Yesterday I brewed up a Northern English Brown and everything went very smoothly. Hit my mash temps on the nose, had great efficiency (for me) at 76%, and everything smelled great and looked good. Then it came to cooling…
After the boil I took the kettle down and turned on the hose for my immersion chiller and about a minute later I realized I had a leak where the vinyl tubing connected to the copper and the hose water was slowing draining into the wort. I quickly pulled it out, but I guesstimate somewhere between 2-4 oz’s of water got in. The good news is that it is culinary water, but the bad news is I have no idea what may be growing on the inside of the hose. I ended up starting the bathwater and using my freezer ice to get it cooling, while I ran to 7-11 and picked up an ice block and another 20 lb’s of ice. I was still able to get it down to 65 degrees in about 50 minutes, which is only about 15 minutes slower than my chiller, so no real harm done there. I just worry about possibly getting an infection, though I hope the fact that it was dripping into 200 degree wort will help a bit. If I would have been thinking better I would have just thrown it back on the kettle for 5 minutes to kill anything. Only downside I can see to that would be a slight change in my hop profile, but better than a ruinded batch. I guess I will know in a few weeks.
Just goes to show you need to plan for everything because nothing ever goes 100% smooth.
Been there. Had the connection blow clean off once. It was immediately obvious - water everywhere. Beer turned out fine. I believe, and it’s just my optimism here, that I’ve run so much water through the hose before I ever get to chilling (cleaning, filling mash tun, etc) the hose is pretty well rinsed. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to add too much. But you’re right, I think. 2-3 ozs in 5 gallons of 200* water probably took care of itself.
I had the same thing happen with my IC Friday. I made my own and over tightened the hose clamp. I lt worked fine for the first four batches but suspected something like this was bound to happen. RDWHAHB. Even if the wort were below 160*F a proper pitch of healthy yeast would probably out compete anything in the water.
Its a good idea to bend the copper ends of the IC so the connections are hanging outside the kettle. I also run some water through the hose before using it to displace the water thats sat in the hose from the last use. Then if you do have a problem at least its not super-hosey water.
I have had same happen, but with higher volume of water, there were no problems and no discernable taste difference (despite the slight drop in OG). Since there isn’t anything you can do about it, carry on.
Nicely, however, is that Northern Brown isn’t a beer for keeping, so if something does take hold, you may not have it around long enough to find out.
I’ve had this happen as well, and as everyone else has stated things were fine. It maybe not ideal, but stuff happens. In fact, one of the clubs in Philly had an “oops” beer - same problem, but at a larger scale (much more water accidentally introduced). It turned into a sessionable version of the original - but it was fine, too.
Nice to know I’m not alone! I won’t worry about it especially since I hit my target OG. And whoever suggested folding the IC so it’s not over the kettle, that’s a great (and easy) idea to avoid this in the future.
PS: How did you old timers survive your first few years without the Internet?
Ditto… same thing happened to me. Beer turned out fine as well.
Now I take two buckets and fill them up with water and freeze them before brew day. Cooling wort has never been quicker and worry free! I’m done with the garden hose for your exact reason, and maybe the fact that texas hose water isnt exactly cooling water…
If it happened at the beginning of the chilling process the wort was still plenty hot enough to kill off any unwanted guest bacteria. You will be fine.
I brewed with one hand on the Joy of Homebrewing, later I found a couple of other good books. The “store” I bought my kit from folded before I brewed my first batch, and it was probably 3 or 4 years before I met my first other homebrewer so books were all I had. The positive thing about that was that I didn’t have to filter through a ton of bad advice from other rookies who really had no idea what they were doing but were more than willing to share their “knowledge”.
+1 to Charlie P. Luckily Indy not long after got a great LHBS that’s still there today. I definitely don’t miss the little square foil packets of “Yeast”.
