So I had a completely seemless brew day until I noticed that my wort chiller was slowly dripping hose water into my wort. I momentarily freaked out and then returned the kettle to the burner, bringing it to a boil for about three minutes…anyone have any experience or input about something like this?
Your hop profile has been shifted a little to the bittering side by the second boil (unless you didn’t have any late hops). Hopefully the water in the hose hadn’t been sitting there long enough to get a real plastic-y flavor, but it would take a fair amount of hose water to impact the flavor.
If it was a steady stream that changed the volume in the kettle I might worry. I had water drip from the chiller into my kettle before. Shifted the chiller around so it dripped a different direction and tightened my connections when I was done; problem solved. I wouldn’t worry.
Have you ever made a partial boil extract kit?
When you do those, you add cold water to the wort to top up the fermenter to final volume.
Try a Coopers Kit sometime… or don’t.
There’s really nothing to worry about unless the water coming from hose is not potable or it upped your final volume well above what you expect.
I’ve had that happen a couple times, and the beer turned it great.
Considering how many brew days I’ve ended by dumping literally gallons of unboiled tap water straight into the fermenter - as per the kit’s instructions, no less - I’m personally not convinced that a leaky wort chiller is really all that much of a thing to worry about.
