craigsf

Recipes 

I'm a long time reader, but this is the first time I've actually had a question that I couldn't find the answer to by searching!

I'm ready to move up from ice baths to an immersion wort chiller, but am unsure which to order for my situation. I live in an apartment so I don't have garden hose access and I have one of those sprayer kitchen sinks so I can't hook up to that. I see my options as follows:

-Bathroom sink: this is pretty convenient since it's near the kitchen and it has a standard bathroom faucet where the threaded doohicky with the aerator can be unscrewed.

-Laundry room: slightly less convenient since it's far from a sink, but I can access the tap without moving the machines, so not too bad.

My confusion is that it looks like you can order a standard chiller (I assume with kitchen sink hookups) or one with garden hose fittings. Which of these would I order for the two options above and will I need any additional adapters or fittings to make it work?

Thanks!
Craig

freisste

Recipes 

I use a laundry sink because my kitchen sink also has a sprayer. It is a standard hose bib. That's mine, anyway.

DodgeeDoo

Recipes 

With the laundry hook up, I'm pretty sure you just need a standard garden hose Y splitter coming from the wall. Look for a solid/hefty one, you don't want leaks in a laundry room you don't frequent every day.

Plus, someone else mentioned this, you can use the spent hot water from the chiller on a batch of clothes. Goin' green by making beer, right? Hahaha.

DodgeeDoo

Recipes 

Also, with the bathroom, lowes and HD sell faucet thread to garden hose attachments that quick snap on and off, so in theory, you could get the garden hose attachment Chiller setup and be set up for either situation.

AnOldUR

Recipes 

My preference is to use a bucket in the sink and a pond pump to push the water through the IC. That way you can put ice in the bucket at the end of the chill to get those last few, hard to hit, degrees.

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It’s best to brew dark beer at night, because that way the darkness gets into the beer. —Bohuslav Hlavsa

edb

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Rather than using ice with your setup take some empty plastic pop bottles fill them with saltwater (table salt and water) leave about an inch of head space in the bottles and freeze them. Depending on how much salt you use can can drop the temps down to 20f. And best of all just toss them back in your freezer when your done.

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AnOldUR

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Actually, I use the freezer packs that ship with yeast.

But I like the water bottle idea. I worry about the packs breaking and not knowing what's in them.

__________________
It’s best to brew dark beer at night, because that way the darkness gets into the beer. —Bohuslav Hlavsa

rayfound

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Adding salt to the bottles isn't doing anything to lower the temp in your chiller. You'd have to be pumping the salt water for that to work.

Salt lowers the freezing point of water, so you could get water that's below 32 but still liquid. But the frozen bottles are not going to get any colder than the freezer temp, regardless of what's inside.

If you want to make it COLDER than 32F, you'll need to add Ice and Saltwater to a cooler or bucket and pump from that. The Saltwater will get below 32F and stay liquid.

AnOldUR

Recipes 

If the water in the bucket is 50 degrees and you put something in that's 20 degrees, the temperature of the water in the bucket will end up lower than if you had put in something that was 32 degrees. So the water pumping through the chiller will be colder and chill faster.

__________________
It’s best to brew dark beer at night, because that way the darkness gets into the beer. —Bohuslav Hlavsa

rayfound

Recipes 

Adding salt is not changing the temp of the bottles

Edit: its only changing the melting temperature of the contents.

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Beer, beer everywhere, and not a drop to drink.