Immersion Chiller Fittings Just Leaked Hose Water into Wort

I'm guessing I just got about 25 drops of garden hose water in my wort. Most of it was when it was between 85 and 150 degrees. Anyone else ever have anything like this with ok results. I could have reboiled the whole batch, but decided not to.

Anyone have any predictions?

I predict it will be fine, especially if it had been running for some time before it started leaking. And especially if you used a starter and have a good amount of healthy yeast.

That's a good point. I wonder if pitching a second pack of yeast would help. I used one pack of S-04, but I started half of it and pitched the second half as is (I'm trying something).

It was a very slow drip, and once I saw it, I wrapped it with a paper towel and held it. I actually only saw about 3-4 drops, but I assume it was dripping before I saw it. If anything dripped early, it would have hit very hot wort. Hopefully, by the time the temps were in the danger zone, it had flushed any bacteria count lower...I hope.

RDWHAHB. Happened to me, had no issues. Try to keep that lid on as much as possible though.

It will probably turn out fine. You may need to tighten the compression fittings on your chiller. I needed to tighten these fittings on my chiller when I first bought it.

You will be fine, most extract brewers routinely add 2-3 gallons of fresh tap water after the boil.

Once you get it bottled sent a case to me. My highly experienced team will then review the damage through a series of rigorous sampling and send you a report in 6-8 weeks...

The fitting that gave me the problem was the one on the garden hose side. I think I will run a straight vinyl tubing over the inlet side because I feel more confident in the seal. Also, because of how it's made, the garden hose connection can only fit one clamp. On the vinyl tubing side, I can fit more than one to be redundant. I'll change it out before I brew another batch.

Yeah, I really don't feel like throwing in another pack of yeast. So, I'll just sit tight on this one.

You know, the more I think about it, this may have been happening on my first two batches with it, and they came out very good.

My first time using my chiller It went great, but my lid was not cut for the chiller so my pot was a bit exposed. I didn't get any hose water but the sprinklers at my condo went off right into my boil pot!! It turned out to be a damn fine beer, an anchor steam clone and one of my best extract batches.

I would build your own chiller and have the fittings come out away from the brew pot a little so that if it does leak, its not in your brew

I was once brewing with my dad and had him in charge of making sure the wort chiller was in place while I went to turn it on.... he let it leak all into the beer. I ended up with a metallic taste that never went away no matter how much it aged.

Newgene said:

I'm guessing I just got about 25 drops of garden hose water in my wort. Most of it was when it was between 85 and 150 degrees. Anyone else ever have anything like this with ok results. I could have reboiled the whole batch, but decided not to.

Anyone have any predictions?

Click to expand...

Are you afraid to drink this water? Is it that scary?

Actually by the time you get your yeast in the wort there are a billion unwanted microbes already in there. "Sterility" is a myth, sanitation is a goal, but in reality the only way we make beer is to supersaturate the wort with our introduced yeast and 99.9% of the time they will kick ass and rule the neighborhood.

25 drops of tapwater is really insignificant.

Thanks a bunch, everyone.

Well, I don't know if it's truly an indication, but that airlock is flying. My money says the yeast take this one.