How many brews have you dumped??

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hbhudy

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I have brewed a couple batches recently that just don't fit my pallet.. One is an IPA that just tastes muddled, with no clear flavor or aroma taking the lead. The other is a smash the the hops just are not what I expected.. So I am getting ready to dump both (they have had time to age but are just not what I was hoping from).. The good part is I have 4 other kegs with good brews in them and a couple getting ready to transfer out of carboys..

Has anyone else had a few that just never really hit he mark???
 
None. Had a few I wasn't necessarily a fan of, but others loved. Nothing that needed to be poured down the drain.
 
Yeah - I brew a lot, experiment and try different things out a lot. I dump parts of batches from time to time if I know they are not going to get drank. Not really dumping because they are terrible - but, like you describe - just something I am not real enthused about. If I had nothing else on tap, I would possibly keep them around longer. But, if I have 6 beers on tap that I really like and one that is just going to sit there..... whatever is left in it has a good chance of getting dumped.

Got a Saison that is on death row right now..... tried a different yeast and it threw a lot of banana flavors. It is ok.... but I really don't like banana flavors in my beer, so I yanked it out of the kegerator yesterday to get an american pale ale in its place and get it carbonating. Pretty sure the last couple gallons of the saison will see the drain this week.

I have no problem dumping something if I have better beer to drink.
 
I've had a few that weren't quite hitting on all cylinders, but after 17 years of brewing and more than 100 batches, I've only dumped one - had a sanitation problem and tasted like wet cardboard made of used toilet paper.

And that one went into a sprayer and was sprayed on my lawn. Lawn never looked better. Never dump it - spray it on the grass!
 
EVERY BATCH! :)

And I am good aim. I always hit may mark..LOL

Sorry couldn't resist..

I have tossed 3 bad batches in 15 years. It happens. 2 I know exactly what happened. 1 is still a total mystery.

Cheers
Jay
 
Yeah I might keep the ipa around, but it really is not hitting the mark and I can always brew more [emoji38][emoji56]
 
I've had some infections periodically from my faucet hoses, this year I've made more conscious efforts toward proactive cleaning. I've dumped beers that were good but I didn't drink enough of to warrant the space they took up. I executed a coffee porter beautifully but because I brew so much I was more anxious at trying my newer beers. I'll sometimes boiled them off and capture the condensate but I don't do it very often.
 
I've had two dumpers out of a few hundred batches. One was my second ever beer, a Belgian Quad, fermented way too hot and underpitched, and even a year later it was a fusel bomb. One was still one of my early batches, a Strawberry Belgian Blond that was both horrendously oxidized and riddled with chlorophenols. I've had some that have missed the mark here and there (balance problems, something not going according to plan, etc), or some that just didn't turn out as intended, and I've never had one that was completely unpalatable, but those were the two I just couldn't be bothered to drink.
 
I've only pitched the dregs of a watermelon wheat that started to get funky towards the end of the keg. Other than that, when I first started, I tossed those bottles that ended up foaming over and losing half the beer to the sink anyways - over carbing was the push I needed to start kegging.
 
1 - the second batch I ever made. It was a kit. God alone knows how old it was - tasted like soya sauce and molasses.
 
I dumped my first bottles during a recent bottle session.
I filled 55 bottles and laid the caps on loose as I went along. Once done filling I went back to start capping. The first bottle under the wing capper slid out from the bottom, bowling pinned a couple other bottles and all dumped down the back of the chest freezer. It took 1/2 hour to clean that mess up.
Luckily that's all I have dumped so far (knock on wood). I have gutted through a couple of batches that weren't quite there but nothing catastrophic.
 
Three or 4 I try not to concentrate on bummers, But I do want to know what I did wrong.
 
2, both infections that resulted in way over carbed beers. One was a best bitter that was put in a bucket that had been full of a nectarine wine that was hit with lacto, didn't dump so much as drank half and the rest blew the bottles. The other was a pumpkin beer, thinking there was something in the pumpkin. The pic is that batch after me just opening them in the sink.

