I brewed today!

Josh Hughes said:
Yeast pitched. Decent brew day EXCEPT I had two chiller mishaps. Burned part of the tubing, No deal just lost some of the tubing after the coils so chiller still useable. But when I removed the chiller from the pot to carry it inside to transfer a smidge of the water from the chiller got into my 80 F wort. So hopefully the yeast work faster and I’m doing my typical worrying.
I recalibrated my tilt since it was off 0.04. Ended up with better efficiency today than expected.
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Hope you're being a worry-wort too. It does absolutely make ya cringe when something goes into the post cooling wort. Knock-on-wood, I still haven't lost a batch. Hoping it's because I'm doing what it takes to keep things sterile, and not just dumb luck.
 
I wouldn’t worry so much but I use a prechiller. It NEVER sits in boiling wort so it has to be nasty as hell inside.
 
Josh Hughes said:
Yeast pitched. Decent brew day EXCEPT I had two chiller mishaps. Burned part of the tubing, No deal just lost some of the tubing after the coils so chiller still useable. But when I removed the chiller from the pot to carry it inside to transfer a smidge of the water from the chiller got into my 80 F wort. So hopefully the yeast work faster and I’m doing my typical worrying.
I recalibrated my tilt since it was off 0.04. Ended up with better efficiency today than expected.
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Fingers Crossed for you Josh I'm sure it'll be fine aye:).

Good to get one of them brew days out the road ;)
 
Josh Hughes said:
I’m seriously considering dumping this and brew the same recipe tomorrow…
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If my vote counts, let ‘er rip. Worst case you have to pour it out later. Won’t be a bit more work to wait and see. Pull a sample in a couple days and if it doesn’t smell like a buffalo fart, or taste like aardvark piss, Bob’s yer uncle, and let it finish. Have a second batch ready and put it on after this one, obviously after a good fermenter scrubbing. Then you’ll have your backup and maybe this one too.

When you say ’prechiller’ is that as in plate chiller? I’m a little confused about how boiling temperatures never get to it. Recirc some boiling water through it followed by some StarSan. Dunk the whole thing if possible and kill everything that even thought about setting up residence in it.
I use an immersion chiller (homemade with 50’ of 5/16” copper tube). Pretty much indestructible and easily sterilized. I use compressed air to blow it out after each use.
 
I have an immersion chiller that sits in an ice bucket that then goes to the immersion chiller in my kettle. It will cool the ground water before it hit the immersion chiller in the kettle. That prechiller never gets boiled so all kinds of stuff can grow in there.
I’ll probably just wait to brew next week. I’m not feeling up to it today.
 
Josh Hughes said:
I have an immersion chiller that sits in an ice bucket that then goes to the immersion chiller in my kettle. It will cool the ground water before it hit the immersion chiller in the kettle. That prechiller never gets boiled so all kinds of stuff can grow in there.
I’ll probably just wait to brew next week. I’m not feeling up to it today.
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Josh, I recall reading about prechilling a while back. It improves cooling marginally, compared to doubling your surface area in the kettle. Adding the prechill coils to your kettle will increase your cooling rate far more than prechilling your ground water.
 
Josh, since it's your beer I can easily tell you not to worry and let it ride. But, if it were my beer...well that would be a different story. I'd be worrying just like you. What about letting it ferment for a week. If the fermentation looks and smells good, then let it go another week. Smell and taste before kegging to make the final call.

For the pre-chiller issue, will it fit into the boil kettle along with the main chiller or, if not, can you insert it separately? This would allow you to sterilize it prior to starting the chilling process. Just a thought.
 
@BarbarianBrewer @Craigerrr i almost didn’t use it since it maybe saves me 5-10 minutes at the most. Weird how you get little feelings/ideas that are inconsequential but actually matter afterwards lol.

I may get a bigger chiller but honestly with my batch size a taller one wouldn’t be covered with the wort enough to work. Unless it was one of those double ones.
 
