gymrat, my only concern for you and winter brewing, is that it’s just not cold enough in Kansas ;D
Winter in Michigan is my main brewing season, and although it can be a hassle, it has multiple benefits:
a) Super easy to cool off ten gallons of wort to lager pitching temps with even a small chiller
b) Use a cheap pond pump to circulate snow-water through the chiller
c) No fruit flies, and the general airborne presence of microbes is small
d) Which makes it safer to do things like rack to the fermenter outside (covered big shed) and aerate out there, further dropping wort temp
d) My cellar gets down to 50 and stays there for months, so between the fridge and the cellar I have lots of options
e) It’s winter, what else am I going to do between shoveling the sidewalk; take up ice fishing again?
I don’t really need the outdoor tap, but I usually use it. As others said, keep the hose inside overnight. When you are done with the spigot, close it off and let it drain. Not had a problem in four years of this strategy.
As other have said, if you have a good cooler, your mash temps will hold surprisingly well. My best cooler wrapped in an old Coleman sleeping bag or two hardly drops more than a couple degrees in an hour even at 10 F outside.
On the other hand… it does take more propane, and I sure could use all that heat inside the house - so I often do what others have mentioned, downsize and go to the kitchen stove depending on mood.
In the winter I’ll brew in the garage and bring the kettle inside to the laundry room sink to run water through the chiller. The 10 gallon cooler will be fine for holding the mash within 2-3 degrees in your garage.
If you don’t have a good place inside to run water for chilling, you could explore the possibility of no chill brewing for the winter.
Suds I was thinking I might have to explore that option. But the other suggestion of a cheap pond pump sounds good too. I saw some at lowes.com for $20
Problem with brewing outdoors and chilling indoors is that after 3 hernia surgeries I really don’t want to carry a pot with 5 gallons of liquid in it.
It’s cold here in the winter, which makes it a great time of year to brew Alts and Lagers. I do most of my brewing from the fall through spring. One alternative, the one that I use when it gets too cold to brew outside, is to make 3 to 3.5 gallon AG batches on my kitchen stove. That’s just about the upper limit I can hit and still get a proper boil.
Thats my limit as well. That is the size of the boils I was doing when I did extract brewing. I thought about just extract brewing through the winter but I have a back log of grain I would like to use while it is fresh.
So I started to think about this thread while preasure canning some wort for later starter use and I had an idea.
When the weather is more amenable to brewing outdoors why not brew up a batch of insanely strong wort (1.2 or so) and then can it in half gallon jars and stick them in the pantry. Then, in the winter when you want to brew up a batch whip out a couple half gallons of 1.2 wort and either do a partial boil or dilute and do a full boil. Two jars of 1.200 wort should get you about 5 gallons of 1.040 or three jars would get you 5 gallons of 1.060.
yeah exactly, except, unless you have a vacuum evaporator you probably don’t want to reduce it to a syrup. Hey we are homebrewers after all.
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I think it’s a pretty good idea, you still retain full control over the wort but you 'll have to expect some darkening. I’m not sure it is worth the effort, but I have different circumstances. I’m really glad that I don’t have problems brewing in the winter
I think it’s a pretty good idea, you still retain full control over the wort but you 'll have to expect some darkening. I’m not sure it is worth the effort, but I have different circumstances. I’m really glad that I don’t have problems brewing in the winter
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yeah, I think about what it would be like if I still lived in VT and had gotten this obessed with brewing. I don’t think I would have gotten into all grain to the extent that I have which would be a bummer as I really enjoy the process. Brewing out doors at -10f does not sound fun. I can see myself hugging the kettle while trying to avoid setting myself on fire.
If you wanted to brew 2.5 gallon batches to save space so you can do it inside how big would you want your mash tun to be for a average gravity beer?
Bc i have thought of doing this so i can have a faster turn over and experiment more and be able to do it in the winter. I live in MN and even in my garage its 40 degrees during the winter gets a little cold
I built a 1-gallon setup for doing some little batches, it was cheap and easy. I use a 2 gallon round cooler as a mash tun. I think for an average gravity beer, mash tun volume can equal batch size and you’ll be fine. A 2 gallon cooler will probably be fine for a 2.5 gallon batch too.
well lets see, when I do an average gravity 5 gallon batch in my 72 qt coleman it is less that half full so I would think you could get away with around 20 qt size. I started with all grain with a grain bag suspended in a 7 gallon bottling bucket indoors and that worked for average gravity 5 gallon batches so it would be fine for a 2.5 gallon batch.
+1 Duh! Why didn’t I think of that. You have just solved my problem which is getting my wort cool enough in the summertime.
We pull from the river to a gravity fed water system and in the summer I can never get my wort cool enough. I will rig my chiller
to an ice bucket with a little pond pump. I just saw one online for about $15.
Oddly enough, the 90 degree days in Minnesota are when we do the most outdoor brewing.
Temperatures here swing from roughly 100F in the height of summer to -50F (sometimes colder) in the dead of winter.
It’s a harsh place to live, but I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.
Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking :) But yes, I’ve done some one gallon batches.
From the output of the chiller? I’d have to find a place to dump it or you could run a hose from the output to the sewer. Depends on where you live. Maybe there would be no place, in which case it’s a bad idea.
The problem with a snow bank is that snow has a lot of air depending on the type of snow (good insulation for igloos), and once it melts away from the kettle, you just have ambient air to transfer the heat to. If it is around freezing, this can take a while, as I remember from back in the early 90’s when I tried that.
The pond pump recirculating the snow water mixture is much faster. One does have to shovel a fair amount of snow into the water to get down to lager temps. Here in Michigan we often have more than enough snow for the task.
