Something about instant oats already being through some process that gelatinises something blah, blah. My attention to detail is one of my many faults. Even just steeping the oats was starting to turn it onto porridge. From a personal point of view I'm not sure the extra effort in this type of addition is worth it for me. I only do KnKs and usually with the kit yeasts and a steep of hops and have been really happy with the results. I think it was only for the sake of looking down the rabbit hole further that I ventured into oats, cinnamon and yeast harvesting. However I will give reactivating Coopers commercial yeast another try with the benefit of having temp control this time around, which is where I went wrong the first time.

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2 minutes ago, MUZZY said:

I steeped the oats on the advice of an article I read. Something about instant oats already being through some process that gelatinises something

AFAIK, the oats still need to be mashed along with grain that has the enzymes. To make sure we're talking the same thing, when you say 'steep' you mean just soaking the oats in hot water for a while?

My understanding is, oats normally need a 'protein rest' but quick oats have already had that part done. (so have Aussie rolled oats) but the next step is to get the enzymes to extract the goodies that get boiled and turned into sugars for the yeast. If your steep = soak rather than mash, maybe that's why oats don't seem to have any effect?

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4 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

It's kinda in your name... 😄

Well done, JM. Not many people know that 'muzzy' is an actual word. My self appointed nickname is derivative of my surname but I also get a laugh out the true definition of the word. Rather fitting. 😄 

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8 hours ago, Journeyman said:

Bloody hell mate. That sucks.

I've had some nice beers using almost some of those ingredients.  e.g. Coopers Dark can, LDME, a mash of caramalt, rye choc malt, coopers ale malt and some light crystal. Could it be that you're steeping instead of mashing and so not getting everything out of the grains?

I'm trying steeps again, only because a few the recipes I'm doing call for them, so I'm using up the rest of the kg I bought. Pale crystal is used in all sorts of beers, so it can't hurt. Can't see what they add though TBH. The Brown ale kit hasn't benefited from it at all, if it's supposed to add some flavour.

I can't see why the Real ale is such a bland dud. I added Amber liquid, did a short boil and dry hopped Goldings, 200g steeped crystal and 250g Golden Syrup. Not a recipe, but you'd think that could be a decent beer with some flavour. But there's just nothing there, no malt backbone, nothing.

15 hours ago, MUZZY said:

I feel your pain, Lab. It seems every time I try something different in my brews it turns to poo. Harvesting Coopers commercial yeast - fail. Added oats to a stout - fail. Cinnamon in a dark ale - fail. And although it's not finished yet, a Coopers OS Lager with salvaged Euro lager yeast tastes like it's going the same way.

Sorry to hear that. Gives me the shits when I do a recipe and it sucks. I also forgot about the Smooth bitter I did - so that 5 fails. What a rank beer that is.

I think Coopers should specify you shouldn't use the darkest horriblest molasses extract like I did - Blackstrap. There's no way they'd put up a recipe, unless there's a market for bitters the flavour of dry rusted metal.

A potential saving is mixing and matching though. The rusty bitter is quite drinkable when mixed with the bland Real ale. I need to find a way to drink some of this stuff as I've no spare frickin bottles left.

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3 hours ago, Ben 10 said:

My understanding is oats need a cereal mash

Oops, I used the wrong name. You do like a terse response. The rest of it is correct though, including the advice that quick oats don't need it.

Cereal mash is a bit hotter than protein rest.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Knew I'd have to post in here eventually.......

It all started about a week ago when I brewed up an AG Clone and Wood. Missed my OG by a bit so thought instead of drinking a near mid strength Pacific Ale, I'll brew another strong batch with the same bitterness and mix them both together in my larger 60L fermenter. All went well, saved the brew and ended up with 45L of it... Can't complain there.

Tuesday night I pulled the 60L fermenter out, gave it a good sanitize and poured both cubes in. Was just starting to clean things up before realising the shitty tap is leaking (I usually use my 30L Coopers fermenter which has a great tap that I have never had issues with). Shitttt... What do I do now. I didn't have a spare tap and it was about 8.30pm. A quick phone call to a fellow brewer who lives close and I found myself a new tap - lucky as I was expecting to have to do the 9am run to the LHBS to get a new tap and hope not too much leaked out...... Jumped in the car and raced over there, got the tap, came back and poured about 3/4 of the wort back into the cubes understanding I am risking infection but had no other choice.


Got enough wort out of the fermenter to tilt it on an angle and allow the tap to be swapped over. Then poured to cubes back in and added the yeast starter. Crisis averted thank god. One positive that came out of things was after mixing the two (weaker and stronger) I got back OG back to where it should be (1.044).


After checking the beer this morning, it seems to be chugging away nicely and at the moment there is no signs of infection so I think we are OK. I am always pretty anal with sanitation so was confident it will be OK.

Mitch.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Made a Kolsch as my first brew that would require lagering once in the bottles. In all my reading about temperature and conditioning, it never came up that you have to wait for the bottles to carb up at normal temps before chucking in the fridge. 4 weeks, and a fairly frazzled wife, later; flat, sweet beer.

The silver lining is that I finally got a ferment fridge, so at least I figured this out prior to fully going down the lager rabbit hole.

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  • 1 month later...

... why do I always have to chase that last drop out of the Boil Kettle (have same prob at bottling/kegging time ha ha)... always end up making a mess... hose flips out of the FV as I tip the vessel up to scadge that last bit out of the big pot... phaaaaaarque.... ah well at least the Brewery Floor got a wash hey ; )

 

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