make sure your hose is not froze
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NivekD
Well-Known Member
Get out the blow torch....
NivekD
Well-Known Member
When they built my house, they put a bib in the garage...I thought it was strange but now I love it.
making some beer and going to chill the wort and my hose is froze. currently trying to pack snow around the kettle to cool it, dam this sux.
Had that happen to me about a week ago and I learned my lesson. When I brewed today I had my hose going at just a trickle to maintain flow so it wouldn't freeze.
Unfortunately snow is a poor way to chill your wort. As soon as it melts a little there is a nice insulating space around the kettle. You would have to be there constantly packing the snow to make it work. Much better to set your kettle in a tub of water and dump snow into that tub. As long as you have snow mixed with the water you can be assured that the water is cold and it makes constant contact with the kettle. That's the method I use any time I have snow available.
A immersion wort chiller would be nice but at -25, its really hard to keep the hose from freezing. You can't move the hose or it will break and you end up with a skating rink where you intended to walk.
A immersion wort chiller would be nice but at -25, its really hard to keep the hose from freezing. You can't move the hose or it will break and you end up with a skating rink where you intended to walk.
I did end up bringing it inside and doing that. Got it cooled and took my gravity and put it in my fermenter. Then i forgot what my gravity was and realized this morning that my yeast is on the counter still. ugh
GrogNerd
mean old man
froze hose happened to me 2 weeks ago
If you had decent sanitation it will be fine. Pitch the yeast and don't worry about the gravity. It isn't critical to know the starting gravity (heck, I don't even bother most of the time) unless you just have to know the alcohol produced. It's the final gravity that I'm concerned with. The software will calculate what range this should be in and when I'm ready to bottle, I check to see that mine is in that range or lower so I know I didn't get a stuck fermentation which could lead to bottle bombs when it restarts in the bottle.
I had all of my quick releases and my starsan spray bottle freeze yesterday and had an idea as I was cleaning up - I think i'm just going to put those things in a plastic bag and put them in the mash tun with all the warm spent grain. That probably won't work with a hose, but it'll do the trick for small things that can freeze.
I set my tub of water outside with about 30 minutes left in the boil and when the boil was done it had a little skim of ice on it. I started with leaving the tub longer but had to break the ice before I could even set the boil kettle in it.
I was able to get a gravity before pitching and it came in at 1.058, three point higher than expected but i think that is because of the starter. As far a sanitation goes im usually careful but last night i had to much homebrew while homebrew. i think some of the snow got into the wort when I was trying to cool it. oh well i see how it goes.
Get out the blow torch....
Ha! I did this last week when I was brewing and it has (just) gotten really cold down here in NC...I fortunately figured out very early on that things were frozen...I wrapped the hose around the perimeter of my burner stand to warm/thaw, but did indeed bust out the blowtorch on the faucet and pipe! Once I got things loosened up, just as someone else suggested I ran it on a slow trickle until it was time to cool....
As an (?) upside, it was the first time I actually over cooled (and I did it in record time)!
I learned a long time ago to store my hose in the garage and bring it out when I need it. You can still get it flowing though if you walk the length of it bending it back and forth to break up the ice enough for water pressure to push it out.
The last day I brewed last week the inside of my garage was -10. I don't think that would have helped my hose much. Oh, it was -35 outside my garage.
Chowe
Well-Known Member
I always make sure I drain all of the water out of my hose before I put it away, but I have had it freeze in the past when I must have not been successful getting all of the water out. I found that taking the entire frozen hose and placing it in the hot tub for two or three min will fix the problem.
In the winter, I drag the hose inside the garage the night before I brew.
Well, you can still check your gravity at least...
pellis007
Well-Known Member
Happened to me today. Thankfully I had a spare in my shed which hasn't had water in it in years, so it was nice and dry. When I was done chilling my wort, I hooked up the hose to the air compressor and blew it out for next time.
Happened to me today. Even the one I thought I drained was plugged. Ended up soaking it in a bucket of hot water and unplugged it. So much for zero minute addition. Hate living here. Leaving San Diego... Huge mistake.
GrogNerd
mean old man
egads... leaving San Diego is bad enough, but PHILLY?
Thanks to the hella weird weather we have been having with temp variations from 5 degrees to 60 degrees I have been able to sneak in a few brews without frozen water.
I am drawing out a pond pump idea to recirc and add snow to the reservoir bucket. Only kink I foresee is I use a CFC and even with its warmer ~50ish I get a huge drop in wort temp when I do the sanitizing pre-run I lose boil for a good 3-4 minutes.
Hmmm.... just had an idea, I could pre-boil while mashing.....genius!
I am drawing out a pond pump idea to recirc and add snow to the reservoir bucket. Only kink I foresee is I use a CFC and even with its warmer ~50ish I get a huge drop in wort temp when I do the sanitizing pre-run I lose boil for a good 3-4 minutes.
Hmmm.... just had an idea, I could pre-boil while mashing.....genius!
I asked on another thread about doing no chill and got a response that was quite different. They said that the "no chill" brewers had to boil for 90 minutes to make sure to drive off all the DMS precursors and that they had to be anal about sanitation. I don't see that you people are doing 90 minute boils so how are you not getting DMS? If you boil in the pot and put the lid on while it is still steaming, do you get DMS from the condensate dripping back into the wort or is a 60 minute boil sufficient? Do you worry about infection or does putting the lid on while the wort is hot steam pasteurize the lid?
Everything seems to me ok, actually had my first blowout with it, not sure if its because of my first yeast starter or my first temperature controller.
I plan on brewing this weekend, hopefully i will remember to thaw the hose this time.
I plan on brewing this weekend, hopefully i will remember to thaw the hose this time.
RM-MN said:
first there is a huge thread on here about no chill
I've only done no chill a couple times, I usually use my immersion chiller, but that's only to save time.
regarding infection your whole boil kettle has been sanitized from boiling and so will the lid, I've even had leaves fall in my beer while using my immersion chiller with no infections
my advice on big DOs and DONTs for something like this is to try it for yourself, alot of people just repeat what they've heard with out ever trying it
there are known precautions for DMS, like pilsener malt, but id still try it for yourself
