Disaster Brew Day

[The Ginger Ninja]

1, Scales broke so had to use a chopping board on a rolling pin and tins of different sizes to balence the grains. Guessed the hops.

2, Extension lead over heated and stopped working mid boil (small amount of smoke....) had to hunt throught he garage for a replacement.

3, Hop strainer didnt work, kept on getting blocked. Had to put my hand in and pull it out, then use a sive. Not ideal.

Was pretty cheesed off after it all. Have 40 Litres of god-knows-what bubbling away now..

lessons learned: Get good scales, use good extension lead and build new strainer!!

 

[graysalchemy]

It happens to all of us. I have had a number of stressful disaster brews recently so I have decided to go Shiney and build a new brewery with a dedicated space in my workshop.

I am sure the beer will turn out fine. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Thisledome]

Would not wish that on anyone, hope your god knows what ale turns out fine. I keged my bitter the other day been in there for 2 days then drip....drip....drip.... omg after i had cleaned,sterilized and checked b4. I had no choice but to put the brew in plastic 2 litre bottles, as that is all i had available. I just hope the beer will be ok. Lesson learnt for me also, when you take a decade out of brewing and come back, make sure you test your equipment 1st b4 you decide to throw on a brew :rofl:

 

[snail59]

Dont get too stressed just yet. I had a disaster brew day and it turned out to be a cracking Beer.

 

[The Ginger Ninja]

Smells good so far, could get lucky with it :pray:

 

[jampot]

Only prob is if it turns into a fantastic brew, you gonna have to try and replicate what happened to get the taste just right..

 

[The Ginger Ninja]

Also split it into 2 FV's so I could use Notts yeast on one and S-04 on the other.......

Can't for the life of me remember which ones which...

MUST BE MORE ORGANISED!!

 

[WelshPaul]

Only prob is if it turns into a fantastic brew, you gonna have to try and replicate what happened to get the taste just right..

I was thinking the exact same thing - I hope you remember what kind of tin cans you used to "measure" your ingredients! :grin:

 

[The Ginger Ninja]

Was Branston Beans!

 

[WelshPaul]

Good choice. See, I would have probably made a rookie error and tried to save a few quid by using Morrisson's own brand...

 

[cutnrun]

my last brew day was a belter! :whistle:


It started off ok until I was concentrating on the SG in of the running’s and didn’t spot the HLT boil dry... bang goes the element
Because I am too cheap and last to get some more hose i have to move my boiler over to the outdoors tap to use my immersion cooler. When i move the boiler back I dropped it causing the tap to clip the table... snapped clean off!! About 10l of wart got out before I could lift the boiler enough to get the wart to run into an FV :clap:

Hops and trub stayed in the FV while it bubbled away. The day cost me £25 for a new element ..(+ £5 for a tescos kettle I tried to mangle but broke instead :wha: ) £10 for a new tap and brew length was short

What a great beer!!! I am probably not going to replicate the conditions of this one though!!
:hmm:

 

[The Ginger Ninja]

Sounds like and epic of disaster brew day! Glad the beer turned out well.

I guess its lessons learned for you too :

 

[pjbiker]

lessons learned: Get good scales, use good extension lead and build new strainer!!

Having experimented with different strainer constructions, I've settled with the 15mm steel braided tap connector with the inner rubber removed, see pictures in link on my signature. Hasn't let me down yet for mash tun or boiler. Screwfix is cheap enough.
Re, Scales. I first rigged up something with a length of 2"x2" and paracord but now have some digital ones for about £3 from ebay, hong kong jobs which hang from the shed rafters. That's just for the grain, still use digital kitchen scales for hops/gypsum etc.
Re, extension leads. Probably stating the bloody obvious now but, if it's coiled on a drum it will get too hot with a high load running and needs to be unrolled.