Thaw Your Hose

You northerners, be sure to thaw your frozen hose before connecting it to your wort chiller. I thought making sure the water was out of it before it froze would be enough, but apparently not. There's bound to still be some residual water in there, in which case you're screwed. Now my kettle is sitting in a snowbank trying to cool my wort to pitching temps. Argh!!!

Lesson learned the hard way.

I have learned that lesson he hard way a few times over. Now I keep two hoses in the basement for that reason. I remember brewing out in the cd one night and wrapping the frozen hoses around the base of my burner to defrost them.

Coil it up, take it inside in your bathtub or shower with some hot water for 5-10 minutes and it should be ready to go.

I thought of thawing it out, but the chiller is already out of the wort, and rather than sanitize it I'll just let it cool in the snow. That's a good idea though if I'm ever in this spot again

This is how I always thaw my wort. I just stick the kettle in a snow bank for 20 minutes. Works great!

I drain mine pretty good but still end up bringing it in by the stove.

If It was an emergency, I would use the shorter hose that hooks to the exit on the intake and carry the hot kettle over to the spigot. The shorter hose 15' doesn't seem to freeze inside the garage.

FuzzeWuzze said:

Coil it up, take it inside in your bathtub or shower with some hot water for 5-10 minutes and it should be ready to go.

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Found out the hard way this works I threw it in the tub, was probably 10 minutes. How ever long it took so I could blow air through it. Not sure why but, damn that hose was dirty. Left a major disgusting filthy ring around the tub I never use. Can't imagine what the house cleaners thought. I have since made a small setup for the kitchen sink.
Sucks lifting but better than freezing myself outside.

When my hose was frozen I just hooked my chiller right to the spigot. It was only about 10 feet away from where I boil so I didn't have to carry the kettle that far.

opiate82 said:

When my hose was frozen I just hooked my chiller right to the spigot. It was only about 10 feet away from where I boil so I didn't have to carry the kettle that far.

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My God, why didn't I think of that! Mind you I would have had to carry the pot about 50 feet, but heck, would have worked! And 20 minutes in a snow bank isn't long enough to cool my wort. I'm 3 and a half hours in and down to 100f. Another 25-30 degrees to go...

celtic_dude said:

I have learned that lesson he hard way a few times over. Now I keep two hoses in the basement for that reason. I remember brewing out in the cd one night and wrapping the frozen hoses around the base of my burner to defrost them.

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This. It only takes one time. Now I bring in my hoses, pump, and chiller for the winter.

I hope you are making sure to keep the snow in contact with the pot; otherwise when the pot melted the snow it actually set up a nice insulated area which will help the pot stay warm instead of cooling it down (you would have been better off leaving it on the burner instead of placing it in the snow bank).

Trox said:

I hope you are making sure to keep the snow in contact with the pot; otherwise when the pot melted the snow it actually set up a nice insulated area which will help the pot stay warm instead of cooling it down (you would have been better off leaving it on the burner instead of placing it in the snow bank).

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Yep! This may be counterintuitive to those who don't live in the frozen north, but snow and ice are awesome insulators. I thought I was so smart, sticking a pot of hot wort into a snow bank outside my back door when it was 20 degrees outside.

I learned the hard way that if you stick a pot in an ice bank, it'll stay nice and hot for a good long time. Think of igloos, and how well they insulate the warm people inside.

A pot of ice water works great, though, especially if you stir the wort and the ice bath to avoid hot spots and cold spots.

Yes, every 15 minutes or so I was repacking the snow around the kettle. A little over 4 hours later I pitched at 70 degrees.