Tell us about your mistakes.

This hobby is fun & enjoyable, but it is not tiddlywinks. Be safe!

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jb-texshine
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by jb-texshine »

Mikey-moo wrote:Anyone else thinking that becoming a Mod seems eerily similar to joining the Yakuza?
Full body tattoos featuring scenes from the Kama sutra...?
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Swedish Pride »

HDNB wrote:ummm...yeah.

picture is worth a thousand words.

(most of the words started with "F" anyway...)
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Kareltje »

jedneck wrote:
MichiganCornhusker wrote:
Kegg_jam wrote:Not sure if this is a bad mistake or good one.
Let 'er rip, then run it!
yeppppy. then throw a sugar head back on it
And then tell us what came of it!
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by HDNB »

Mikey-moo wrote:Anyone else thinking that becoming a Mod seems eerily similar to joining the Yakuza?

LOL :lol: :lol:

kinda new meaning to "site doner"
I finally quit drinking for good.

now i drink for evil.
deep
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by deep »

So I got one, just happened to me today. Made a mash, my second attempt at an all grain recipe. My first attempt after chilling the wort we strained out the grains through a paint straining bag and it made a huge mess. This time I decided to ferment on the grain, basically because of what I'd read on this site. Now I had to add a little more water then I'd planned on because I had overshot the rest temperature by a bit. So when it came time to transfer to the fermenter I had more then I could fit in my 30l pail. So we started straining the grain out to lower the volume so it would fit. After straining the grain out, and making a huge mess in my bathtub, I lifted the big pot we'd strained the wort into out of the bathtub and promptly ate shit in the slippery mess. So as we speak I'm mopping up 30l of hot sticky porridge of my bathroom floor. Looks like I'll be making my third attempt at all grain a little sooner then I planned....
C2H5O5
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by C2H5O5 »

Finished several reflux runs, I was in the process of mixing up some different flavors from my hearts cuts, I poured some distillate in the bottle and capped it to get my flavorings, I came back, popped off the cork, when I noticed this musty (moldy) type smell from the bottle.

I thought the product was bad, but I smelled the jar the distillate came from and it seemed OK. So I drained the bottle, cleaned it out real good and smelled the empty bottle and all seemed OK. I smelled the jar with the new distillate and it smelled fine, so I poured some more distillate in the jar, put the cork on and figured I would check it again later...dam, that smell is back again.

I drained the bottle, cleaned it real good and smelled the empty bottle, but it smelled fine. Popped the cork on and went to do something else, came back opened it up and dam that smell was there again, so I just left the cork off, came back to it and the smell was gone, I was ready to say f*#k it when I looked down at the cork and noticed the cork was moldy, the whole bottom part of the cork was spotted in black.

:oops:
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by apdb »

I shot myself right between the eyes with a champagne cork. Not my finest moment. :oops:
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by jb-texshine »

Dont add crushed oyster shell to a 5 gallon bucket of backset...
Remember not to blow yourself up,you only get to forget once!


Deo Vendice

Never eat Mexican food north or east of Dallas tx!
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Truckinbutch »

jb-texshine wrote:Dont add crushed oyster shell to a 5 gallon bucket of backset...
:oops: Grows , doesn't it .
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by okie »

I had a 50 pound bag of grain milled when I bought it and then couldn't use it right away. I had it in 10 pound brown paper bags all taped up and those were in a 30 gal plastic tub with a lid. When I eventually got back to mashing again I pulled some bags out and they were full of bugs and wet. What a mess I made and bugs were everywhere. Probably took a week before they were all gone.
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jb-texshine
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by jb-texshine »

Truckinbutch wrote:
jb-texshine wrote:Dont add crushed oyster shell to a 5 gallon bucket of backset...
:oops: Grows , doesn't it .
Like a science fair project on steroids! Dont know what i was thinking. I knew better too. Complacency happens.just glad it was something that made a mess instead of exploding.
Far as im concerned rule #1 is and will always be"DONT BLOW STUFF UP ACCIDENTALLY "!!!
A lil foam (alot) is no problem. An exploded house is.

Anybody know how to remove a rum backset stainfrom cream colored carpet?
Remember not to blow yourself up,you only get to forget once!


