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Fail Thread (mistakes you've made)


ben 10

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Yesterday I heard an almighty crash form somewhere' date=' [/quote']

 

Ouch, good thing you were at home.

 

Yeah for sure, the weather decided to warm up again yesterday down here to about 28 and the fridge kicked back in after a hiatus of about a week. I'm guessing a small but quick temperature change in the fridge along with the stress in the glass caused it to suddenly break.

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It's things like that which make me glad I just sit my FV on the floor of the fridge. No shelves to worry about breaking, glass to clean up or whatever, although they didn't use glass shelves in 1957 or whenever that fridge was built, was all wire racks. I don't think one of those would hold the weight of my FV when full either, but they do come in handy as support for the grain bag during brew days when it is first removed from the urn.

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This mornings brew I didn't shut off the FV tap after cleaning it. Poured 3l of liquid malt in and went to mix it with some water I'm thinking 'I don't remember spilling that!?' Ahh' date=' yea.. though of this thread straight away[/quote']

 

Been there done that, once.

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Ohh mannnn, just finished bottling and washed out the blue bottler and thought, hey what's that thing in there? Must be a big bit of hop. Its a COCKROACH!! About 1cm long. Woulda been in there the whole time I bottled. So this brew will be memorable. I'm not game to tell anyone or they'll be scared to drink my beers anymore. But I can never unlearn! surprised man, wtf..

 

I did however sanitize the bottler (?).. but you know what? I actually saw some things come through the pipe in the early stages of bottling and I've never seen that before. They just whizzed past and I didn't know what they were. I'm now thinking that it's possible they came in the kit.. this kit is a Darwin brand made locally. The one that came out was 'fresh' because I squished it's guts out

 

And aren't roaches meant to be one of the cleanest critters or something? I know some people eat them in other countries. Trying to make myself feel less grossed out now so I'm able to just forget about it. Alcohol kills roach germs, doesn't it. .?

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Well looks like I'm at least the second person ever on Earth to do this

 

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=258101

 

ha! "Dry roaching" lol

 

You know, I'm now remembering this isn't the first time this has happened. Years ago, we were sitting at the beach with my brews and my mate (who's last name happened to be 'Roach') found a big one in his. We couldn't know for sure if it had been there the whole time or jumped in itself but I can't imagine I could have missed bottling that one

 

What makes this brew even worse is I bought Coopers long neck bottles on Gumtree from someone and this is the first time I've used them. Sanitized and bottle brushed but I can still see a little few specks of bits on the bottom of some of the bottles. This one's really shaping up to be something special. Yea, Christmas presents for friends is sounding better and better

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Was totally bummed out because I only hit 60% efficiency today. Same method, same bag, same temps, a very similar grain bill - what gives? I busted a seam in the brew bag trying to squeeze the last dregs to somehow buff the numbers.

 

Finally I went over the efficiency calculator one last time, still in disbelief. Caught it: a missing zero. I had 80 grams of chocolate malt - not 800! 83% efficiency sounds more like it cool Don't muck around with decimal points, they mean business.

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Made my first partial mash (adapted version of the Brewdog 5 AM Saint recipe) and after cooling it down in the sink must have stirred everything back up. Despite my best efforts using a kitchen strainer, I ended up with at least 2 solid inches of trub (consisting of a lot of hop matter) in the FV.

 

Recken this will have too much of a negative impact on the finished beer?

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Made my first partial mash (adapted version of the Brewdog 5 AM Saint recipe) and after cooling it down in the sink must have stirred everything back up. Despite my best efforts using a kitchen strainer' date=' I ended up with at least 2 solid inches of trub (consisting of a lot of hop matter) in the FV.

 

Recken this will have too much of a negative impact on the finished beer? [/quote']

 

Should be right, especially if you can pull off a cold crash to condense it down a bit. Does it come up to the tap?

 

The little sideshow vessel I had going on my last brew had all the dregs from the mash and it came right up to the line of the tap, if not partly over it. Through two weeks, with a three day cold crash, the trub came down a lot and seemed fairly set, and I reckon the tap made a bit of a channel for the liquid so much so that it almost ended up as clear as my main batch, which had the advantage of gelatine finings...

 

 

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Unfortunately I can't cold crash, but it all seemed to drop down to the bottom quite well. It does come partway up the tap, so i jammed some rolled up newspapers under the FV to tilt it back and away from the tap and that seems to have worked!

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That trubby shit is mainly hot break, which you don't want in the fermenter no. It can potentially cause problems in the beer later on, such as premature staling. Not saying it 100% will, but it can. It's to do with the proteins in it. Obviously it's too late now, but it does pay to keep it out as much as possible. I daresay you'll be ok though; I fermented a pilsner on a heap of trub like that last year and it was fine, but I still recommend keeping the crap out as much as possible.

 

Also, lol at Ruddy's yeast starter story.

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Also' date=' [img']lol[/img] at Ruddy's yeast starter story.

 

The funny part was the tone of voice, which is kind of hard to convey. It was kind of a cross between "stop invading my kitchen cupboards", "what the hell is this weird thing", "I'm sick of your beer stuff showing up everywhere" and "do other people have to put up with this weird sh*t?"

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Caught it: a missing zero. I had 80 grams of chocolate malt - not 800! 83% efficiency sounds more like it cool Don't muck around with decimal points' date=' they mean business.[/quote']

Thank goodness you caught it and didn't throw 800g of chocolate malt in. I can't say for sure what that would taste like, but I don't think it would be good!

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  • 1 month later...

Put the wrong end of the counter flow chiller into the boil kettle. Turned on the pump to sterilise it and boiling hot wort started shooting out onto the floor. Shhhhhhhh*#%!!

 

Luckily I probably only lost around 2 litres. crying

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my fail

 

recently I returned to brewing after a few years off

I did a kit/kilo brew upstairs of my home and when carrying the full plastic fermenter down stairs I knocked the tap.....tearing the tap clean out

 

23 ltrs gone

 

Wouldn't you just turn the fermenter on its side with tap hole facing up?

Sure you would loose some but not the entire 23 litres.

(This assumes a lid was on the FV)

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Man have I been busy! Haven't managed to read or post for a little while, but I do have a failure to report biggrin

 

I have brewed my worst batch in quite a while - the Coopers Best Extra Stout recipe with repitched, reactivated Coopers commercial ale yeast. It smells a bit like Vegemite, and has a slightly Vegemite taste. It was progressing very nicely in the fermenter, until my last gravity sample where the Vegemite flavour had appeared. Maybe I left it too long before bottling. Maybe I shouldn't have reused the yeast. It's still drinkable, so I'll soldier on through the 21 litres I've got of it!

 

My other recent brews have turned out beautifully, so I'm happy with my success rate regardless happy

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So I've been priming with rice malt syrup - about 3mls per bottle has been great for lagers, a bit less for ales. Seems to ferment very well and builds up a great head.

 

Had everything lined up to bottle my rauchbock today, bottles sanitised, capper out, FV tapped with the wand... no rice malt syrup in the fridge. I was sure I bought some last brew day, but nada. I was already committed to a big brewday with the strike water heating up in the background, so I decided to give priming with DME a whack. Ugh.

 

With the help of my horribly inaccurate analogue scale I got to the estimate of 1/2 TbSP for 500ml bottles, so I quickly funneled a scoop in each bottle based on that. Too scared to double check the numbers now. The stuff was awful in the bottle, it clumped up in floaty chunks and stuck to the wand each time I drew it out. I'm really hoping it dissolves as the bottles prime, the beer itself could otherwise be one of the best I've put down. We'll soon find out.

 

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