Your Worst brew day

[Deacnbleu]

Last year I built a RIMS using a gott cooler, water heater heating element with a reastat, $150 pump etc.

8:00 am Heated water in the cooler with the heating element, small leak. Disassembled, repaired started over.

8:40 am Water at 140 deg. stirred in grain. Temp stabilized at 130 deg for protien rest.

9:15 am Turned up the reastat to raise temp to 143. False bottom fell onto heating element. Poured content in to kettle, disassembled RIMS, repaired false bottom.

10:15 am Protien rest should be suffecient by now. Maintained 143 for 20 mins. Turned up reastat to get temp to 156. Plastic started melting arount heating element. Leak developed. Poured contents into kettle, disassembled, fabricated a metal reinforcement. Reassembled, tested by bringing two gallons of water to 190 deg. Everything went great.

12:00nn Started again. Mash still at 150, raised to 156. After 30 mins. started recirculating. Pump too strong!!! Stuck mash immediately. Tried to stir it up. False bottom broke, scorched grains. Stunk up the basement. Poured content into kettle, disassembled RIMS, repaired etc.

1:15 pm Iodine test shows that I acheived conversion hours ago. Began recirculating and sparging. Pump failed altogether.
Went back to old method of sparging. Collected 6.5 gallons for boil.

2:30 pm Just started boiling! Added bittering hops.

4:15 pm Shut off heat, started wort chiller. colled to 76 deg. Lifted pot to higher counter to siphon, pot fell straight to the floor. Only lost 1/2 gallon, but that 1/2 ga,llon is now on the ceiling and walls. Siphoned into carboy pitched yeast.

5:00 Wife came home.
Yes we do learn from our mistakes.

[Beer Nazi]

That's a bad day, but look at the bright side, you can always lick your walls and ceiling!!!

I havn't had any terrible days - just two boil-overs and the wort chiller water line bursting. No biggy.

[billy frank]

My worst brew day ended up with me in the hospital over night. I dropped my fermenter while putting it away, after a late brew. I tried to catch the fermenter and save the wort that I had just pitched yeast into when it exploded on impact. I severed all the tendons and arteries in the middle finger of my left hand. My wife had to take me to the hospital, who proceeded to tell me there was nothing they could do until the morning. I needed a specialist, and the only one available was in the next town. It turned out to be twelve hours before I actually had surgery. The first of four surgeries to come. It put me out of work for about 4.5 months. I tried to convince them just to cut the finger off but my wife would not let them. So after all was said and done I have aproximately 30% use of that finger which is always bent at about a 100degrees.
The rest is just icing on the cake. My wife left the wort in the carpet for 2 days while she was with me at the hospital, and the place just stunk like hell when we came home.
How is that for a bad brew day,
Billy

P.S.-I have reproduced that ale, which was a hoppy amber ale that is now named Bad Finger Ale.

[fivehooks]

I have always have thought to myself while carrying a full carboy "Man,I bet this would be helluva mess to drop it" Thanks for your story

[Beer Nazi]

Geeze Billy.....:(

Bad Finger Ale - that name kicks ass!!

O.k. - who can top that one!!!???

[YamahaXS]

worst i have had were the exploding bottles on my first batch of beer.... really screwed up our little storage area in the basement!

:cool:

[CapsFan1974]

billy,

I thought having a stuck sparge or some bottles exploding (in the case) was a bad brew day. Luckily no exploding carboys yet! I think you win this one hands down.

Most important of all... How did Bad Finger Ale taste?:p

[YamahaXS]

Billy wins! :D

I always wondered what would happen if I dropped a carboy!

[drstandley]

Because we were having more fun drinking & B S'ing than brewing, I had a hell of a boil over. Then we set pot holder on fire. One of the kegs had a hole in it (we bottled one batch before we started brewing the next) and porter ran all over the floor.
Forgot to add the hops, and didn't take an original reading.

Most F'ing fun I've ever had. Never laughed so hard in my life.

No hospital runs however, so you win "hand" down. :)

[Boto]

:eek: Not on brewday, but after bottling. Brewed a wheat beer, which I had made before. Let it ferment for 2 weeks total, same as the first time. Bottled, and let it sit. A couple of weeks later, I heard something break in the basement. A few minutes later, something else. Went down to check, and found exploding beer bottles. The fermentation wasn't done! Opened someof them in the sink, and got beer to shoot up at least 2 feet from the top of the bottle. Makes a great ad for buying a specific gravity tube!

[paul84043]

Oh crap, you guys are scaring the heck out of me....I bottled my first batch and have 2 cases sitting in my bedroom next to the bed because the temperature is steady and the closet in the computer room is taken by my second batch fermenting....
I hope that my fermenting was done!

Do they really stall for a couple of days and then begin again sometimes?