How do you save water on brew day???

Just curious what I can do to save a little water. Im all for reduce reuse recycle...

I dont. I'm constantly wondering how I can cut down my water usage, cause its friggin insane

what method do you use for chilling the wort?

The only thing that immediately comes to mind is a recirculation technique for chilling

Some use the IC waste water to fill the washer or water the lawn/garden. Brew less... just kidding!

B

When I chill with my immersion chiller I use the tap water first, that gets it down halfway - the hot water from the chiller empties into my washing machine.

Then when I cant get any more cooling power from the tap water, I put a pump on the immersion chiller and put the pump with the inlet and outlet in a round cooler of ice water. This recirculates very cold water through the chiller and works well to get it down to pitch temp - when that's done, I dump that into the washer too.

I do a load of laundry usually the next day.

Same as above, except ALL my water goes into the washer. I use 3 buckets to chill: two with tap water which don't get recycled, then the third is full of ice which does get recycled. The first two go into the washer, and the third is sometimes split between the washer and my rubbermaid fermenting setup (if I'm using it).

I've been using an IC for the past few batches. Reason I want to save the water.

Can you save the water in a front loading washing machine?

I think i'll end up draining into a carboy or bucket for watering my garden.

I have a cistern. I pump the water out of the wort chiller into the cistern- then its used for the garden.

I use a sanke as a mash tun. I pump 15 gallons of cooling effluent into there for CIP water. It doesn't seem like much, but it's almost half a water heater full.

maybe a little bit, but if it's an high efficiency I would think not.

saving for the garden is a good idea as others have mentioned if you cant do the washer

I collect my ic water in a pail and water the flowers or fill my washer and do laundry. I saw a cool vid on YouTube who set his ic up inline with the sprinkler and watered the grass while he chilled his beer, very slick.

I run a hose from my CFC to the sprinkler. The grass needs it anyway.

I use pool water to chill, then return water to pool. Zero loss.



In the summer, this of course won't get the temp all the way down, so I toss the 85 degree carboys into the chest freezer for about 3 hours. That gets them the rest of the way down.

I recycle 5-7 gallons of 'water' from every brew day... It just takes a while before it's back into the system.

My chill-water is used to irrigate my brew-buddy's lawn and flower beds (close to where I brew/chill). He's started using the IC in the kitchen, so it goes down the drain. Much easier for him to use that on the stove, where he brews than carry it out to the porch and run to the hose connection. I'm trying to make his brew-day easier too.

At some point, I might try using a large container, ice and smaller amount of water to chill my wort (plate chiller)... Although, probably not. I might just collect it into barrels when I get my own place and use it to water plants/garden during the warmer months. Maybe build an ice rink during the cooler months.

i run the hot water hose from the immersion chiller into a short extension hose, then connect a soaker hose into that. i water my hedges and foundation with the chiller water

I fill up my washer first, if its still not chilled enough i fill up a bucket that I'll use to water my plants and sometimes i use it to clean something around my house with. I've used it to wash my car with once.

I use the return hose on my IC to clean the mash tun, utensils, hoses, any empty kegs. Then fill the mash tun with water to use while cleaning the boil kettle and IC after chilling.

As posted above, I fill the washing machine with chilling water.

Lots of good recs here. I wont repeat whats mentioned so heres a new one:

I save the IC water in a few buckets - the first I keep around for clean up, the next 3 go into my toilets empty water tank.

I have my IC set-up to cycle with a pump that sits in a cooler that I fill with 2 gallons of water. I then put in eight 2 liter bottles of frozen water. Chills like a dream.

I re-freeze the bottles after brewing and dump the water from the cooler into the washing machine.

Wife got pissed on brew days when I would empty the ice drawer.

I also have my cooler hooked up to my sprinkler. SWMBO APPROVES!

I use the chilling water to water the hops during grow season. Otherwise I pour it on the lawn in one area so the sprinklers aren't turned on in that area the next time they are ran.

musick said:

Lots of good recs here. I wont repeat whats mentioned so heres a new one:

I save the IC water in a few buckets - the first I keep around for clean up, the next 3 go into my toilets empty water tank.

Click to expand...

That's the winner right there!!! Never thought of using it in the toilets.