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Well lads taught it would be nice to have a common pitfalls post for budding brewers in a nice bullet point form. My apologies if this apperars elsewhere on the site. Please add your own bad experiences also <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Broke my hydrometer: these things are very easily broken

Didn't adjust quantity of hops: It never occured to me that the alpha acid in the hops may be different to the alpha acid the recipe called for

Leaking O-ring in plastic keg: The white o-ring in the screw cap seems to need replacing every 2 brews or so. The slightest tear and it doesn't hold the pressure

Left the tap open: for the first few brews I seemed incapable of remembering to close the tap on the vessel into which I was pouring water, wort etc. wort is very sticky and difficult to remove from tiles!

Hi cj, when you refer to the o-ring, are you referring to the elastic band/tubing that stops the gas pressure from escaping from the king keg?
I have a tear in mine and I'd love to know where you are getting replacements.

PM sent to you there Eoin.

My last brew, I forgot to heat the mash tun with a splash of hot water first, and lost 4 degrees during the mash

I boiled then chilled the beer abou two foot under a dirty shed door for cover, and am clueless as to if anything fell in or not(I reckon letting the odd drop of rain in would have been safer!!)

Beer tasted fine after a weeks fermenting, but didn't taste so hot when I transferred to the bottle/keg

I'm guessing there's a 50% chance of it being any use, but that leads to the exitement of pouring the first bottle(Bar it being poisonous, I'm pretty sure I'll drink it anyways)!!!

Lesson learned from it all, Never rush a brewday!
am considering splitting it into a mash day & a boil day next timme!

Well I have a classic- I was culturing up some yeast but the starter hadn't really taken off, but I brewed anyway. I boiled and cooled, and I decided I'd pitch the next day. I think as it happened I went to pitch the day after again, it was a warm summer day, and to my surprise, the beer was already fermenting (whoops). Lambic city people. I tried to pretend to myself that the yeast was strong enough to assert its presence, but this beer was seriously weird.

Anyway moral is, make sure your starter is ready to pitch before you start.

&amp;quot;RichieH&amp;quot;:3jpxog3l wrote: Anyway moral is, make sure your starter is ready to pitch before you start.[/quote:3jpxog3l]

If your are getting a wild fermentation that fast it also sounds like a big contamination issue/sanitation. Also grain dust is absolutely riddled with lactic acid bacteria