Noticed This When Cubing.

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Silver

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When i started cubing i would lay the cube on it's side so all internal surfaces had at least some contact with my hot sweet wort. More often than not i would get a small leak from the tap which i knew i was not bumping in any way. So i got to thinking, when i lay the cube on it's back, a pocket of trapped air always made it's way to the tap where i am guessing, that air would expand and force the tap to jump a thread or something because when i had a leak the tap was always a tad loose. So recently i stopped tipping the cube onto it's back and just leave it upright. So far no probs. Any surface inside my cube even where there may be an air pocket is going to be pretty hot for quite a while. No infections to date. I wonder if anyone else has had a tap loosen in the same way.
Cheers
Silver
 
Simple solution? Ditch the tap and replace with a threaded bung.

Then just upend the cube into fermenter when ready to ferment.
 
I would not put a tap on a hot cube if you paid me!

BUNG IT!
 
I ferment in the cube, but I still don't put a tap on a hot cube.

I have a bung in it when filling, and when i'm ready to ferment just tilt it on its back and put a tap in.
 
I've got the tap in for the whole time (no chill + ferment) - never had a problem......
Cheers
BBB
 
I was a tapper but after having a leaky tap and the cube getting infected Ive decided to return to the bungers side of the fence...

If I was clever however I could have negated my risks by fermenting the leaky one first which for some stupid reason I didnt.

meh, one in nearly 40 aint bad... not as good as never though ;)
 
Having the tap is just one extra way to get an infection. Also by just tipping the no chilled cube into the fermenter you are able to oygenate the wort. Win win in my book.
 
Taps can cause huge dramas. I still have nightmares about one incident where the tap started leaking almost as soon as I transferred boiling hot wort from the kettle. There was boiling hot wort spilling all over the show and the more I rooted around with the tap the worse it got. How I never ended up with third degree burns to a large portion of my body was just dumb luck I guess.
 
The reason i like the tap on is when i empty into FV i stick the little bottler tube minus flow stopper, turn tap on and the flow into FV is direct and forceful giving awesome aeration.
 
but if the tap is leaking due to this... might be a good idea to ditch it, yeah?
 
But the thing is, it is not leaking now. The whole point of the original thread.
 
I would not put a tap on a hot cube if you paid me!

BUNG IT!

I have taps on all my hot cubes and would now like to get paid.

Any problems I've had with leaky cubes come from the lid, not the tap and laying on the side has enabled me to solve the problem then and there.
 
So when do you bungers put the tap in ?

As aluded to in an earlier post, im a "bunger" (that kind a sounds dirty doesn't it :blink: )

Never use a tap in my cube. I used to though. One late night brewing session where i finished well after midnight ended up in my being exhausted and pissed at the end of the night packing up, walking past the freshly cubed batch and kicked the tap clean off the cube. When those vessels get hot, they get flexible, and when they get flexible..... Needless to say i was not impressed, just having brewed for 5hours, finishing at 2am and then having nothing to show for it, as the hot wort ended up on the floor of my garage. Not all of it, but enough to make me seriously fucked off.

Nowadays, i only have bungs in my cubes, i cube a batch, and then just tip it all into the fermenter from shoulder height to get some aeration going on. Simple.
 
I don't drill the tap hole in the first place! No tap, no bung and no threads to worry about.
 
I split my wort between 2 ten litre cubes (bunged) so they cool a lot faster and easier to handle, so on pitching I can splash the wort in a thin stream to aerate it well.
Local water is very good and I use it from the HWS for mashing, so the cubes also double as hot water carriers from the laundry on brewday.
 
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