Mine happened last night. Made a giant pot of stock from a turkey carcass. Smelled great & probably would've tasted pretty good but we'll never know. Moving it into the fridge for cooling after removing the bones and BAM - missed the shelf or something and the whole pot spilled in the kitchen. Over a gallon for sure. Still cleaning it up. I'm guessing some had to go under the cabinets & island. It was under the fridge & stove. No smell yet but I am researching new flooring in case things turn funky. We have wood in there that goes into the living room so it won't be a small project.

The towels used to get most of it up are trash - washed 3 times & I can still smell it. Now running empty loads to make sure the washing machine is clean before I do any other laundry and cleaning the interior of the dryer. Sheesh. I ask everybody that comes in if they smell anything. So far they say no and I have told them to be honest.

Please make me feel better with worse stories.

Thank you, I feel much better now.

I just made a loaf of whole wheat bread with experimenting by toasting 1/3 of the flour prior to mixing. Trying to amp up the wheat flavor, but it's a dense brick that wouldn't rise. Or at least I assume it is. It won't release from the loaf pan so I just left it upside down over a cooling rack and will come back in the morning. I'd throw it out the window if it weren't pouring.

When I was a kid, I was making a peach cobbler and getting ready to put it in the gas oven. It was one of the with the broiler below the oven. I didn't pull the rack out far enough, and when I let it go, it tipped forward. All the filling ran down the front door, onto the oven floor, and down into the broiler. I ended up having to use a putty knife to scrape it all off, and the oven stunk for about a month after that.

I was using a gravy shaker and the top came off, shooting flour and water glue everywhere intiny droplets all over the kitchen. What dried we had to chip off the cabinets.

When trying to impress my future husband I made a cake with salt instead of sugar.

Just last month I made my Thanksgiving pie crusts without adding the dry ingredients and had to start over, because I got distracted. The list goes on!

Not kitchen related but reading about the queso in the car reminded me of the time that as the low person on the totem pole, I was sent out for coffees. One of the lattes fell over into the floorboard of my car. I thought I was going to have to have the carpet replaced or trade in the car - that milk smell was awful. Shampooed, shampooed, shampooed. Finally some kind of pet enzyme spray stuff kinda made it livable. But, OMG - that milk soured fast.

Another story - we stopped by a friend's house and all the doors on his truck were open, seats out. He'd gone to the store a day or 2 before & pack of chicken had fallen out & exploded under the front seat. It was August. We could smell the death as soon as we got out of the car.

edit: Well, that's what he claimed it was....

Not technically kitchen....but....

My whole life I've only ever used charcoal or wood grills, never gas. My parents had a townhouse/condo on the island in corpus that family/friends/customers used. Of course, it had a gas grill. Me and some friends were staying there one weekend and decided to grill some ribeyes. Of course, being basically a vacation rental property, nobody ever cleaned out the grill. I threw the steaks on and went inside. Came back out a couple minutes later to basically a huge fireball. Just turned off the gas and let it burn out.

I am glad I rolled it out of the garage to cook, that could have been bad....

I've stuck to charcoal and wood since then....

Not one in particular but I've definitely made a number of mistakes on the smoker. Over smoked ribs, chicken, and fish. No idea how many briskets I ruined. Brisket is always a let down if the results are poor due to the amount of time and money invested. Hard to feel good about yourself after ruining a whole packer.

Max Power said:

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Not one in particular but I've definitely made a number of mistakes on the smoker. Over smoked ribs, chicken, and fish. No idea how many briskets I ruined. Brisket is always a let down if the results are poor due to the amount of time and money invested. Hard to feel good about yourself after ruining a whole packer.

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I've had some inconsistent results myself over the years with briskets. While I don't claim to be an expert, I've simplified my approach and it's greatly improved my results. Step one, buy prime. Step two, smoke over oak until internal thermometer hits 200. Step three, rest at least an hour in cooler or oven.

This has definitely improved my luck.

In college, GF (now wife) wanted "meat on sticks" for a weekend party. No problem I got this. 4-5 different proteins 4-5 different marinades. Going to be EPIC. Marinate overnight, fire up the grill and grab some beers.

