Thought this might be a bit of fun! Has anyone had any coffee related epic fails. It might be trying to impress a friend with your skills as a barista, only to find you have forgotten to adjust the grind back for the new bean and it chokes………or giving a latte art demonstration, only to find the milk you are using will do anything except foam! I remember once, falling absolutely flat on my face when I was certain I would succeed, but thats another story! So, come on then. Who is going to first to tell us about their epic fail.

It’s not an epic coffee fail. But, an epic cooking failure. I am a good cook, having learnt the art since 13 and regularly took care of the kitchen cooking for a big family since 17. It was one of the summer evenings of 1987. I was a graduate student of economics in Mumbai, India. One of my best friends’ house was empty for months, as his wife had gone home to deliver a baby. We were cooking every day - lunch and dinner and there I was reeling out my culinary skills for 5 of us. Hearing how good the food was, one of my friends’ cousin and his pal invited themselves for dinner. I was meant to have a short afternoon, hoping to be back at my friends’ in the evening for dinner. A menu was prepared - rice, a couple of dry Indian roasted veg and a curry. I got stuck in my department as some of the codes won’t run. I told the guys on the phone to cut the vegetables, put the rice on a pressure cooker, etc. I went home late. They were sitting and chatting and had not lifted a finger. I was tired, hungry and angry. I yelled at them and started cooking. Instead of helping me, they were making fun of my mood and laughing. I finished cooking. We all helped ourselves. My best friend’s cousin and buddy were the first to go. They tried the vegetables and swallowed quickly. The facial reaction was very funny. That cousin then mixed the rice and curry; no sooner he took a big mouthful of food, than he started getting massive hiccups. Tears were rolling from his eyes. My first thought was the food was amazing and hence the tears (😂). He tried to swallow the food, but he could not without water. He dropped the plate and ran to the bathroom. Puzzled, I tried tasting them. I couldn’t. I had to spit the food on my plate. **Reason**: I had completely lost my sense of my cooking, and had added **salt and red chilli powder 3 times the normal amount**. Why 3 times ? There were 2 roasted vegetables and a curry. I didn’t realise what I was doing. My friend. who was watching me mess up the evening, never stopped me. I always wondered why. Perhaps, he was waiting to have a fun. Of course, I apologised. The best part of the friendship was they could understand the situation; we dumped the food in the bin and went out for a very late dinner. The hilarious part of the unforgettable experience was his cousin was so upset and never spoke to me, though we were reading at the same graduate school for another 2.5 years. Our path diverged until we had a chance to speak in 2019! We had a good laugh recalling this incident. Except this gentleman, till date that our gang of 5 still remain as best friends for life. These failures happen, perhaps for a reason. May be, they help you stay grounded, teach you a life lesson, where in life, we cannot expect every one to forgive us! 😊

@"LMSC"#p327 What a good story! Many thanks for sharing…….anyone else?

What a great story…it's a funny thing how events can unite people.

Not sure it counts as an epic fail, just a watered down version of the same thing really. I had invited 4 friends round for a Thai curry and had run out of the Encona hot sauce I normally use. This is reasonably potent but nothing ridiculous. Some time previously, my flat mate had been abroad and knowing my penchant for spice had given me one of those novelty chilli sauces with a stupid name and even more stupid number of Scoville heart units. It was called something like Arson Fire Da Bomb, you get the idea. I took one look at it and filed it at the back of the cupboard. Anyway, casting around for something to add the required kick in the absence of the Encona, I found it. Knowing it would be hot, I put a tiny drop on one tine of a fork and stirred it in. Big mistake! One drop rendered a big saucepan full of curry for 6 inedible! I added another can of coconut milk and we soldiered through it, everyone politely saying how flavoursome it was, if a tad hot. Nobody finished their plate, me included. I used the rest of the bottle as rodent repellant: a task for which it is eminently suited, as rodents are highly sensitive to capsaicin.

I don't even want to think about how many times I've set the roaster temp, airflow…waited for the charge temp, hit go on the PC only to find I never loaded the green coffee in the first place…It's still sat in a bucket on the scales across the roastery.

It wasn't my fail, but a friend decided on a Lemon Cheesecake for desert, and being quite health-conscious, opted for low-fat cream cheese. Well, for those of you not familiar with cheesecakeology, it's the fat in the cream cheese that makes it set. We had a pretty tasty but very thick and creamy lemon drink. On a plate. Called it a Lemon Puddle. We still tease the poor girl about that now, about 40 years later. The Beef Stroganoff that might not have been slow-cooked quite slowly, or longly, enough turned into a Beef Struggledown. Different culprit …. erm, cook. :D

I proudly said I would make my next door neighbour a latte not long after getting my Sage DB. Despite having dialled in the bean (or so I thought) the first shot gushed through. Cue an over enthusiastic adjustment and the second shot completely choked-about 8 shots later and close to running out of beans I finally got there. My neighbour thought I'd gone to Brazil to pick up the beans I think. Definitely a case of more haste less speed- and put paid to any thoughts I'd been having about becoming a Barista- at least without a lot more practice!!