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Never eat Mexican food north or east of Dallas tx!
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Truckinbutch »

Take up the carpet and replace it . Do not repeat the mistake once the new carpet is installed ?
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
jb-texshine
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by jb-texshine »

Truckinbutch wrote:Take up the carpet and replace it . Do not repeat the mistake once the new carpet is installed ?
Yep...the wife is gonna kill me.
Remember not to blow yourself up,you only get to forget once!


Deo Vendice

Never eat Mexican food north or east of Dallas tx!
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by thecroweater »

You might have to hire a steam cleaner and shampoo that carpet or try mixing one part hydrogen peroxide with two parts dishwashing detergent and see how that goes.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin
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ShineonCrazyDiamond
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

It was not a disaster, but something to remember.

Mashing today. Filled my boiler with 10 or 12 gallons of backset that has been sitting in the pit for a month with a beautiful thick Styrofoam lacto on it. Topped off with water to get to 15 gallons in my keg. Turned it on, put my thermometer in the top, waited for temp.

Well, I checked it a few times, even at 205, it was great. Set timer for 10 minutes to get from 205 to 212, walked away. When I came back, it was like a damn volcano, oozing its foamy backset lava out the top of my 2" ferrell, over the top of the keg, and down the sides. It just kept pouring like a puke. Holy heck.

I killed the power, opened the drain, and poured into my corn. It did leak out onto the work bench, tools, and floor, but just boiled backset. Remember that back set is foamy!
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Aussiedownunder01 »

Made a big one last night Was showing a neighbour my barrel
He said I have one that used to have port in it its yours free
Bought it home been a long time since it had port [cracks 1\16 in wide ]
Put it on the sink with the plug in and filled it with hot water
Yep you guessed right didn't turn off the tap tight :angry-banghead:
First thing this morning went into the brewing room with my socks on :oops:
WTF wet feet all the carpet [20 by20 soaking wet ]
Then it run into next room and out the front door
Been all morning moving stuff and ripping up carpet and underlay
What a stinking mess, All is well I suppose I was planning of removing it any how
On the high side the fru;;ing barrel doesn't leak now
I think I need a drink
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Jimbo »

HDNB wrote:
Mikey-moo wrote:Anyone else thinking that becoming a Mod seems eerily similar to joining the Yakuza?

LOL :lol: :lol:

kinda new meaning to "site doner"
LOL. +1
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by thecroweater »

@ Aussiedownunder those old port barrels are great with rum and sugar heads, something about them takes that tongue bit out in record time ( probably fructose)
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by pope »

Brewing one was fun, one of my first fermentations was in a bucket, the krauzen was so fervent it plugged the airlock. I missed the 'pop' when the lid went off but it blasted trub straight up onto the ceiling. The beer still turned out great.

Distilling, I added an inline switch to my condenser cooling water pump, fired everything up and paid attention to other things. Come to find the hot wire in the switch came loose as I was screwing together the housing. It's a quiet pump so I didn't even notice. So not only did the liebig blow out vapor (on a gas-fired still), but the heat on the liebig loosened one of the hoses, which fell to the ground and started a siphon. Fortunately nothing caught fire and I fixed it up fast, but it was particularly unnerving. Don't turn your back, but definitely test anything new first, even when the skills you use are old hat.
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by shadylane »

My latest mistake involved a ladder on top of a scaffold.
Fortunately, none of the rocks on the ground were injured.
Most of the damage to me was limited since I hit the ground face first :lol:
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skow69
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by skow69 »

shadylane wrote: ladder on top of a scaffold.
I think where you went wrong is you're supposed to have a beach ball involved there somehow, too. :lol:

Glad to hear you're OK.
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by shadylane »

