Decided to try and fore go the hose today and use all re-circulating water to cool the wort.
After emptying my mash tun (48 qt RED rubbermaid) I rinsed it quick and then filled it with snow/ice
Needed 2 gallons of water to get the pump primed and after that it went smooth.
Used block ice (from a bucket that got filled with rain/snow water)
In 10 minutes I was at 95 degrees
72 @ 18 minutes
68@ 22 minutes
55@ 25 minutes
48@ 35 minutes
Having grown up in IA, I know all about snow and cold, and I’ve gotta say I’ll take the rain we have here! With my nice cold well water and a pump to recirc the wort as I’m chilling, I’ve been getting from boil to about 50 in 15-20 min. PLUS, I don’t have to shovel rain!
My main goal was to not run water all over the yard when there is a foot of snow already on it ;D
I used to run much of my chilling water into our old washing machine.
Cant run much into the new front loader
Being able to chill with just a little electricity and some snow/ice made me feel very green
I think I’ll take the kids for a drive in my big 4 door 4 wheel drive truck this afternoon once I’m done brewing
It’s a great time of year to brew as far as chilling and fermenting are concerned. It is nice for me to be able to chill from 212 to 60 in about 30 min. as opposed to twice that in the summer. Winter brewing is the best.
why are most of you cooling your wort to 60 and below??? brewing lagers???
i brewed my first AG yesterday and it was about 55 outside and the water was probably about the same temp. it took me about an hour to get from boiling to 78 with a pre-chiller sitting in ice water…
I prefer to ferment ales in the low to mid 60s. The exothermic reaction of fermentation adds heat, so I chill to below fermentation temp before pitching. For ales that means 58-60F, for lagers it’s maybe 42-45F.
we got the wort down to 78 before we racked it and i pitched my starter into, what i would guess, was 75 or so degrees wort and i’m fermenting it in a room with the thermostat set at 62. i guess i should be ok, no?
I generally like to pitch my ales in the low sixties. You should try to get that pitching temp down, otherwise you will get some higher (fusel) alcohols and excessive esters in your beer.
You will make beer. Let us know how it turns out. Good Luck.
Attn Deep south…how ’ bout that SEC…Let’s drive a stake in the prechiller myth-prechillers do NOT make a real difference but the same ice bath used for the slowly moving wort vs the fast moving coolant DOES work or pumping that same amount of ice bath water through a chiller the last few minutes
do what??? a pre-chiller in a cooler full of ice doesn’t help? in the summer, the lowest my faucet water comes out is about 80 degrees… and i don’t have anything big enough to hold my brewpot in ice…
i’ve looked into making one of those things. i have a keezer i usually ferment in, but i’ve got a beer kegged in that as we speak and i haven’t gotten my kegerator hooked up that i just bought… i have to change out some hoses and “recondition” it a bit before i use it.
