All grain brewing in the winter

[morticaixavier]

@tschmidlin

You can get a hose adapter and run the hose out a window to wherever you are brewing…

Only if you want a skating rink, Tom.

[

oh come on! who doesn’t want a skating rink right outside the brewery? brew a little, drink a little skate a little right? it’s even better if it’s your driveway! then you can skate in your car! you didn’t really need that garage door right? waiting for it to open, waiting for it close what a bummer! ;D

[kit_b]

@morticaixavier

oh come on! who doesn’t want a skating rink right outside the brewery? brew a little, drink a little skate a little right? it’s even better if it’s your driveway! then you can skate in your car! you didn’t really need that garage door right? waiting for it to open, waiting for it close what a bummer! ;D

My driveway is on a slight incline & one winter morning, I woke up to find that my Pathfinder had slid down my icy driveway & stopped with the rear bumper hanging just beyond the curb.
I now salt my driveway, whenever I expect things to ice up.

@punatic

Heh, heh, heh.  We like for people to believe that.

People like what they know.  I mean, people LOVE New Jersey.  What’s up with that?!    ???

(full disclosure, my wife is a Jersey Tomata)

I wasn’t aware that anyone liked NJ.

I like Minnesota’s lakes & wilderness.
Maine, New York, Wisconsin & Michigan might be adequate replacements.
But, Midwest Supplies is based, here.

@hopfenundmalz

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.

When I used to chill with snow, I made sure it was tightly packed against the sides of my kettle, several times throughout the cooling process…But, you’re right…Takes for-freakin’-ever!
…Better to make a slush bath in the kitchen sink or laundry tub.

[ckpash88]

Quote
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.

Was the batch size you were making 1 gallon batches and your mash tun was a 2 gallon round cooler

[tschmidlin]

@ckpash88

Quote
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.

Was the batch size you were making 1 gallon batches and your mash tun was a 2 gallon round cooler

Sorry, it was this that I didn’t understand “Our had a one gallon mash run?” ;D

Yes, I use a two gallon cooler for making 1 gallon batches, mostly because the 2 gallon cooler was cheap and was the smallest cooler I could find with a spigot already in the bottom.  It looks like this, except it’s blue :)  It works well enough for me for test batches.  I think it will give you enough capacity for moderate gravity 2.5 gallon batches, it will easily fit 5 lbs of grain.

http://www.target.com/p/Igloo-Legend-cooler-Red-2-Gallon/-/A-11905596#

[ckpash88]

Yeah I post from my iPhone so autocorrect changed tun to run. Little confusion there.

[tschmidlin]

I assume you’re familiar with http://damnyouautocorrect.com/ ? ;D

[kgs]

@ckpash88

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 have a 2-gallon cooler, but I also have a 5-gallon cooler which I use more often. The spigots are interchangeable (which means I can move my strainer from one to the other very easily).

[malzig]

For an average gravity beer, a tun the same volume as the batch works best.  You can sqeeze a 2.5 gallon batch out of a 2 gallon cooler, but you’ll be happier with a 3-5 gallon cooler.

[davidgzach]

@tschmidlin

I assume you’re familiar with http://damnyouautocorrect.com/ ? ;D

That’s funny!

[davidgzach]

I too am in a bit of a dilemma about how to use my wort chiller this winter.  I’m in PA, so not as bad as WI, but it does get below freezing and we had some 28’ of snow last year.  I really do not have a good way to let the output of the chiller go without turning my driveway in to an ice rink.  It’s about 110’ long and on a steep angle so not to mess with.

I will probably go back to what I did pre-wort chiller.  Put the kettle in the laundry room sink, add ice and water, and start to stir when it gets below 90F to avoid hot-side aeration.  Takes 45-60 minutes as opposed to 20, but gets the job done.

Dave

[malzig]

@davidgzach

I too am in a bit of a dilemma about how to use my wort chiller this winter.

They make a simple adapter that allows you to connect a hose fitting to your sink faucet.  That’s what I use to run my chiller in the winter.