I bought a WilliamsWarn no boil Dutch Pilsner 5-gallon kit and sterilized everything. I had a clean kitchen with everything perfectly lined up. The first thing I did wrong is the water was nearly boiling when I added the Hopped LME and then when I added the Dry Malt Extract, I dumped it all in there at once instead of gradually (If all else fails, read the directions) and it all solidified in a giant glob so I had to spend a lot of time breaking it up.
I decided to add 48 oz of maple syrup to boost the alcohol, and give it an interesting flavor...I'll get to that.
Then after putting the pot in my kitchen sink filled with ice it got down to the right temperature range - and after siphoning everything into the carboy, I dropped the damn thermometer into the carboy. Fortunately, I had another carboy that I cleaned and sterilized and siphoned into that one. Then it turns out that the bung was not quite wide enough and it plunged into the second carboy along with the airlock.
Cue the Benny Hill music and so naturally I fished out the thermometer from carboy #1 and siphoned everything from #2 back into #1 and very carefully used the smaller bung and put some foil around it for a tighter fit until the right sized bung arrived from Amazon.
The extra maple syrup caused a foam-over so I used an empty milk jug with starsan and that did the trick until it was safe to put the airlock back on. I then went on the road a lot and didn't have time to bottle it so I finally bottled after two months in primary, bottled everything and adding 3/4 cup priming sugar like a good boy. Last Friday, after two weeks conditioning, I stuck a bottle in the fridge and tried the beer and, despite my best efforts, it was delicious!
I can't wait to taste it after it conditions a bit more.