As were doing cooking ones I once made chocolate bowels using the dip a balloon in melted chocolate method - didn't really think about things so didn't let the chocolate cool at all. The resulting balloon pop covered me and 90% of the kitchen in tiny spots of chocolate!

Epic fails

PortafilterProcrastinator

Within the last week I have sent a very inappropriate (rude words and reference to a type of niche adult entertainment) WhatsApp message to a very old friend refering to an in-joke we’ve had going for nearly 20years.

Maybe 1minute after sending said message I had a message from his wife.

He had been casting his phone screen (so not app casting - screen mirroring) to the TV to show his parents a video and the message appeared for everyone see enough of it to be suitably shocked and appalled.

I will never live it down.

DavecUK

siliconslave As were doing cooking ones I once made chocolate bowels using the dip a balloon in melted chocolate method

Wow, hope you didn’t blow the balloons up too much…messy old clean up too! 😆

siliconslave

Bowls even (facepalm)

LMSC

Another funny side of things, when things are not designed to go our way.

We are at my daughter’s place for Christmas. We had a brunch, rested a while, my wife and I had decided to go for a long walk. We would have walked through the flat’s main door and the building main door hundreds of time.

Opening and closing the door with the keys should be robotic, right? On our way home, I could not open the building main door. It took me more than 10 mins before the key worked. My wife gave me a look implying this old man must have lost his trick!

The same thing happened to the flat door. We did not double lock it. We just shut the door and went out. However hard I tried, I could not open the door at all. I struggled with it for another 15 minutes. It just won’t open.

Thinking, I was probably having some funny moment, she took the key from me and tried herself. Bingo ! The door just opened.

As I looked at her in totally disbelief, she laughed at my stupidity and said, “you can’t keep things simple. Like everything, you will have to over research, over complicate things - like Miele Dishwasher, the coffee machine….”.

I jokingly asked her, do I look like an idiot to you? She quietly replied isn’t it obvious ?

She is eagerly waiting for my daughter to wake up to set me up! 😂

While I am still thinking what just happened with that door thing, I wonder some times, do we actually complicate simple things in life like a cup of coffee. Is it all unnecessary ? I am not materialistic and do not have any attachments towards them?

Why do we care so much about these ? Look at the forums where people are constantly grabbing each other’s throat? Why can’t they be all friendly? It’s after all a cup of coffee!

DavecUK

LMSC Why do we care so much about these ? Look at the forums where people are constantly grabbing each other’s throat? Why can’t they be all friendly? It’s after all a cup of coffee!

Who knows…I’m glad I am out of it. I think perhaps because the internet has few filters hidden behind a username and some people seem to deliberately want to cause trouble when they are online. years ago I used to do a lot of multiplayer gaming and the public (non clan) servers were absolutely toxic.?

Forums where you buy expensive things like motorcycles, HiFi cameras etc..often contain the biggest arguments because no one wants to be made to feel dissatisfied with their stuff. The one thing I know in the world of coffee…it doesn’t matter how much you spend, there will always be something more expensive……

Today I was reminded by a story, I think from you about not switching the oven on….nearly did that to the entire Christmas dinner…set it up, set the time….but didn’t press the button. What saved me was thinking about that story….I checked again!

CafeNoir

DavecUK Yes, quite amazing how really, really ..brave(?) some “keyboard warriors” can be when they believe they’re anonymous…..pretty much given up on participating in most online stuff except coffee forums

Dumnorix

That will hopefully remind me to check that the plug is actually switched on when I charge up my electric car (Nissan Leaf). On several occasions now I have plugged it in but forgotten to flick the switch! As a result we arrived home this evening from visiting relatives with 0% charge and 2 separate warning systems flashing at me.

DavecUK

Dumnorix Im guessing you charge by regular 13 amp 3 pin plug and not a 7kW wall unit?

Dumnorix

Yes- for the moment. Home charger is being installed though on 11th Jan and new MG5 EV hopefully arriving by the end of the month.

Baldrick

Hifi is the absolute worst - put me off joining any kind of forum for years. At least with motorbikes you can go to a race day (I’m not into it) but have been with friends who are and people are generally incredibly friendly.