WP_20160109_003.jpg
 
A few years ago I had a lacto problem that took months to figure out and affected several previous brews (they were bottled before I started kegging) prior to realizing I had a problem, I dumped 80 gallons.

The bacteria was in the basement of my 100 year old house, be carful where you bottle and pitch your yeast. I have since moved and haven't had a problem since.
 
Only one that I've dumped. Recipe sounded good, but I just never came around even after 8 months of aging. Tasted terrible. I've got 30ish cases of stuff that's good, so no sense in keeping one that I hate.

On the other hand, I've got two that I'm blending. One isn't nearly sour enough after a year, and the other is super sour. Match made in heaven right there.
 
My first all grain blonde ale came out at maybe 40% efficiency. Channeled during sparge.
 
My first all grain beer was made with very "primitive" tools and i didn't had a chiller, so i put my 50L keggle in the bathtub until it chilled. I didn't had transfer hose either, so i took a big plastic cup and transfer the wort with it. I bottled it and it turned a little sour. Didn't dump it because one of my aunts really liked it :LOL:
That was back in 2013, but in december 2015 i dumped a saison. It was my first saison and i wanted to open ferment it (not really, i used a plastic foil to cover the bucket). After almost two months it produced a white layer on top and a vinegary smell.
I now have a stout, a red ale and possible a christmas ale too that are gushers... I fermented all in my old basement last summer. Probably that wasn't a good idea.
Since december i brewed anothe saison that is bottled now and an Redish IPA that is still fermenting. These two were fermented in the house, so i hope i won't have gushers again. Fingers crossed!
 
Dumped one pre - bottling because I'd forgotten about it and let the airlock go dry for months. It was supposed to be a very light colored IPA but ended up with the aroma and color of weird root beer.

I've dumped one post - bottling because the damn things kept exploding.
 
Ive dumped 3, all within the same month. They all had the same burnt rubbery taste from an unfortunate mishap where a muslin bag got caught under my heating element. Definitely learned my lesson from that. Luckily, the other 5 batches didnt have the flavor. Not sure why since it wasnt 3 in a row that tasted like it

edit: wait, no...4
Very early on I tried to make a belgian strong with bottle harvested yeast that turned out to be champaign yeast. ENTIRE batch of bottle bombs
 
3 different batches of cider, a year apart. First one was clearly infected (butyric, dumped the carboy) and the later two were probably the same, but uncertain and it wouldn't age out. All from store-bought filtered/pasteurized juice.
I blame the lack of hops, maybe (antibacterial). I've done 50 batches of beer/cider/mead, and only ever had those 2 ciders with that problem. Same cleaning/sanitation routine and same vessels.
 
Had to dump one from the bucket due to infection and am about ready to dump one from the keg. It's an oatmeal stout and I had some issues resulting in something like a 3.5% beer which just tastes too weak. I've played around with some recipes resulting in a few that I don't care for but haven't dumped them. I look at it like I just made a great cooking beer!
 
Before you dump a beer strictly on the grounds that it was "not what you expected", I'd investigate other ways to possibly put it to good use. Like ship it to me. Or use it in a recipe. I make a beer meatloaf that I know would benefit from even a "low-expectation" beer. Or you can spray it on your outdoor plants to kill garden slugs. Or get them so drunk, they'd "slagger" (that's a combination of slither and stagger) off somewhere and not find their way home. Or you can ship it to me. Or you can hose down your front steps with it as a BMC-drinker repellent. Or you can shampoo your hair with it, assuming you have hair. Or you can ship it to me.
 
I had bought some specialty grains for an upcoming brew (1lb of crystal40) and during a brainfart, added it to the wrong batch. This was an IPA and it turned out as you might expect, way to much malt presence and a little hard to swallow. I would just pour half a glass of pale ale and add half a glass of this IPA and all was well. Fortunately it was a small batch, only 18 12 ouncers. So I have not dumped one yet....
 
No dumps (yet), but my second ever beer was a hefeweizen that I just didn't care for it at all.. It was also over-carbed in the bottle, so a lot of gushers and such... I had it carbed at like 4 vol's (or more) due to volume mis-judgment. I will likely brew another hefe come sping/summer and nail it this time around! hahah.

