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**thughes** · 07-30-2012, 04:07 PM

Take a look at no-chill?

Phyrst · 07-30-2012, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RmikeVT

Hey I live in Baltimore so I feel your pain brewing in the summer. I have been able to get my wort down pretty fast by planning my brews for the mornings and evenings (read: not trying to chill wort with the sun and temps are at full blast) and using a submersible pump in a bucket of ice water.

After I get my wort down using hose/ground water to about 110 or 100, I hook the IC up to my submersible pump which is sitting in a bucket of ice water. I used about 20lbs of ice from 7-11 and dump into a drywall bucket with the pump in it fill with water and recirculate. I get 6 gals of wort to 65* in about 25-30mins when its 100* outside. PM if you went specifics about my set up.

Ryan

Ding Ding Ding! Submersible pump is the way to go. I'm in Texas and could not get my wort below 96 F in the summer time using just tap water. So I spent about $40 on a submersible pump. Dropped that baby in a cooler full of ice water, circulated that ice water through the chiller, and BAM! Now I get my wort down to 65 F. Takes about 45 minutes from the time I stop the boil. I chill it down to 100 F with regular water before I put the ice water through it.

I made a wheat beer for this last batch. After three weeks in primary I could look through the carboy and see my hand on the other side. I have NEVER seen a beer that clear in the fermenter.

DPBISME · 07-30-2012, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phyrst

Ding Ding Ding! Submersible pump is the way to go. I'm in Texas and could not get my wort below 96 F in the summer time using just tap water. So I spent about $40 on a submersible pump. Dropped that baby in a cooler full of ice water, circulated that ice water through the chiller, and BAM! Now I get my wort down to 65 F. Takes about 45 minutes from the time I stop the boil. I chill it down to 100 F with regular water before I put the ice water through it.

I made a wheat beer for this last batch. After three weeks in primary I could look through the carboy and see my hand on the other side. I have NEVER seen a beer that clear in the fermenter.

So not a hefewiesen yeast I would guess.

I would think if you made a Low Gravity Beer that since it ferments quickly (mine take two weeks and I have served them at 17 days) that the yeast has done its duty and floculates....

I will consider this or a chill plate in the future,

Thanks,

DPB

Phyrst · 07-30-2012, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPBISME

So not a hefewiesen yeast I would guess.

I would think if you made a Low Gravity Beer that since it ferments quickly (mine take two weeks and I have served them at 17 days) that the yeast has done its duty and floculates....

I will consider this or a chill plate in the future,

Thanks,

DPB

I used Wyeast German Wheat 3333 for a raspberry wheat. But this is not the first time I've made this beer. Usually the fermenter goes really dark when the yeast drops out, but never went clear for me before. I used a different kind of extract I bought from the LHBS this time. Usually in the past I've used the Northern Brewer wheat extract. So maybe that has something to do with it.

**Beer-lord** · 07-30-2012, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phyrst

Ding Ding Ding! Submersible pump is the way to go. I'm in Texas and could not get my wort below 96 F in the summer time using just tap water. So I spent about $40 on a submersible pump. Dropped that baby in a cooler full of ice water, circulated that ice water through the chiller, and BAM! Now I get my wort down to 65 F. Takes about 45 minutes from the time I stop the boil. I chill it down to 100 F with regular water before I put the ice water through it.

OK, I like this idea. Not to sound a like total d'bag, exactly how do you have this connected? Is the idea just to use the same water over and over or change the water often? How's the pump connected to the pump? I'm just not thinking clear enough to put all the parts of this together. Sorry. I'll probably figure it out once I'm clear headed but help a brother brewer out.

Phyrst · 07-30-2012, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beer-lord

OK, I like this idea. Not to sound a like total d'bag, exactly how do you have this connected? Is the idea just to use the same water over and over or change the water often? How's the pump connected to the pump? I'm just not thinking clear enough to put all the parts of this together. Sorry. I'll probably figure it out once I'm clear headed but help a brother brewer out.

It's a piece of cake. The submersible pond pumps come with different sized male threaded barb fittings you screw onto the pump. It's just a hose barb connection so you jam the hose for your chiller on there. Doesn't have to be fancy.

I start out running regular tap water through the chiller to get the wort down to the 100-110 F range. Then I hook up the outlet to the chiller (since the inlet has the female hose connection) to the pump and drop the pump in a cooler full of cold ice water. Then I take the inlet to the chiller (which is now the outlet) and drop it in the cooler. So I'm just recirculating the ice water through the chiller and back to the cooler. The ice will melt pretty quickly in the beginning so you have to add more. But as the wort cools down the water coming back to the cooler isn't as hot so it won't melt the ice as fast. I used 30 lbs of ice last time, but I could have got by with 20.

Like I said, it was 95 degrees outside and my tap water was 85 degrees, but I was able to get my wort down to 65 F in 45 minutes with this technique. Actually had heavy condensation building on the side of my kettle. I could have gone colder if I wanted and got down to lager pitching temps. Would have helped if I had some kind of insulation to wrap around the kettle to avoid absorbing ambient heat.

**Beer-lord** · 07-31-2012, 11:39 AM

Thanks for the info. I definitely get it now.

I wish I wouldn't need so much ice. 30 lbs is about another $10 which adds up quickly.

**brewguyver** · 07-31-2012, 12:03 PM

Tough to win in the northeast - during winter hitting strike temps and boiling is a pain (as is brewing outside in 10 degrees), but chilling with 40 degree ground water is amazing.

My buddy just bought the therminator plate chiller and we're running a 10 gallon batch this weekend. Supposedly they're meant for high ground water temps ... I'll let you know if I works. At $10 bucks a brew for ice, it wouldn't take long to pay off.

**cadillacandy** · 07-31-2012, 12:21 PM

What about putting the plate chiller in a bucket of ice water and closing the valve to just above a trickle - while still running the hose water thru it like normal?

I've been using a pre chiller, and I'm barely able to get it cooled to below 80F. I started putting ice packs on the chiller and was able to get to 75F.

shroomzofdoom · 07-31-2012, 12:24 PM

Summertime cooling is a bit of a challenge, but you can easily get the brew down to 65 cooling in stages:

If using an IC, chill down to 90ish with groundwater, fill bottling bucket with ice water and run that through.

If using CFC, recirculate back into kettle until wort temps reach 90ish then use ice filled bottling bucket to slowly transfer wort from BK through CFC chilled with ice water.

If using plate chiller, immerse in ice water.

One fact is for certain: unless you have some way of prechilling water-it's going to take a while.

Or, just chill to 85-90 and place in fermentation fridge for a few hours set at 40 degrees until pitching temp is reached.

Edit- if using a bottling bucket, you will rely on gravity to do the work. The higher you can elevate the bucket, the faster the ice water flow will be.