"Oh Crap" Moments in stilling...whats your story?

[ScottishBoy]

I have two to share...I seem to attract these things but I have gotten used to it in my life.

1. Wife was taking a nap. I told her I was going to toast some apple wood. Long story short, wife wakes up to house full of smoke. Comedy ensues as she tries to gather the kids and head outside half asleep and in nothing but her skivvies.
( I lost at least three husband points for that one)

2. The kids are playing on the their game computer and Im in the kitchen. Im putting away last nights cuts and checking my newly sticked bottles of UJSM and a Wheat Germ draw. All of a sudden I hear my youngest shriek " Oh My God! The Cops are HERE! "

5 minutes later, after frantically stashing 5 seperate 1 gallon bottles and throwing my parrot in the oven, I find out they are playing SIMS.
Apparently their SIM house had a SIM robber, which needed SIM cops to take him away...grrr.

SB

Anyone else got any good ones?

[Husker]

I have to write this cause I brought this thread up to my wife. In her words:

"I like the dumb ass I am, forgot I had some shit going in some glass jars. See, I had taken over the storage room, which pissed my wife off to begin with. One night just sitting here, watching tV, and kaboom. We ran downstairs, and sticky shit all over the place. The baby books, the photo albums from our 3rd anniversary in Hawaii (note, I am dictating this as my wife is saying or snarling it). There were broken chunks of glass everywhere. Big chunks, even stuck in the drywall".

That was nasty shit. It was backset (heavily sugared, and with about a pound of cracked corn), that I thought was sterile, and I had it in the fridge until I had to fill the fridge with deer. So I sat out 5 1 gallon glass carboys on the table down there (and forgot them for a couple days).

I lost numerous husband points myself for this one.

H.

[rubber duck]

I have so many But the one that sticks in my mind is the one I did today. 15 gallons of mead. I got lazy and didn't cool it down properly, broke the second carboy 2 gallons into it. Stupid.

[Boozehound]

1.) Left a few demijohns fermenting a black treacle wash in the summer while I stayed with mates for a week. When I came back one of the demijohns had split (not exploded, just sheared in half) and the half fermented black crap had spilled all over my carpet. To make it worse the room had filled with what seemed like a million flies. It was like that scene with the priest from The Amityville Horror. The bloody things were all over my face, down my shirt and everywhere as I tried to clean the carpet. Disgusting.

I swore I'd never ferment in glass again but I've since done so with a few wines.

2.) Left a plastic fermenter with a sodium metabisulphite solution in. The water evaporated and when I took the lid off to use it the fumes were toxic. I coughed my guts out and had to go outside on hands and knees - I could hardly breath. That really hurt my lungs and I was doing little barking coughs for hours afterwards.

[LWTCS]

1.) Left a few demijohns fermenting a black treacle wash in the summer while I stayed with mates for a week. When I came back one of the demijohns had split (not exploded, just sheared in half) and the half fermented black crap had spilled all over my carpet. To make it worse the room had filled with what seemed like a million flies. It was like that scene with the priest from The Amityville Horror. The bloody things were all over my face, down my shirt and everywhere as I tried to clean the carpet. Disgusting.

I swore I'd never ferment in glass again but I've since done so with a few wines.

2.) Left a plastic fermenter with a sodium metabisulphite solution in. The water evaporated and when I took the lid off to use it the fumes were toxic. I coughed my guts out and had to go outside on hands and knees - I could hardly breath. That really hurt my lungs and I was doing little barking coughs for hours afterwards.

