No Chill disaster

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Phoney

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Today I decided to put down a brew, and do it No Chill. Something I haven't done for years, but a combination of factors such as this isnt a late hopped beer, and I had time to kill and no space in the fermentation fridge led me to think why not?

Anyway, I did the old splash some boiling water in the cube and shake it to sterilize it prior, as I had done many, many times in the past, and this time I heard an almighty Bang! And the boiling water blew out the side. Very luckily that a) it blew out of the other side from me and didn't scold me and B) it didn't happen after I filled it with boiling hot wort.

The cube is 3 - 4 years old. Perhaps they go brittle after a while?

Pics or it didnt happen:

[sharedmedia=gallery:albums:935]


Be careful no chillers!
 
Why not sanitise it with starsan then allow the hot wort to do the rest?
 
Do you store your cubes in direct sunlight?
 
I do the boiling water shake with all my fermenters, cubes and kegs. When doing cubes and fermenters I have the lid loosely fitted to let pressure out. But that looks like the cube had perished UV maybe?
 
I wonder how many new cubes will be bought after viewing this thread, just to be safe :)
 
Do you leave pbw in them for extended periods? I have no first hand experience with this but I recall a thread from sometime ago by a regular poster that they had noticed some degradation of the plastic after long periods of contact. Maybe its related, maybe not.

Cheers
bah
 
Leave plastic in the summer sun for a few weeks and it's going to degrade significantly, I've had to replace a couple of HDPE pressure sprayers because of this.
 
doon said:
Why not sanitise it with starsan then allow the hot wort to do the rest?
I would guess to say he does... I also "rinse" with hot water then give a dose of starsan. Nevertheless, that's irrelevant, if it happened with hot water then why do you think it will be fine with hot wort?
 
Just goes to show that at almost every point in the brewing process, you need to keep the game face on. Safety should always be a priority.
 
I had the exact same thing happen to me about a year or so ago with one of those jerry cans. At the time I was happy as well that it didn't happen when I filled it with wort, but thinking about it now I reckon it might have never happened with hot wort. Must be the pressure build up that adds extra stress on an already worn out cube.
 
Violently shaking a cube with boiling water in it builds up some serious pressure. You're nuts if you do it with the lid screwed on tight.
 
Nick JD said:
Violently shaking a cube with boiling water in it builds up some serious pressure. You're nuts if you do it with the lid screwed on tight.
I've ermmm.. put boiling water in a borosilicate flask and absent mindedly pushed the lid/bung on (very wide mouthed flask). That was a violent thing. Included some serious burns on my stomach. Careful with boiling water folks...
 

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