The embarrassing part is, I was sober when I did it
It could have been worst, the dog had been laying under the scaffolding.
Damn sure would have felt bad if the dog got hurt.
But when she saw me put the latter on top the scaffold, the old dog had enough sense to move
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by pfshine »

shadylane wrote:My latest mistake involved a ladder on top of a scaffold.
Fortunately, none of the rocks on the ground were injured.
Most of the damage to me was limited since I hit the ground face first :lol:
Hell. I'm glad you're still alive to talk about it
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by muscashine »

pope wrote: Distilling, I added an inline switch to my condenser cooling water pump, fired everything up and paid attention to other things. Come to find the hot wire in the switch came loose as I was screwing together the housing. It's a quiet pump so I didn't even notice. So not only did the liebig blow out vapor (on a gas-fired still), but the heat on the liebig loosened one of the hoses, which fell to the ground and started a siphon. Fortunately nothing caught fire and I fixed it up fast, but it was particularly unnerving. Don't turn your back, but definitely test anything new first, even when the skills you use are old hat.
Definitely! I need a still hand sometimes. My worm barrel has an input so I can run cold water into the bottom, and a drain on the top to drain off the hot water. Its a delicate balance because the input is capable of a much faster flow than the output. So I'm constantly adjusting the water to keep the bucket from overflowing, yet keeping the hot water flowing out. Then there's the jars - I use Pint jars and sometimes I get to messing around with the cooling and a jar gets way too full (or overflows). I've had the coolant outflow on a liebig jump out of the drain tub and start spraying the floor.

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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by bronctoad »

not sure how bad its gonna be. a few weeks ago I read up on oaking some product. finally had time to cut/mix up some corn flake I ran even further back. letting my molecular sieve mind guide me, :econfused: I took a bag of white oak mini staves laid them out on the grill and charred the snot out of them, blew out the flames wiped off the white ash ... and promptly dropped them in 4 different qts capped them up went inside. later that evening I go looking at different threads to find one on oaking. pretty much that one and others all say char... RINSE ... place... oh well maybe I'll like smoked ash flavor. :oops:
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by skow69 »

Nothing a few coffee filters won't take care of, I'll bet.
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

bronctoad wrote: charred the snot out of them, blew out the flames wiped off the white ash ... and promptly dropped them in 4 different qts capped them up went inside.
you mean you put them in the jars while they were still hot? lucky nothing bad happened...
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Re: It All Started with...

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

...a beautiful whiskey pit. A perfect uniformed lacto, it was the best backset an all grain brewer could have asked for.

I started that Saturday with my boiler boiling 12-15 gallons of this backset. When it was boiling, I poured it over a 1/3 of my soon to be 50 gallon ferment. It was maybe 20 pounds of corn, and it gelled right up. I continued to fill my boiler 2 more times with water, getting it to boiling, and pouring it in the fermenter, with another 1/3 of the recipe. Everything went like planned.

54 pounds of corn. This was half meal, half flour. 27 pounds of malt, wheat and barley, and 5 pounds of Honey Malt. 50 gallons of Honey Bear in all, an OG of 1.082, bubbling away the next day. The bakers yeast was loving the gorgeous flavors that the mash was putting off. Mash sitting at a perfect 90 degrees for a few days.

The bubbling stops. Right on time. It even starts to clear. So, I put the 'ol hydro in it...1.03. Well shucks. I knew I should have gone with EC-1118, but I was hoping to slide one more bakers in for the season. Oh well. I'll just get something to fix the temp, which is now at 60. So I order an aquarium heater. I looked around and found the best deal on Amazon (of course), with an adjustable temp, and a sleeve that slides over it to keep the glass from melting anything (like my barrel). I have to wait a few days, so the lacto sets in. No problem, love a double lacto.

In the mean time, I squeeze 50 GALLONS OF MASH, because the flour is suspended all through it, and i don't get any freebe clear from the top. No worries, 2 hours for an act of love.

When the heater finally arrives, I put it on 90, drop it in, and feel very accomplished.

The next morning smelt like popcorn in my garage. Or corn bread. In either case, it was a form of cooked corn. :oops: I dig up my heater, and the heater had cooked and burnt the flour and meal onto the glass. Seems that the "protective cover" served to keep the grain right up packed on the glass, cooking all night. Bummer.

So, that night I clean the probe, scraping the glass of black crystallized coal with a steak knife, remove the somewhat permanent cover, and drop the bare ass glass heater into the barrel. Came home from work, and after stirring for 2 days, and the temp at 80, the mash was still sitting dead nuts on 1.03. It was definitely not a temp issue.

