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Fail Thread (mistakes you've made)


ben 10

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Ah, no worries. cool

 

I guess if it was sealed, there is a very small chance that spores could have survived the boil and taken hold once it cooled, as a normal 100C boil won't necessarily kill them, but this seems unlikely. No-chilling in cubes wouldn't be so popular if that was a regular occurrence. sick

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Couldn't see it from the outside' date=' but I open it up and it looks like a kombucha scoby floating on top.[/quote']

What do you think caused this? Was the water you used boiled? Have you let other brews sit in a cube for this long with no problems?

Just re-read my post and it came across a little vague. Sorry about that! The cube lid wasn't sealed properly, most likely as a result of trying to over-tighten the lid which had softened a little with the heat. It was definitely sealed when I first put it into storage, so the only logical explanation is that the lid jumped a thread while it was cooling down. Water was indeed boiled, and the "sister batch" to this one was brewed two weeks ago with no issue.

 

If the wort was in a cube I'm guessing it was an all grain batch and was indeed boiled.

This was actually a kit brew (or half a one, really, since I'm using the Craft fermenter), but made up in the normal method of all my other kit cubes -- boil 2-3L water, mix in HME, halve wort into two cubes & seal, spec grain steep/drain, add fermentables (if req'd), short boil (if req'd), hop boil (if req'd), sanitise cube lid + open, pour grain/fermentable/hop additions into cube, top up with boiling water & seal.

 

Have made up about a half dozen brews from other cubes prepared the same way previously, and they've all gone off without a hitch. Pretty sure this was an equipment failure rather than a process one!

 

Also, RE: the brewing schedule, rather than hit the stouts I might use the gap to finally give my take on Otto's Red Ale a go. Since I'm running low on my house faux-Lager, I can use the other half of an OS Lager can to make more of that at the same time.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

10-day sample tastes crap

 

Well, actually, I could just tell people it's a "toasted porter" or some other BS and they'd probably like it, which is a testament to how strong the Robo-choc (and other EB) porter recipe is.

 

So yeah, it's not tip-worthy, but I'll probably do it again at some point.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Boil started so I went out.

Get home and check the timer. Oops, it's finished.

Shit, umm go and throw star anise in.

Check timer. Nope, didn't start it.

Check last sent email, bugger I only left an hour ago. 90 minute boil. Oh well, anise in for 30 instead of 10.

Licorice beer now.

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  • 2 weeks later...

biggrin That's a good one

 

I'm sampling a Robo-fail porter now and it's actually pretty good at the one-month mark despite the burnt flavour. Not sure if that makes me ok with the major fuck-up or even more disappointed about what it could have been

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  • 4 weeks later...

Today was the awesome 'Day of Double Fail' biggrin

 

Fail No. 1 - After removing and cleaning the bung from my no-chill cube I replaced it and filled the cube with diluted Starsan. It wasn't tight enough and slowly leaked out onto my now soaked (but I guess now bacteria-free) plywood shelf. I did buy one of those cube spanners with a nub on the end for tightening bungs last week, but didn't remember to securely tighten that cube.

 

Fail No. 2 - Well my new little cat likes to play with cords. And her home is in my brewery room. She must have managed to pull the temperature probe off my fermenter from under several layers of duct tape. This let the heat pad go nuts and by this afternoon (luckily I checked it) it was at 24C. It was at FG already so possibly this will just encourage the yeast to clean up after themselves a bit faster?

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Yeah, I wouldn't be overly concerned about the temp rise if it's already hit FG. It's part of my fermentation schedule these days to raise the temp up about 3 degrees towards the end of fermentation to encourage the yeast to finish the job and clean up after themselves. Lagers I go up to 18-19 from around 10-11 fermentation temp so a bit more of an increase there.

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Guys

This one is from March when I did my First Harvest Pale Ale. All up I added 240g of hop flowers picked fresh from the Bine. Everything proceeded well until the end of the boil. Did the whirlpool but when it came to transferring the wort to the FV nothing not a drop. Flowers had entered the tap outlet completely impeding the flow of sweet wort to the Chiller. Not normally an issue with pellets that tend to obey the rules of centrifugal force.

 

Twenty four litres of boiling wort in a Crown Urn and a blocked tap on the inside pinched. My solution was to open the tap and pressurise the connection and then scoop out all of the flowers with my trusty strainer. I was really concerned about infection at the time, but I guess that a near boiling wort is quite resilient.

 

Lesson learnt, use a false bottom, contain the hops or fit a braided hose pickup to my urn.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

 

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  • 1 month later...

alright so i had my beer all done in the fridge thought it could do with a bit more suger and it ended up i put to much now its way to sweet any ideas how i can balance it out its already in the fridge n i gassed it?

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Sorry, what did you do?

 

Did you add sugar just before you kegged and refrigerated it? If so, the yeast would have gone to sleep and the sugar would just be mixed with the beer sick

 

Can you take the keg out and warm it up? Let it ferment out and release the pressure occassionally.

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so i done a mix of draught with 500g of dry wheat with 650g of dextrose then put it in the fridge n then it tasted plane so i put more suger in it n it taste to sweet any ideas n ive got gas but theres no head coming out just plane like its flat?

 

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so i done a mix of draught with 500g of dry wheat with 650g of dextrose then put it in the fridge n then it tasted plane so i put more suger in it n it taste to sweet any ideas n ive got gas but theres no head coming out just plane like its flat?

 

Hi River Roo. A fully fermented Draught kit should not taste sweet. Are you saying that you kegged your beer, carbonated it, found the taste bland, and then added more sugar to your keg? If so, that is probably why your beer tastes sweet, and it may explain the lack of head as well. It is probably too cold in the keg for the yeast to be able to ferment the sugar you added. Once the yeast has gone dormant due to cold temperatures, it is difficult to wake up, even if you could somehow increase the temperature in your keg to 20C.

 

That being said, the causes of lack of head in beer are many. Some of the more common ones are oily ingredients like chocolate, coffee, or coconut, oily residue on a glass (dirty glass), detergent residue on a glass, a wet glass, a glass with straight sides. Yeast stress is another cause, as that causes them to produce excess lipids (oil).

 

Things that promote head are crystal malts, flaked barley, and Carapils. Coopers says the Draught kit produces a beer with "a tightly packed white head." It probably contains Carapils.

 

If you found the taste of the Draught kit bland, perhaps choose a kit with higher bitterness/IBUs next time. Kits with higher bitterness include the Australian Bitter, Sparkling Ale, Real Ale, English Bitter, Dark Ale, IPA, and the two Stout kits.

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Hey River Roo

 

Sometimes we get trolls on here, most often we get new brewers who are genuinely interested in learning the craft. On occasion it becomes difficult to pick the troll from the learner, so please forgive me and others if we have been slow to post advice.

 

unsure

 

To help us help you perhaps you could post the whole process of how you made your Draught, including how you kegged it and at what stage you added the sugar.

 

A common misconception of non brewers is the impact of sugar on the final product, I will say just this: the more sugar that is added to a homebrew kit prior or during fermentation the more bland and watery (cidery in fact) the final product will be.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

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yeah i used the draught can and the yeast i bin brewing for about a year n a half only new to kegs tho i was bottling just didnt no all the lingo anyway i used 500g of dry premium wheat and 650g of dex and id already put it in the fridge after being in the wort n then it tasted bland so i put more suger in it and it was to sweet so i wanted to no how to make it less sweet

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