...........Sorry for laughing

[Bohunk]

I put five pounds of sugar and a couple gallon of water on the stove, turned the stove on high, planned to let it come up to a boil. I then went down stairs, and got interested in a movie my wife was watching, next thing I know the smoke alarms were all ringing. We didn’t know what the hell was happening, so I looked up the stairs, and the whole house was full of smoke. I mean FULL of smoke!! I ran up and opened the doors, and windows, by that time my lungs were so full of smoke I could hardly breath. The smoke was so thick and dense, you couldn’t see your hand in front of you face. Lucky for me it happened after dark, cause a neighbors would have called the fire department, black smoke pouring out of every window, and door, you could smell smoke a block away. We had to have our carpets cleaned, every wall and every surface in the whole house needed to be scrubbed, that smoke was really black and sticky. Took about a month before you could breath in the house, and every day of that month I got reminded “you will NOT cook your shit in my house again!”. The pot I was using was a five gallon stew pot, the pot and the wooden stir spoon had fused together in about four inches of black tar/plastic, needless to say it was her big stew pot and spoon. I got real comfortable with my side of the bed for the next few months.

The Bohunk

[ScottishBoy]

I have been saving my heads and tails in big gallon jars and waiting to cook them off in the reflux. I usually add a little sodium carbonate to it and let em sit til I decide its time. So Im breaking down a nice corn wash and decide its time to move over to the tails. I start catching and get out my jugs. One jug is unlabelled. But its got some really clear stuff in it and I think ' Did I take that from something else and forget to label it?" So I take a sniff and it smells lovely. No off smells at all. I think " Ah, thats where the rest of the Rice Brandy went! " I felt like that yield was a little low.

So I take a small taste.

Didnt swallow or anything, but the detergent taste from the carbonate was enough to make me spit it immediately. Wash mouth, rinse, repeat, tell wife to stop laughing...sigh

Put that one into the labelled jugs very soon after.

ahem..

[blanikdog]

I once found a drowned rat in two gallons of 60abv rum that I'd run the day before. I tossed the lot and about fifteen minutes later tha "Oh Crap" moment occured.
All I had to do was remove said rat and re-distill.

I've not left anything uncovered since.

blanik

[The Baker]

I once found a drowned rat in two gallons of 60abv rum that I'd run the day before. I tossed the lot and about fifteen minutes later tha "Oh Crap" moment occured.
All I had to do was remove said rat and re-distill.

I've not left anything uncovered since.

blanik

There's a precedent for that. I have read of the traditional English cider makers hanging meat in the fermenting barrel!

[ScottishBoy]

Long story short:

Sunday I do a nice loooooonnngggg run and take back about 2 gallons of 95% pure. Tuned my column and water rate and did an extra long equalization, then took it off....really slow. ( Insert "The Stripper" by Herb Alpert and the Tijauna Brass...classic!)
So I decide to cut some down and make it into 100 proof. Its in a mason jar. Then I aerate for a bit and realize that my cleaning woman is coming on Monday. I apparently picked it up and stowed it somewhere.
Next morning I thought I left it on the counter.
Came home after work and asked what happened to the mason jar on the counter. Chaos ensues as we decide that she basically threw out a full quart of 100 proof vodka.

Imagine my embarrassment when I found it tucked in the freezer this morning...

SB

[rad14701]

ScottishBoy, that's a classic "Oops!!!"... I don't misplace things but my female partner does on a regular basis... It's nothing to find the TV remote in the refrigerator or medicine cabinet... She can have an item in her hand and not know where it went 30 seconds later, prompting me to have to search for it only to find it in the least logical place... I feel your pain...

<<< We want pictures of the cleaning woman... Yeah, that's the ticket... >>>

[blanikdog]

Unlike you rad, I'm constantly misplacing things. Often have to get vonnie to find them for me.

blanik

[Dnderhead]

I've got a good memory,,I just don't know what I did with it.
I go to the store to purchase something that I need and buy the store out,because I cant remember what it was that I wanted.
needless to say I'm well stocked on some things and not on others.

[ScottishBoy]

<<< We want pictures of the cleaning woman... Yeah, that's the ticket... >>>

She aint much to look at, but she's a friggin godsend to two full time professionals and full time parents...I dont think I would be able to pursue this hobby if it werent for her...