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Worst Brew day Ever?

Post #1 made 14 years ago
by Crusader 83
The day started out fine, but the weatherman's forecast was off and incomes a storm during the mash; Temperature dropped about 20 degrees and it rained pretty hard. We got everything moved to relative safety, but not completely. When I was opening the cap on the yeast it fizzed like a shook up pop bottle and when I went to dump it the vial slipped right into the carboy :headhit: :angry: So, now I have a two week wait to see if I will be throwing away a batch of beer.

Anybody have any worse experiences to make me feel better?

Post #2 made 14 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
Ambient temp dropped 20 degrees or your mash temp dropped 20 degrees?

Sorry to hear about your bad day. I'd be most worried about contamination from anything that may have been on the outside of the vial. But who knows, it may be your best beer EVER :luck:

Post #3 made 14 years ago
by thughes
BrickBrewHaus wrote: Sorry to hear about your bad day. I'd be most worried about contamination from anything that may have been on the outside of the vial. But who knows, it may be your best beer EVER :luck:
Hope you took good notes so you can duplicate it!
Last edited by thughes on 26 Jul 2011, 08:03, edited 5 times in total.
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Post #4 made 14 years ago
by Crusader 83
The ambient temp dropped 20 degrees, but I struggled to maintain mash temp but OG was close enough that I am not concerned about that. It is all the nastys on the vial that scare me. It's bubbling away so only time will tell.

Post #5 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Ha! Crusader, I can't think of my worst brew day as even the worst have always been a bit of fun.

There was one I did with a mate here in Perth and he had a hand mill. By the time we had finished milling the grain we were inebriated. I can't believe he thought that was a mill! At the end of the day, like you , a massive storm came in and we were transferring in the rain. I intended to drive home from that brew day but after the milling gave up and surrendered to having too many beers with a good mate. I ended up getting my nephew to come and pick me up - a 45 minute drive and paid him to drive me back the next day. Probably the most expensive brew I have ever done but we laughed a lot.

Another good one we had was where we had a bit of a competition to see how much beer we could brew in a single day. We had three kettles going at my place and were milling grains and throwing them into the kettle. At one stage I picked up a bag of what I thought was crushed grain and poured it into my kettle. Whoops! That was a base malt, uncrushed grain! (In an identical bag to the crushed grain of course!)

Bad brew days are often a bit of fun. That first one I mentioned we brewed great beer even though we literally ended up pouring the wort from the kettles into the fermenters in the rain. Days like these give me great confidence in BIAB and all-grain.

The days I don't like are when I am not prepared and don't 'set up.' Preparing as much as possible in advance might seem as though it won't save any time or hassle but it always does.

BTW, I think your batch of beer will be fine. The yeast will over-power anything from your hand holding the vial. Most infections come from places we never explore, pull apart or clean such as kettle taps.

Nice thread :salute:
PP
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Worst Brew day ever Update....

Post #6 made 14 years ago
by Crusader 83
Just wanted to update you guys on my brew day debacle; I racked it over to the secondary about a week ago and added my peppers a couple of days ago, to add the fire to my pumpkin ale, I tasted it last night and the beer gods have been looking over me. It tastes pretty good at this point but not near enough heat. I will give it a few more days and add a few more peppers if I need to. I am hoping to be able to bottle this on the 27th and unveil my very first original recipe to our Beer club on 9/14.

The downside is if it tirns out good I will never be able to clone it :angry:

Post #11 made 14 years ago
by mordantly
Lylo wrote:Mordantly Stuck mash? A thing of the past with BIAB. :thumbs:
i can see an issue with >40# grains in the bag. im making a bag to line my 17.5gal cooler to see if i can get the finest crush and not stick.
Last edited by mordantly on 24 Aug 2011, 03:18, edited 5 times in total.
MoRdAnTlY [Mr. Wolf '91 - '11]
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