Everything looks great, I'm a culinary GOD.

This is the moment I found out about meat tenderizer being a derivative of pineapple. Pork and Pineapple Hawaiian skewers... I cannot begin to describe the texture of this pork....mushy yet solid but also kinda not.....I'm still surprised they even stayed in the skewers......will never forget The Great Echols Street Skewer Catastrophe '04.

Oh well let's see here.

Coming home from the bar + frozen pizza + sofa = charcoal briquet. Fortunately I woke up when it just started to smoke and before the smoke alarm went off. It was my first efficiency apartment right out of school and the whole place smelled like burnt ass for a couple of days.

Like a dumbass, I agreed to make my aunt's city-renowned biscochos for my SIL's niece's quincenera. I'm at bro and SIL's house and very quickly get up to my hairline in flour, dough, and anger. SIL is "helping." At some point I ask for the oven to be turned on, and one of them does it. I forget who did what, but whomever turned it on was NOT the one who put several packs of hot dog and hamburger buns in the oven. Something about out of room or counter space or some such.

Hey, what's that smell?
Oh, it's just the oven warming up.

A few minutes later I pushed the issue and one of them went to check. Extra toasted buns and melted plastic E V E R Y W H E R E inside the oven. So then the fight started over why didn't you check first versus why the F did you put buns in the oven. Ya Ike and Tina, settle it later, clean the ******* oven so we can get this done. We were on the hook for something stupid like 40 dozen of those damn things. Took so damn long to just get started it was about five years before I could eat one again.

One Easter I was making pot roa..., err brisket in the oven. It's almost more of a carne deshebrada kind of thing. Marinate it overnight and then let it go low and slow in the oven. We were eating early so I got up early, put it in the oven, set my alarm, and went back to sleep. Woke up before the alarm went off and the whole house smelled like brisket, in a good way. Nodded off again. Woke up again still before the alarm and it smelled different, a little like burning. Run into the kitchen in just boxers half blind with no contacts in and see the marinade was dripping off the foil cover and hitting the bottom of the oven. It was starting to burn and smoke a bit. I opened the door and the smoke cloud hit me and then the smoke alarm. I get the windows opened and fanned the alarm and it stopped.

I went to adjust the foil and bumped the pan spilling more marinade/meat juice. This time I got a big ol' smoke cloud and the smoke alarm went off. It didn't occur to me right away that the smoke alarm going off was the one tied to my security system, and not the house ones. This was brought to my attention when the alarm system went off. I get it shutoff and go back to the dripping disaster in the oven. Smoke alarm goes off again setting the alarm system off again. I'm running back and forth across the house trying to hold burning juice containment, fanning smoke detectors and entering codes at the alarm panel, half blind and in my underwear,

At some point my phone starts ringing. I started to ignore it but then realized it would be the security company because the smoke alarm had gone off. In running to the kitchen the first time, I knocked my phone off the nightstand. I managed to find it under the bed and answer it right before it went to voicemail. I later learned in another incident the hot bun SIL isn't the best at answering rollover calls from my security company. ('Oh yeah, your alarm company called me like last week or so..."). There was a 99% chance FD was a coming had I not answered. I wound up finishing the meat at my parents' house and considering moving.

Ornlu said:

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This is a great thread idea.

I had a valve fail on a conical fermenter, and it dumped 12 gallons of half-fermented beer on my kitchen floor while transferring. Only took about 3 minutes for it to drain all over the tile floor. It was a mad scramble to find buckets, towels, etc. Then 2 hours of moping.

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My neighbor limp wristed the tap on my chest type keezer once. It slipped back forward and kept going. I kept hearing water running and couldn't figure it out. It put several gallons onto a wood floor before I finally went looking for the sound. Had a bunch of friends over and was frying back strap that night. To their credit, and with their desire to eat sooner rather than later, four guys with three towels and a shop vac made it look like it never happened.

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Warning: Make sure your crockpot of queso is secure when you put it on the floorboard on the passenger seat of your car.

