Hey, I was brewing and during the chilling of the hot wort a paper towel briefly touched the cool wort (the wort was around 120degrees). This ticked me off (as I just told me friend to be super careful), but my friend is not anal retentive like I am (and it was his first intro to home brewing)!! Do ya’ll think my beer will be contaminated and have off flavors as a result of this mistake? I got off to a good fermentation because I pitched lots of healthy yeast from a large starter (for my traditional bock).
I willing to bet you will be fine.
You may notice some small nuances of paper towel essence in your beer. Only kidding, you’ll be fine.
yep i’ve dropped worse in my kettle as its chilling and not an issue.
IMO, the importance of sanitizing is pressed because most people aren’t meticulous and OCD. For those of us who are, you should be in the clear with good practices. I’ve seen pictures on other forums of home brewers setups and it’s scary.
As others have said - you’ll be fine. I doubt paper towels are teaming with beer spoilage microbes right off the roll. In fact I’d bet they are pretty clean. Maybe if you had been cleaning up grain dust with it, you could possible have a problem…
That’s what I was thinking: what was the towel used for prior to contact? If just off the roll - no issue. If used to wipe your hands after sneezing - maybe an issue.
And I have seen some commercial brewery setups too that would scare you as well…
Occasionally I get a slight drip from where the water hose connects to the wort chiller, and we were trying to place the paper towel in such way as to prevent drippage. That’s another question I need to ask. How to create a secure, drip free connection?
Replace the rubber washers, add thread tape, swap threaded connectors for brass quick connects.
Just reading this description, I’m guessing you are talking about hose clamp connections on chiller. This is a nightmare for me too. It’s only water going through, so I have stopped disconnecting after use. I have not had as many issues since starting to leave them on. I see you can buy or make welded fittings, wish I had known that before buying a chiller with hose clamp attachments. Try out your connections in hot water that you don’t care about, then tighten them some more And they might be ready for boiling wort.
I haven’t disconnected these in years. No worries, no leaks.
I blow out the chiller with air to clear as much water as possible. Whatever is left gets pushed out with the next use.
I hear you Joe, just took me a year’s worth of usage to realize this was the way to handle it.
If it only took you a year, your a faster learner than I am.
Why? Only thing I could think of is cold climates with hard freezes.
Good point to leave the hoses on when they are not leaking. Feel like a bit of a moron now!!! :) Would it be possible to put something better on there that was leak proof and that could be easily disassembled?
An abundance of caution? I don’t know. Just seems like a good idea and I have a compressor so why not. A fair amount of water comes out.
There are chillers with hose connections on the copper line. I think they’re soldered on. Mine ain’t got those.