My brewing disasters continued...

I took a long hiatus from brewing this winter. Life just got too busy and it was too damn cold outside. Once I stopped brewing regularly, it was hard to find the motivation to start brewing again.

Finally last month I got a batch going. Went for an Irish Red. It's a recipe that I have made many times in the past, so I just followed my recipe and managed to miss my OG by more than 10 points. Turns out somebody had been fiddling with my mill and the grain was barely crushed. And I didn't notice until I started the mash. Oops. Oh well, I went ahead and let it finish. It was actually quite tasty, if a little thin.

Next up I brewed a California Common, or that was the plan at least. When making my starter I ran out of malt extract and in a fit of desperation added in some corn sugar (this is bad idea #1). I then proceeded to brew the beer based on the recipe without double checking it (bad idea #2). Turns out it was an old recipe from before I had figured out my water volumes for All Grain. I ended up with more than 6 gallons at the end of the boil. Instead of boiling more, I decided to just go ahead and cool and rack it (bad idea #3). Now remember that starter (see bad idea #1)? Well, it was taking it's sweet time to get going so after a couple of days I just decided to dump the whole thing in, I usually decant and just pour the slurry in (bad idea #4).

That's the end of the truly bad ideas, it fermented like crazy, tons of blow-off, so I thought maybe it would be all OK. Maybe not the best I had ever made, but drinkable right? Wrong! After it fermented out, I kegged it up and since I had a free tap on my kegerator I hooked it up. I drew a pint of it yesterday, thinking it might be a bit green but would give me a good idea of what it will turn into.

I actually spat it out. I couldn't even swallow it. It tasted like rocket fuel, it was horrid. I'm guessing it was probably flavors I introduced from bad idea #1 and bad idea #4 (and maybe a sprinkle of #2 and #3). I might let it age a bit and see what happens, but I'm prepared to dump it as soon as I need that keg free for something that more closely resembles beer.