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Remember Frankenchiller?
Chilled a 5 gallon batch in under 10 minutes in the summer. I would run it for about 90 seconds to get to 80C for whirlpool temperature. If the prechill coil you are using is made of copper it would be easy to reduce the diameter so the one coil fits inside the other. Before I built frankenchiller I used two coils, 10 gallon batches, cooled down damn quick. I used garden hose fittings to split the flow between the two coils. This saved a lot of water too!
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Craigerrr said:
Remember Frankenchiller?
Chilled a 5 gallon batch in under 10 minutes in the summer. I would run it for about 90 seconds to get to 80C for whirlpool temperature. If the prechill coil you are using is made of copper it would be easy to reduce the diameter so the one coil fits inside the other. Before I built frankenchiller I used two coils, 10 gallon batches, cooled down damn quick. I used garden hose fittings to split the flow between the two coils. This saved a lot of water too! View attachment 25976 View attachment 25977 View attachment 25978
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Funny I actually looked at spliters earlier when you and Larry mentioned putting it in the kettle as well. The prechiller is copper. Time for me to get off my butt and figure something out.
 
Well the copper does not stand very tall. I’m assuming I shouldn’t have the silicone hosing in the boil?

edit. I’m thinking this along with the connections would lead to a leak in my wort. Oh well I just need to be careful and not drip in the kettle.
 
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My concern with all of the conventional chillers is water waste. I use the immersion chiller that came with the Brewzilla in my 5.5 gal kettle. It works well as far as surface contact but still a lot of water is wasted. I suppose I could capture it, let it cool and water the greenery around here. It is so hot up here, brewing is low on my list though.
 
Josh Hughes said:
I have an immersion chiller that sits in an ice bucket that then goes to the immersion chiller in my kettle. It will cool the ground water before it hit the immersion chiller in the kettle. That prechiller never gets boiled so all kinds of stuff can grow in there.
I’ll probably just wait to brew next week. I’m not feeling up to it today.
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Are you on untreated well water? If it’s city water, there shouldn’t be much of anything that would be a problem, considering copper has its own disinfectant qualities, as well. Do you use it EVERY brew?

Oh, btw, the steam generated inside the chiller when it’s in the wort for sanitizing will pretty much take care of the parts that are not submerged. I normally drop mine at 10 minutes, and within 3 minutes it’s spewing steam that will remove skin (don’t ask how I know). There is no part of that chiller that can be touched until I put some cold water through it. I’d say that about 20% of my coil is not submerged on the best of days. Water inside the cooler will be raised to boiling temperature and will change to steam. Anything over 180F should be germ free.
 
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I brewed this today. Being a little lazy with extract brews while the weather is so hot. The missus even let me brew inside today

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Hoping to get caught back up on my inventory with some extract brews that won’t melt me while the temperature and humidity are both above 95. Had a Cahaba Blonde and a Good People Backwoods Bastard for my brewing participation reward. Pretty sure there’s a rule that requires consumption after production, or maybe someone told me that.
Gonna do this one the same way I’ve done so many, and just hide it in a closet in the basement for a week, then bottle it if it ain’t still bubbling. Maybe brew another extract recipe tomorrow or Saturday. I’ll go back to all-grain when I get caught up with a few different brews on the shelf.
 
RoadRoach said:
Are you on untreated well water? If it’s city water, there shouldn’t be much of anything that would be a problem, considering copper has its own disinfectant qualities, as well. Do you use it EVERY brew?

Oh, btw, the steam generated inside the chiller when it’s in the wort for sanitizing will pretty much take care of the parts that are not submerged. I normally drop mine at 10 minutes, and within 3 minutes it’s spewing steam that will remove skin (don’t ask how I know). There is no part of that chiller that can be touched until I put some cold water through it. I’d say that about 20% of my coil is not submerged on the best of days. Water inside the cooler will be raised to boiling temperature and will change to steam. Anything over 180F should be germ free.
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City water. Issue is the prechiller sits in a cooler and never gets water that isn’t ground temp and is never boiled.
 
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