anything can happen making beer!~!!

I think I have come to the conclusion over the years that truly anything can happen while making abeer. And we must adapt and overcome these problems. The story is this. I have a new 14 gallon kettle and burner that I was making a nice oatmeal stout with, so I was a full 6 gallon boil very nice mash with high effeciency. My wort chiller is an older 25 ft coil immersion chiller. Needles to say it began to leak out both ends as I was chilling...not good. I attempted to FIX THE PROBLEM WITH NO LUCK. NON STERILE WATER DRIPPING INTO BEER IS NO GOOD..LOL so I moved it inside and upstairs and into the tub for a quick cool. My temp was 140 at this time so very fragile sate of affairs, any how all is well and fermenting nicely. I cross my fingers that any micro organizems are thworted by my big yeast starter

New chiller on way and I will make the old one a nice pre chiller, the new chiller is taller and fits better in the new kettle. I sometimes think something always has to go wrong while making beer for it to turn out great!!


note to self moving a 14 gallon kettle full of beer up stairs an into a tub is not good for the back...

Jay

That's precisely what's keeping me from moving up to 10 gallon batches!!! :cross: Glad things seem to have worked out for you though!!!

I was looking at my homemade CFC chiller today and thinking how nice it would be to have a plate chiller. Space is really at a premium for me and a silly bunch of ghetto coils just ain't cuttin' it. But, otoh, my CFC chills my 5 gallons and gets it into the carboy in a matter of about 12 minutes, so I can hardly complain!

Here's to more successful brews!!!

discgolfin said:

note to self moving a 14 gallon kettle full of beer up stairs an into a tub is not good for the back...

Jay

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My God, Hoss!!!! and I've been complaining about 5 gal. lifts.... Good luck on the ferment

discgolfin said:

I sometimes think something always has to go wrong while making beer for it to turn out great!!

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I couldn't agree more. Maybe I'm prone to failures, like bad luck, but I swear something goes wrong on just about every batch. My wort chiller leaked three batches ago. Thank god it I caught it the minute it started. Two batches ago I ran out of propane and had to go inside and use the oven. This past batch, I made a pumpkin ale, and my friggin oven didn't heat up. Had to keep playing with it and finally got it to heat to temp to bake the pumpkin. Funny thing is, except for the pumpkin as it is fermenting right now, the other batches have come out just fine. In fact the lawnmower beer I made came out great! And that was the one where the chiller leaked...

I think someimtes you try to anticipate problems as best you can. I like using immersion chillers, I think with a prechiller of ice water this sucker could drop as fast as a counter flow chiller, but I will find out next week.

Jay

This very thing has happened to me....my fittings were not sealed completely and dripped water into the wort! My chiller was too short and I couldn't hang them over the side and still cool. The horror....

But my beer turned out right. I'm learning not to make quick reactions to these things....because while freaking out in an "emergency" such as this one...I might just try to lift a kettle full of hot wort (not too hard to lift in itself) and it would be my luck to trip while walking with it.

discgolfin said:

I think someimtes you try to anticipate problems as best you can. I like using immersion chillers, I think with a prechiller of ice water this sucker could drop as fast as a counter flow chiller, but I will find out next week.

Jay

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It will! Don't forget to whirlpool! This will not only mix thermal layers in the wort, but it will bring your cold break and hop material to the center of the kettle.

A couple notes for info;
1) What was the temp of the wort when the leak occurred? If it was still above 165ish F then you are pretty safe. We pasteurize milk at about 163 F.
2) Just how nasty is your water source? Many people that do partial boils top off with plain tap water with no problem.

I had a similar incident but I grabbed a screwdriver to tighten the fitting to fix the leak. Needless to say I dropped the screwdriver into the wort . But, the beer still turned out great. :rockin:

Dropped the screw driver into the wort..ouch

The temp was around 160 so close but my water is good and clean.

Jay

I had the same thing happen last week, but it happened on my pre-chiller. I upgraded to one of those Mongo chillers from MoreBeer that have hose fitting welded on. Anyway, I set it up to chill and was cleaning things when I heard splashing noises. The hose going to my chiller came off the pre chiller and water was spraying the house. Luckily, I had a towel covering my kettle and the water did not make it to my wort. I ended up cutting the cheap plastic hose back and inch and re-installing and tightening up the worm clamps.

I upgraded to the same!!

It should arrive any day...

J