I currently have a brown ale I brewed that I am just not a fan of... It basically had a munich dunkel grain bill with ale yeast, but there is just something off about it... Not sure what I will do with it... I will see if it gets better with age, but I am prepared to dump those bottles if needed... No shame... Just improvement! I think the reason *may* be because when I rehydrated the yeast (Nottingham) I accidently used distilled water which is terrible for yeast, so perhaps it was stressed for fermenting and gave the weird flavors... Only thing I can think of. The hydro samples and such tasted awesome.
 
1 - peppercorn saison mead. It was fine before the peppercorns, and after, nope nope nope. Tried to age it and it only sucked harder every time. The only time I've ever dumped.
 
I have dumped 1 full batch and 1/2 of 3 batches.
First was fermented too hot and produced too much banana for even a hefeweizen.
First 1/2 batch a irish red was a problem with the bottling spigot letting air in and oxidizing 1/2 the bottles.
Second 1/2 batch was a brown ale with zero character just a muddled mix of flavors. Finished 1/2 the keg over 6 months and it never improved. Suspect a combination of LHBS recipe being a "hoppy brown ale" and chloramine as part of the issue.
Third 1/2 batch a stout, found out the mash did not convert post fermentation. Even splitting the batch, adding different spices and doing blends never helped.
 
I dumped one partial batch, it was an extract kit and never tasted right. Oh, there was the sour from Surly but that wasn't my beer really so I'm not sure if it counts.
 
In over 250 brews I have never dumped a batch. I have had a few that I thought were MEH but not enough to dump them. Friends liked them or I would use them for cooking.

Early in my brewing I listened to the bad advice that Belgians like to be fermented hot. So I started a BDSA at 75 degrees, probably got up to about 85 during the peak of fermentation. Don't do that. Fusel bomb. I probably could have sold it to NASA as rocket fuel. Tried to age it but the fusels do not age out. It, however, is fantastic for cooking. I use it to braise duck legs and thighs with some leeks and dried cherries. Awesome meal.
 
I have dumped 3 in 8 years of brewing. 2 of them were my first two batches, and one of them doesn't count because it was a first attempt at gluten free beer and therefore probably dumpworthy even as a success.
 
One. Tried making an extract batch of my Amarillo pale ale and it was bad. I think the extract was old.
 
I guess three. The first was a long time ago. I was using Polyclar to clear the beer and grabbed the wrong container and put cleaner in it. Down the drain. The second was a Saison using the 3724 yeast. I couldn't get it to finish so I had that beer up to 95 degrees. It ended up with a strong medicinal taste. About half the batch got drank before I dumped it. Then we had a club barrel project that got infected. We ended up with Sour Imperial Porter. It wasn't bad, but I knew if I kept it, it would be taking up a keg and refrigerator space for a looooong time. So I dumped it.
 
16 batches in and none have been dumped prior to bottling, but I've had quite a number of drainpour bottles - 3 or 4 batches have turned out not great, largely due to experimentation
 
Just one, a chocolate peppermint porter that after a year in the keg, still tasted like you were drinking foam pillow....very minty foam pillow!!
 
I have about 30 bottles that should be dumped, but haven't needed the bottles or the space yet.

First batch ever, and it sucks really hard. After that I found this site and haven't had a bad one since.
 
Three, I think. One was my second batch ever. I had filled the bottles right out of the spout without using a bottling wand, so it was terribly oxidated.

The second was a real shame. (And this was many years ago.) It was a robust porter. I got it in the bottling bucket and noticed that the spigot was leaking because I had overtightened it and deformed the o-ring. So I got the bright idea to starsan my arm and stick it in there to fix the spigot. Well, it got infected of course and I had to dump it all. Funny thing is, if I had just let the leak go I probably would have lost three maybe four bottles worth, tops.

Third was my first ever lager. I didn't have a stir plate back then and I tried to make a 2+ gallon starter. It didn't work well and the beer was an undrinkable acetaldehyde-laden mess. I tried everything to get rid of the acetaldehyde, but with no luck so down the drain it went.
 

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