BEWARE! Clamp your wort chiller tubes

[DonRikkles]

All - here's a warning:

I recently built my own wort chiller. I was like a proud father; I built it out of 50 ft of copper, fitted the compression fittings and brass barbs to the ends, and attached the vinyl tubes to the ends. I hooked up the hose to the intake and within three seconds, the intake tube had blown off and sprayed an unimaginable amount of water all over the kitchen. I'm thankful I didn't get a blast of hot water to the face.

Lesson learned:

CLAMP YOUR TUBES TO YOUR BRASS BARBS!

 

[day_trippr]

Yeah, that's definitely one of those "Duh" moments when you realize you left something out of a build.

Forget the scalding miss, you didn't eff up a brew! Winning! :rockin:

Cheers!

 

[JonM]

Yep, but not so tight that it tears into the vinyl either. I've had really good results using thermoplastic tubing on the output too. Glad everyone's okay!

 

[bottlebomber]

Better to slap two clamps on lightly than reef on the one clamp. It will tear up the tubing like someone mentioned.

 

[Tupperwolf]

I actually have been blasted in the face with boiling hot water from the wort chiller outlet. It sucks! Hose clamps are cheap. Just make sure that once you have your chiller assembled and clamped, that your outlet is secure (I loosely grip it in some vice grips before turning on the hose) so it doesn't whip around and spray you, or spray into your wort.

 

[funkadelicturkey]

Yep, but not so tight that it tears into the vinyl either. I've had really good results using thermoplastic tubing on the output too. Glad everyone's okay!

+1 for thermoplastic tubing or silicone tubing on the at least the first several inches attached to the chiller. I've had an outlet hose get a kink and blowup, switched to silicon and I feel a little safer.