Tighten your hoseclamps!!!!

I have been waiting for a month to brew a Saison. Finally the weather started to warm and I got a day off work. It was time to brew it!

Besides the 2 hour wait for Firestone to change the oil in my truck, the day started off great. I hit my mash temps on the button, no stuck sparges and the first runnings promised a good efficiency. The boil was finally done and I plopped my kettle in the sink to cool. I hooked up my immersion chiller to the faucet and let her rip! "This was going way to easy," I thought, as I usually have something go wrong, let it be large or small. Then, I took a quick temp to see how the chilling was coming along. A drop to 100 degs in 10 minutes! It was a nice fast chill due to the 4 extra frozen water bottles I added to the water around the kettle. Things seemed too good to be true.
To celebrate the sucess, I decided to open a home brew and take a 5 min break upstairs while I waited for the rest of the chilling process. Bad mistake! As soon as I slammed my fat arse in the recliner, I heard a noise that sounded like gushing water coming from the water pipes. I ran down stairs to see one of the hoses had come lose from my chiller and gushed 1.5 gallons of tap water into my wort!
A few brews ago, I would have started to panic. Since then, I have learned to RDWHAHB. I decided to drain off 4 gallons into a bucket, cap it and take the rest back to the Bayou Burner. I jacked that baby all the way to the 155,000 BTU limit and brought 2 gallons of 80 deg wort to a boil in 10 minutes! Forty-five minutes later, the wort boiled back down to a gallon, so I chilled, pitched and capped.
During the boil, something was telling me to check those hose clamps and I ignored it. Stupid mistake. It was a fear that has always been in the back of my mind, but I thought it will never happen to me. Lesson learned!

Next time change your own oil. You'll save money and have the same sense of satisfaction of doing it yourself... much like brewing beer.

HSM said:

Next time change your own oil. You'll save money and have the same sense of satisfaction of doing it yourself... much like brewing beer.

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I would have, but I needed such things done such as tire rotation, fluids checked, etc. I don't have the equipment,the time nor the space to do on my own. Simple oil and filter changes I do myself though.

Anymore its almost as cheap to have it done as to change it yourself. Plus you dont have to deal with a pan full of used oil to get rid of.

I changed the oil in one of my old cars and it cost me 23.00 for oil & filter. I drove to the local recycling place (10 miles) and dum ped the oil. Later that day my wife paid 26.99 to change the oil in her truck at Jiffy Lube plus the vacumed the front and washed her windows.

While I love working on my cars, 3.99 extra for the above service is a no brainer.

I had the clamps leaking on my SS immersion chiller too. Any secrets on how to get them tight without ruining another set of clamps?

I can change oil on 2 cars in less than 20 min at home. Sure it cost almost as much, however a few years ago my wife had hers done at this shop. About 2 months later I check her oil via dipstick. Sludge all over th diipstick. Either they didn't fill it to proper level or some cheap oil.

My motto always been, "if you want it done right, do it yourself!" We traded the car in.

As for the chiller , do you have bends in the copper so they curve down and away from the kettle. THis helps.

JesseRC said:

As for the chiller , do you have bends in the copper so they curve down and away from the kettle. THis helps.

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It helps most of the time. The first time I used my IC the clamps were about 95% shut, but there was a small stream with enough pressure to push the water back up the copper pipe and then trickle down into the wort. The small amount made it better than 1.5 gallons, but because it was so small it was probably leaking for a few minutes before I noticed it.

So in general its probably a good idea to keep an eye on your chiller - at least in the very beginning of the cool down.