Winter Brewing!

I got an early start this morning (5am). It was cold and dark. All in all I really enjoyed this brew and it went without a hitch with one exception.
Here I am looking like a bum during the mash. Fortunately I do the mash and sparge indoors!

The fly sparge went without a hitch. My new SS false bottom performed flawlessly.

It was cold and dark but I really didn't mind. I didn't even notice the cold.
I've just fired the burner here.

Suns finally up and I've got a good rolling boil.

How do you keep your water hot for the fly sparge if you boil outside and sparge inside?

Here's where I had my first problem. I went to hook my hose up and the hose bib has a block of ice around it. Apparently it must have been leaking and I didn't notice. Won't be using the wort chiller today! Good thing there's a lot of snow around! This is taking much longer than I hoped for. 1 hour after flame out and the wort is still 120º. Oh well. I'm glad I have the snow or I wouldn't know what to do.

Fingers said:

How do you keep your water hot for the fly sparge if you boil outside and sparge inside?

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I heat the water outside then pour it into a 5 gallon igloo cooler. I bring it in and place it above the MLT.

Finally! Roughly 6 gallons in the fermenter! It took 3 hours to cool the wort in the snow! I've come to the conclusion that if you pile snow up around the pot and leave it, the snow against the pot melts. Now there is an air barrier between the snow and pot. I think the snow then acts as an insulator actually slowing the cooling of the wort. Anyone else have experience cooling with snow?

Anyone else have experience cooling with snow?

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Yes, I found moving the pot every 5-10 min sped up the cooling significantly

I thought I was brilliant when i made a big snowbank and plopped my kettle down into it but i had the exact same problem after an hour in the snow and minimal temperature drop maybe 40 degrees or so i moved it into an ice bath which moved the process along a lot faster. I also think that if you stir it while its in the snow it helps to cool your wort faster, something scientific has to say so somewhere.

Stirring the inside will help, as it moves the warmer wort from the center out to the edges that are cooler.

Also, rotating the pot will help. It's a strange phenomenon, but if you take a fully warm bottle of beer, put it into a big bowl full of ice (so that the ice covers 90% of the liquid) and just spin the bottle around, you can have cold beer in 5-10 minutes, whereas leaving it just sit in the bowl of ice could take 40+ minutes.

I filled a large yard bucket with some water added lots of snow and cooled in less them 30 minutes

beerbuddy said:

I filled a large yard bucket with some water added lots of snow and cooled in less them 30 minutes

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I'll have to try your method the next time I brew. I did the snowbank and stir method for my last batch and it took an hour and forty-five minutes to bring the temp down to 70°.

I just did the large yard bucket with snow and water and stirred the wort last weekend cooled from boiling to 75 in 20 min. works really well!

i love the keg for the brewpot

your fermentation system looks very similar to mine...
first i put an old tshirt over the carboy, then i stick the blow off tube down into the neck of the carboy... my one change is that i took the lid that goes with my bucket, and drilled four holes into it that are just slightly larger than the tubing. I have never had more than four carboys going at once, so this works great, and keeps everything nice and neat.

by the way, what was it you brewed?

Just a thought,
If you put it at the bottom of a child's slide, and pile the slide with snow, It will slowly slide down to retain contact as it melts.

rabidgerbil said:

your fermentation system looks very similar to mine...
first i put an old tshirt over the carboy, then i stick the blow off tube down into the neck of the carboy... my one change is that i took the lid that goes with my bucket, and drilled four holes into it that are just slightly larger than the tubing. I have never had more than four carboys going at once, so this works great, and keeps everything nice and neat.

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Now that is a great idea! The hole should secure the blow off tube. I always end up clamping mine to keep it from coming out of the sanitizer.

rabidgerbil said:

by the way, what was it you brewed?

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I brewed a brown ale that was finished with Amarillo the last 5 munutes of the boil. It is going to be different. I kegged it Saturday so I'll be trying it soon.

cheezydemon said:

Just a thought,
If you put it at the bottom of a child's slide, and pile the slide with snow, It will slowly slide down to retain contact as it melts.

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If I had a slide I would give that a try. Sounds like it would work.

RichBrewer said:

If I had a slide I would give that a try. Sounds like it would work.

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Or maybe 2-3 slides! lol. Or a huge fulnnel that you set your Keg in the middle and then fill with snow, a drain on the bottom.

If I lived somewhere that had consistent snow I might try it!

I use a large garden tub about 3 feet across, place my bucket in the middle. I take gallon jugs filled with ice (just fill with water and put into the freezer), surround the bucket with jugs, and flood with water. My last batch dropped to 76 degrees in less than 15 minutes.

Remember that Salt significantly drops the freezing point of water and will draw more of the heat from the wort on the inside of the pot. There is a great mythbusters about how to cool a beer the quickest. Aside from a fire Ext. which did it instantly, the Salt,Ice, and water bath improved cooling by 40% or something like that over just Ice and water.

Now you guys have me thinking about finding a big plastic barrel that my brew pot will fit into!

I had this same issue today. Went to hook up the chiller and the faucet's frozen solid. Ended up chilling in the snow for 3 hours!

Wish I came across this thread yesterday!

RichBrewer said:

Now that is a great idea! The hole should secure the blow off tube. I always end up clamping mine to keep it from coming out of the sanitizer.


I brewed a brown ale that was finished with Amarillo the last 5 munutes of the boil. It is going to be different. I kegged it Saturday so I'll be trying it soon.

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As to the lid, YUP... no clamps necessary...
get four carboys set up around it, and it sounds nicer than one of those silly little water babbler things...

Hmmm... brown ale... one of my favorites.
I brewed a brown a couple of months ago.
That keg lasted through one weekend with the brother-in-laws, that was it

rabidgerbil said:

As to the lid, YUP... no clamps necessary...
get four carboys set up around it, and it sounds nicer than one of those silly little water babbler things...

Hmmm... brown ale... one of my favorites.
I brewed a brown a couple of months ago.
That keg lasted through one weekend with the brother-in-laws, that was it

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Browns are one of my favorites as well. I don't mind a few pints of a well made brown!