Actually just happend a couple of weeks ago. It was just a kit, a Brewferm Old Bruin which I thought would cap off the winter nicely after a successful run of stouts and porters. It was in my primary for 3 weeks and on bottling day I unscrewed the cap and got a harsh smell of vinegar. I let it air out but the smell didn't go away, it would actually burn your nose if you took a deep enough whiff. I ended up dumping it. Broke my heart.
My fermenter has a screw-on cap with a seal and as I've gone to full boils I changed my method, no I bung it up and roll it to aerate it. I know I didn't remove the seal, scrub, and properly sanitize the cap. In addition, the fermenter got pretty cold the first night and although maintained 66 nights and 70 day I don't know that the yeast ever properly took hold. My normal bubbler airlock snapped so I had to use the 3-piece which is a lot harder to monitor w/o opening and checking gravity, which I normally don't bother with until the end. The FG was 1.024 and was meant to be 1.010. It was doomed... D O O M E D!
So what's your disaster story?
Disasters... misery loves company
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AT
yea had to do that and every bottle is another twist of the knifeDaaB wrote:Infections are heart breaking, especialy when it's a beer you haven't tried yet and were particularly looking forward to.
I had one in a bottled batch, at least if it was in a keg you can just tip the lot away in one go. It was painfull removing each crown cap only to tip the contents of the bottle down the sink.
sorry to hear about your beer-
mysterio
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bitter_dave
- Even further under the Table
- Posts: 2170
- Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:00 pm
- Location: Whitley Bay
Too truemysterio wrote:I think every brewer has experienced something like this.
. I've not had an infection (well, not in my beer 
), but I have chucked beer away - my first AG was waaay to bitter, and I chucked most of a kit I brewed last summer which I fermented too high and off flavours developed. As long as you can determine what went wrong you can change your method accordingly. Also I recommend making lots of beer as an insurance policy 
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tubby_shaw
In the 11 years of brewing for which I have kept notes I have had a few disasters
I have broken a mercury thermometer against my cooling coil.
I have had someone (probably one of the kids) remove the airlock from the secondary.
I have luckily, over that time period only had one infection that was more than likely due to poor sanitation.
But my biggest disaster was on my first attempt at grain brewing. At the time I still lived at home with my parents. The mash went well, but following Dave Lines instructions from the BBoB word for word I had suspended the grain bag over the boiler for sparging
and one of the loops on the grain bag broke
Needles to say it swung and took out the boiler as well
3 gallons of wort, 8 lb of grains and 3 oz of hops all over my mothers Kitchen floor
You can probably guess the rest
I have broken a mercury thermometer against my cooling coil.
I have had someone (probably one of the kids) remove the airlock from the secondary.
I have luckily, over that time period only had one infection that was more than likely due to poor sanitation.
But my biggest disaster was on my first attempt at grain brewing. At the time I still lived at home with my parents. The mash went well, but following Dave Lines instructions from the BBoB word for word I had suspended the grain bag over the boiler for sparging
and one of the loops on the grain bag broke Needles to say it swung and took out the boiler as well
3 gallons of wort, 8 lb of grains and 3 oz of hops all over my mothers Kitchen floor
You can probably guess the rest