Brewing - Already Boiled Wort; Accident - Quick Advice

Will explain later.

Brewing went very well; during wort chill, after a few minutes, I noticed a crack in the wort immersion chiller and water leaking into wort. Shut off water. Wife now running to store to get ice to chill wort. Should I bring wort back up to boil due to garden hose water getting in brew? I assume my 5 minutes hops for aroma are gonna be destroyed in an extra boil.

Depending on how much water leeched itself into the wort, it might not be a bad idea to boil it again. I wouldn't do a full hour, but maybe 10 - 15 minutes. Happy Brewing.

turn the water back on and wrap a beach towel around the leak...I had to do that 3 weeks ago. then drape the towel down the side so that when it gets waterlogged, it will drip outside the kettle.

Thanks for the responses guys. I had to act fast so I brought back up to a boil for 15 min to sterilize while my wife got ice. She got 10 large bags so the wort is in the bath now with a mixture of cold water and ice. My first ice bath brew so I'm not 100% sure of the process but I have 5 bags of ice left and will continue to add until I hit the target temp. Will likely dry hop to get aroma back.

What happened is that during the last brew, my first, I scrunched down and bent the immersion coils so that they would completely be in the brew; otherwise half were sticking out and not cooling enough. This obviously induced a crack that presented itself in this batch. I have the coils with the acrylic hoses, so the crack is at a spot where it's above the wort but still in the pot so not sure the towel method would work (but great idea!). I now will certainly buy a replacement chiller that ha the longer copper in and out sans hose.

I'm really impressed with this ice bath though... down to 80F already in 15 min... would do it more often if it did't cost $20 for 5 bags... wonder if I can take the other 5 bags back.

You should be able to repair that chiller by soldering it - maybe better to cut the cracked part out and solder in a collar to join the pieces back together - just be sure to use food safe solder and flux. I recommend using garden hose connections, but I don't like compression fittings due to the flow restriction (the hole in the fitting is smaller than the tubing I.D.) - I used brass barb to garden hose fittings on my chiller with the barbs soldered over the outside of the chiller tubing, so I have no restriction due to the hose adapters.

Very impressed with the icebath... 60F in 25min; definitely don't need even 5 bags of ice. Realized I was an inch or two below the 5 gal mark on the carboy so I am boiling 1.5 gallons now and will throw that into the ice bath to chill fast and add to primary. I had the the hop bag in a strainer over the pot I'm boiling the water in now, so hopefully I'll get some extra hops outa that since there was an inch of water in the pot with the drips from that bag.

Not sure on the. Welding part... I know how to solder and have welded in the past only very irregularly... don't have the equipment for it unless it's similar to sweating plumbing which I can do and have done. Anyways it's an excuse to get the other chiller, or just make my own ice and do the ice batha which zi am very impressed with right now.

see if you can find a shark bite small enough...

BenVanned said:

see if you can find a shark bite small enough...

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Interesting... that could work as it's high enough to the inlet that it would likely work; never knew such a thing existed to join copper to copper.

Thanks!

I took an OG reading just before adding the extra gallon of water to the carboy (stupid me for not taking it then); I got a reading of 1.064 versus the expect 1.048 - 1.052. I'm guessing adding this extra water would lower that, but what would contribute to a higher OG than expected and what are the consequences?

I can get mine cooled to 70 degrees in about 18 minutes using an ice bath. I keep a cooler in the chest freezer and fill it with ice from the ice maker so I don't have to buy it.

Certainly seems the way to do it... it took me near 30 minutes to get to 80F with the immersion chiller.

Inverted_Giraffe said:

Certainly seems the way to do it... it took me near 30 minutes to get to 80F with the immersion chiller.

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is it a smaller diameter tubing? makes a big difference. i went from 25 ft of 1/4 inch to 50 ft of 1/2 inch and i can chill a 10 gallon batch to 70ish in under 30 min.