Nightrider_1uk

Baldrick I know what you mean, back in the 80’s I used to be into quality Hi-Hi but having a limited budget my set up was quite modest (and still is, just old though now). The amount of bitching and one upmanship that used to happen was terrible

DavecUK

Nightrider_1uk I know what you mean, back in the 80’s I used to be into quality Hi-Hi but having a limited budget my set up was quite modest (and still is, just old though now). The amount of bitching and one upmanship that used to happen was terrible

I think this can happen whenever expensive gear is involved and a small group set up a race to the top. It’s why I have no interest in reviewing super expensive kit. It wouldn’t have mattered what I said, I would have completely wasted my time. This race to the top in any forum creates an Elite, who then form a Clique and talk amongst themselves in rarefied tones. They often influence others to spend far more than they can really afford, for what are very small gains (you will see this in any HiFi forum, or watch forum….because it makes one feel “part of the club”.

I’ve always said all these machines are going to make great coffee, at a certain point it becomes about refinement, very small improvements and aesthetics. A Bianca can pull as good a shot as a LMLM in competent hands. Grinders are important, again up to a point, and of course the coffee and your preferred taste is a huge factor.

There are so many reasons why certain people do this sort of thing on forums. I think here, we are at a point where none of us want that, especially when we have seen how much better a forum can be without it..

As an example, I enjoyed reading Norvins restoration of a Silvia thread….as much, possibly more, than if someone had posted a thread about their new Slayer and Monolith grinder. There will be others who will enjoy the Slayer thread more…that’s what’s great about forums…space for all.

Rob666

As an ex audio professional the hi-fi forums are where I go when I need a good laugh…

Baldrick

DavecUK Hifi is a prime example of “the law of diminishing returns”. If you can afford it and wish to spend a deposit on a house on a set up then more power to you.
It’s just the utter horse **** that these self proclaimed experts come out with that makes it so unfriendly and intolerable.
But mine goes up to 11…

DavecUK

Well I had a massive bloody fail today…I installed Ubuntu 20.04 called Focal Fossa on a small fanless PC I have…that went OK, but it all went down hill after that.

Apache2, json, dom php curl (curly wurly) and all this other crap, who knows what was being installed, or what it did,, but be sure I was installing a lot of stuff with gobbldygook names and command lines that looked like an ASCII explosion.. It’s all running, but it doesn’t bloody work.

Aha, I thought composers at version one, I’d better upgrade it…command line, nuthuin, failed, you need a json it said…OK how to i do that…tried to make one with a twig or sommat…gave up when the python attacked me and Maria wasn’t doing what she should be. Installed flarum on it…I think, but I can’t access it….even though the web server says it’s working. Now this is all terminal stuff and Unix, and it just keeps asking installation questions that nobody (no normal person) knows the answer to.

I did my last few sudo apts and finally had no option but to do a SUMO, having totally failed and disappeared up my own arsehole.

P.S. Once I was a computer expert…but I have to admit this defeated me.

Pompeyexile

Blimey, where to start?

My biggest coffee fail was when I bought my second hand Gaggia. Having swatted up, I decided to replace some o’rings and adjust the pump pressure to 9 bar, which of course meant opening up the machine. So, I thought ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ if I have to do that, I might as well strip it right down give it a good fettle which included dealing with any rust spots etc. By the time I’m finished it’ll be like a new machine.

Stripped it bare and when I went to put it back togther, I couldn’t understand my own drawings of what wire went where on the PID and SSR’s. Took a guess and turned it on…bang! Had to order a new PID and 2 new SSR ’s. No problem, except because of the way the original PID was fitted, so the bulk of the PID body was inside the machine instead of attached to the side, looking like a carbuncle, it had to be ordered from China, as it was the only place I could find the right one. I did a detailed drawing of the wiring set up and asked for help. 3 weeks later after the parts arrived, I fitted them again… Bang! Another order and more advice and another 3 weeks later. Right, I’ll wire the PID up, but test it before putting it in situe…holding my breath…stand back mother!…. Bang! You’re avin a chuffin laugh! Seemed that I didn’t see one of the metal connectors on the back of the PID which was hanging over the side, touching the casing. Yep, another order, another 3 weeks more advice and here we go again. 3…2…1… As Dr Frankenstein once said…'It’s alive!'

Lesson learned….take pictures of everything before taking it apart, or better still…Don’t touch electrics if you haven’t a clue what you are doing!

Nightrider_1uk

Pompeyexile Lesson learned….take pictures of everything before taking it apart, or better still…Don’t touch electrics if you haven’t a clue what you are doing!

Thats the best bit of advice.

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