Frozen Pipes

[mrtrav]

Finally scheduled time to brew today, which had been rare with two kids under three. Even though we had a freak snowstorm blow through in the morning, I got everything setup and ready to brew. Flipped on the water and nothing came out. Thinking I have a frozen pipe or there is a valve somewhere I can't remember turning off for the winter.

Anyone else get ready to brew only to be sidelined by an unexpected event like this?

 

[schematix]

Yep but fortunately it was only about 25F overnight and the spigot was in the sun. Left it wide open and a few minutes later a trickle started, followed a few minutes later by full force. Dodged a bullet for sure.

Now I brew in my basement. +/- 5 degrees year round.

 

[Chewdog]

Poorly planned my brew day last friday and didn't start until 2ish, Finished the mash no problem but that was also about the time the sun went down. Then my propane bottle froze up and I could not get the heat needed to get to a boil. Also found the hose from my house spigot to the counter flow froze up so even if I could get it warm I would not be able to get it cold. So a keg full of un-boiled wort sat in the garage for 2 days until Sunday when I could finish up. (SWMBO had stuff for me to do on SAT so there was no way I was going to finish up that day) actually made for a nice day splitting it up a little bit.

 

[JonM]

Yup. I had a frozen garden hose once, so I couldn't start the chiller on time. The 10 and 5 minute additions in my IPA turned into 25 and 20 minute additions.

 

[shawnsanchez]

I remember having a frozen pipe once. I tried to thaw it out by blow drying the frozen part of the pipe . It didn’t work out then I even tried to wrap the frozen area in towels overnight that to did not work out.I finally had to call in the plumber to thaw it out.