MaynardX
Well-Known Member
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!
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!