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Not kitchen related but reading about the queso in the car reminded me of the time that as the low person on the totem pole, I was sent out for coffees. One of the lattes fell over into the floorboard of my car. I thought I was going to have to have the carpet replaced or trade in the car - that milk smell was awful. Shampooed, shampooed, shampooed. Finally some kind of pet enzyme spray stuff kinda made it livable. But, OMG - that milk soured fast.

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Nature's Miracle Odor Destroyer.

https://texags.com/forums/46/topics/2854527/replies/49039158

Two stories:

1) 8th grade, deep frying chicken nuggets on summer afternoon, only person home. This was very typical for me, as I started cooking in 3rd grade. Phone rings (before cell phones), so I take the oil off of the burner, go into the other room and talk to my girlfriend for like 30 minutes. Somehow, jug of oil next to the stove melted, caught fire. fire alarm. Six feet of flame. 1 minute of panic, but found the fire extinguisher, put the fire out. Spent the rest of the summer painting ceilings / walls and replacing cabinets. Close to burning my parents house down. Learned a lot about safety there, but expensive lesson.

2) 30 years old, making beer. Put 5 gallon glass carboy of beer into chiller, which is converted upright refrigerator. shelf shatters, carboy bounces off of refrigerator bottom, lands right on my toe and shatters. Five gallons of beer on the ground, glass everywhere, a piece of glass covering my foot, covered in blood. I can't see my big toe. I can't feel my big toe. I can see new blood squirting on the underside of the glass covering my foot. Take a very deep breath, pray that I still have a big toe, move the piece of glass. Big toe has very small, but pretty deep cut. Lost the toenail a week later, but no other significant injury. Was very scary though.

There are awesome posts here: tragedy, comedy & good lessons!

UnderoosAg - Thanks for the link. I felt bad for you, but laughed my way thru the whole thread.

So far, the kitchen floor is not stinking. We'll see once we start cranking the heat up in here.

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2. The first thing I learned to "cook" outside of a microwave was to skillet fry bologna for sandwiches. Fried bologna sandwiches were also my first lesson in HVAC systems and return units. I grew up above a funeral and made a fried bologna sandwich one afternoon for lunch. My dad suddenly walks in LIVID because the during the middle of a funeral the chapel started smelling like fried bologna. The home upstairs was part of the same AC system as the funeral home downstairs....

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now THAT is funny. he should have told the guests the crematorium was running.

These "ribs"...



or this pizza, which was actually much worse in person...

Last week I made a second (improved/refined) batch of pricIy pear margarita mix for Christmas gifts. Not only did I hand pick and process the pears, I also juiced a whole case of limes for this project.

All eighteen bottles (18!) did not seal properly and were quite fermented when I got home Sunday.

To add insult to injury, I had one partial bottle which had been kept refrigerated that I sampled over the weekend and it was really stellar.

One Christmas morning in Colorado, I was making a Black Bottom pie, and drinking champagne. While whipping cream, I looked away from the mixer for a minute, and stuck my hand into the bowl. My fingers actually stopped the mixer as they got stuck in the beaters. I ended up in the ER and lunch was late. One guest said he hoped I hadn't gotten blood in the cream. Not a fun day.

1/2 crock pot of chicken in sausage gumbo spilled somehow in my old ass Honda Element. Juice ran along the plastic floor to the bolts to the chair and drained under the plastic. Smell has disappated but I'm not looking forward to summer.

A decade ago in the same car I was brewing at a friend's. Loaded everything in the back when done and went I side to watch football. On leaving I forgot to secure the glass 6.5 gallon carboy full of 5.5 gallons of wort, it tipped over.and hit the propane tank. 5.5 gallons of sticky sugar water under the plastic flooring. $400 in replacement parts and a month of 80 billion fruit flies.

2 years ago on our brand new gas range I was making a 5L wort starter and the elmeyer flask cracked and broke, sending 5 liters of honey water into the range and the drawers below. My wife was so pissed off. It took hours to clean all the pots and pans, take the drawers out, clean the underside and take the range apart.

Most my screw ups involve brewing and somehow my beat-to-hell car.