Contamination stories anyone???

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeerbeer-]

So I'm a new brewer and was wondering if anyone here wanted to share their stories of contamination, as I see most brewers say they've never had a contaminated batch. Anyone ever surely thought they contaminated a batch only to find out it was still delicious? I know it would be a sad waste but, has anyone heard of a batch purposefully being contaminated as a science experiment?

I was brewing the night before last about midnight, inside properly cleaning a fermenting bucket and my girlfriend was outside cooling down the bucket of wort with a crap ton of ice and cold water hose. I walked outside to hear her say "It's at 74 (f)". (knowing that she had to of used the thermometer off of the ground.) I shrugged it of thinking "we'll see, it'll be fine". Then when I was adding more spring water to make it a full 5 gallon extract batch, some trickled of the side of the counter into the bucket....... That one kinda worried me.

it's been a day and a half with no visible fermentation, only now to find out the actual self life of wyeast. (that one I believe said may 2012) I'm considering adding 2 new ones but im still trying to practice patience.

This is my second batch, the first one fermented away like crazy at 67* a few days ago. And I've got extra fermenting buckets and an endless supply of bottles so i thought why not do another? Thanks again home brewers for the generous information Ive found around here, maybe I'll take the step and start reading some good books.

 

[DonLiguori]

I once racked a stout to my bottling bucket and left behind way too much deliciuos beer to just let it go to waste. I transferred the remaining half gallon into a sanitized growler, but since so little was left in the fermentor, I had to mouth-siphon since my autosiphon couldn't do the job. After I filled the growler, I popped on a sanitized bung and airlock and went on my merry bottling way, forgetting the stout in a dark corner for about another month while it settled back out (I got plenty of yeast cake all up in it trying to pull of the last bits of sweet, sweet beer).

After a month, there was a thin, thin layer of what I could only guess was mold on the top. And then it hit me: in my haste to get to the bottling, I forgot to hit up a little liquor mouth rinse before siphoning. I'm 95% sure that's what did it. Either way, it didn't stop my from boiling up some molasses and bottling it anyway. I got 5 bottles out of it. Turned out super delicious all the same, except that I detected a little something in the smell that none of the other three people I had try it noticed (they all knew the situation going in, I didn't toss mold beer at any unsuspecting people). I wasn't sure if it was just from the molasses as this was my first time trying to use it at all in beer, but to me it seemed faintly like a moldy, spoiled smell.

Either way, it was recovered dregs in the first place, so I can hardly chalk it up to a loss.

 

[DonLiguori]

Double-posted, sorry!

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeerbeer-]

Nothing wrong with a little off sour beer right? I'm drinking a flying dog oyster stout at the moment. Can't notice any oysterness really but it's defiantly above par for store-bought.