Must be ph. On the first day of the stalled mash, I did throw in some oyster shells. It did fizzle and seem to raise the ph (from a reaction sense), but by now I pulled out my strips and I'm still below 4. Shells don't really work that late in the game anyway. So, with temp ruled out, I get serious about ph. Seems that timing is amazing, and there is alot of chatter about slaked lime. So, I spent a few days researching slaked lime, amounts, effects, obtaining, positives and issues, etc. Go down to wally word and pick up a few bags.

At first I start with 3 grams per gallon, or for my barrel, about 5 ounces. Pour it in, wait a couple hours, retest, ph still off the charts low. ok. Add another 5 ounces.

After 3 days, I have stepped it up to a pound at a time, and I stil have yet to see the damn PH move. I have now added 3 LBS of slaked lime, and starting to think that this is the worse solution ever. I mean, there was alot of talk about slaked lime (pickling lime at WW), but not amounts. I think even Truckin' Butch posted in his early days with it, he used 10 lbs in 45 gallons with not much difference. Well, I wasn't going to keep throwing this shit in there.

This mash is still tasting awesome, so I figured even though at this point I have raised the temp, attempted to adjust the ph, added fresh yeast, and still couldn't get it to fire back up, it has to be my recipe. DOH! Oh yeah, this was a new recipe (55 gallons!). I substituted 9 lbs of barley for 9 lbs of vienna. It was awesome tasting, but maybe the vienna just simply left too many unfermentables in there to get under 1.03.

Well, I'm ok with under 1.02 to run, but 1.03 was just too high. The sugars would DEFINITELY scorch with that flour running around. Figured, well, let me give it a stir, and maybe there is a gradient effect with the sugar that will even out.

Throw my mortar paddle on, give it a stir, and from the depths of my barrel comes this thick, green, sludge. W...T...F...

All 3 lbs of that slaked lime came rolling to the top. It had not immediately dissolved and dispersed though the mash. It had sunk to the bottom. And i never stirred. Is it green because that's the color of reconstituted lime with my yellow mash? Maybe. Is it green because I basically had an acid wash sitting on the bottom of my blue colored barrel, and it stripped some color? Could be.

All i know is that my ph reading went to the other side of the spectrum with one stir, and it was more acidic than water. The taste of alcohol was gone. It was a clean 8 or 9 (?) ph. And green.

Then I turn around and watched my elbow make that brand new heater hit the floor and shatter, in a last example of how miserably horrible I had made this experience. Even the heater said "I'm out".

Took me a couple days to contemplate, but it was time. There was no way I was putting that slime through my newly cleaned still. Even the lacto wouldn't come back, so I knew something was up.

It went on my most hated bush. 50 gallons, an $80 mash. This is the first time I have ever had to dump anything in the years i have been doing this.

Don't try a new recipe on 50 gallons. Don't wait till the end to put in shells. Don't use 30% backset. Don't try to use a 300w heater in a flour mash from a dead cold. Don't drop your new heater. Don't forget to stir your mash, especially when adding slaked lime. Don't add lime in 1 lb increments. Don't use ph strips (too subjective). Don't forget to keep a few packs of 1118 in the fridge-Ever-but most importantly during the change in the weather, when the temp can change in the garage at any point. Don't squeeze until you know you are ready to run. That just breaks your heart.

And don't forget to get back on the damn horse and give that rotten batch the finger while you start a new relationship with it's much better looking sister.

I happily have a new batch of a T&T Honey Bear recipe (no Vienna) in the barrel, with 1118 bubbling at 80 degrees happily.

And I'm all out of lime.
Last edited by ShineonCrazyDiamond on Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by Truckinbutch »

OH , Brother , I sooo feel your pain . You are not alone in your misery . You've smelled one of my failures . I just got off the phone with Flatwoods and he's had a batch just go to vinegar . I've never stirred when adding ph adjustments . Was under the impression that we were not supposed to disturb the yeasties . Next batch they are going to have to fend for themselves if I have to adjust ph . Continued failure is not an option for me .
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Re: Tell us about your mistakes.

Post by NZChris »

That sucks.

I have ruined a dunder pit by stupidly adding too much, but that's not a great loss.

I've always stirred the bejeezus out of a ferment after adding slaked lime, it doesn't take long for the lime to be fully reacted and if a wash gets alkaline, there is a good chance rotting flesh type flavors will appear, plus I don't want my yeast dying in a a layer of caustic.
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