Dealing with camlock spills?

Used my pumps for the first time yesterday. The camlocks worked great, but I had issues with spills. When I moved hoses, some or all of the hot water or wort spilled, making a bit of a mess.

How do camlock users deal with these little spills? Is there a trick to preventing them, or should I put down a little trough or tarp?

Brewing outside, this won't be much of an issue. But with it getting colder, I move my brewing into the garage.

I put a bucket under the fitting before i open it.

smakudwn said:

I put a bucket under the fitting before i open it.

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I use a deep plastic tray under my ports to catch the drips at my house. I think they were once used in a dark room to develop pictures. You could buy a deep baking pan and it would work the same.

I was looking at wallpaper trays. They are cheap, and about 2 foot long.

If you use silicone hose, pinching the hose near the connector stops siphoning action. Still a little spill, but the hose doesn't completely drain.

Reelale said:

If you use silicone hose, pinching the hose near the connector stops siphoning action. Still a little spill, but the hose doesn't completely drain.

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Yep, that is what I have had to do...

It works pretty well and since I brew outside and have a floor drain under my brew set-up, a few drips of wort is no biggie...

My only real complaint is that pumping from bk to fermenter with a camlock on the end means I cannot shove the hose to the bottom of my Sanke. All the agitation results in a big foam head that comes shooting out of the sanke coupler... I have to basically hook up an extension to the pump output to smoothly transfer to Sanke.

Set up a transfer line that only has a camlock on one end. Then you have a piece of tubing to feed into a carboy or other small necked vessel. Just like racking, but with a pump!

An A-clamp can pinch the hose to prevent loss, or I've seen brewers use hemostats to pinch the tubing when swapping fittings.

My cam-locked plate chiller is (soon to be) mounted right above my HLT next to all my other ports (water in, water out, recircs). That means that every input/output port besides wort out is drip-able right back into the HLT like a patchbay. (My rig has plenty of pumps...

For small drips below the tuns, I have large rubber bar mats underneath- you know the kind for drying glasses and such. I just let them dry and put them in the dish washer.

SankePankey said:

My cam-locked plate chiller is (soon to be) mounted right above my HLT next to all my other ports (water in, water out, recircs). That means that every input/output port besides wort out is drip-able right back into the HLT like a patchbay. (My rig has plenty of pumps...

For small drips below the tuns, I have large rubber bar mats underneath- you know the kind for drying glasses and such. I just let them dry and put them in the dish washer.

Click to expand...

How about some pics of your setup?

I haven't mounted my chiller yet, though. I was just sharing the idea of what is soon to be... any drips go into the HLT no worries.

I am waiting on the almost here shipment of new models from dudadiesel that have back mounting studs. I should have the whole thing mounted and done in the next couple weeks and will report back.

Cheap and easy, it also starts and keeps your siphon.