Winter snow-bank chilling?

Palmer makes some reference to this in his book, but I was wondering if anyone has ever actually tried just sticking their kettle in a snow bank to chill it. The old ice bath trick gets 5 gallons down in about 24 minutes from my experience, so I'm not sure if this would be better. I also think it might be better just to set it outside as opposed to sticking it in a snow bank.

Melting snow is likely to provide superior thermal conduction verses just sitting out in the open relying on radiational cooling. But you might have to keep moving the pot to maximize efficiency, as once the snow melts along the sides of the pot it will open up an air space, leaving just the bottom in contact with the snow...

Cheers!

i did that with one of mine, but I put it on my concrete patio and just kept packing the snow around it as it melted away. Worked good...that plus the 30 degree temps brought it down pretty good!

A far better way to cool with the snowbank is to fill a container half way with water and shovel in snow until it won't melt any more. Put your pot in there and keep adding snow so that there is always unmelted snow floating around. The water keeps the contact with the bucket constant ensuring good heat transfer and the unmelted snow guarantees that the water is as cold as you can get it.

Tried this years ago thinking it would work great, but the snow quickly melts away from the kettle leaving a hot airspace. So unless you keep packing the snow around the kettle, this method does not work at all! As stated above, a mixture of snow and water works great!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/wort-chilling-snow-took-forever-222865/

I imagine a kiddie pool full of snow/water/ slush would chill even a huge batch quickly.

I tried this before and it didn't work too well. Just sat the bucket in a snow bank, took about 3 1/2 hours to cool.

Not sure about by you, but my cold tap water is super cold this time of year. I use my immersion chiller, and it falls to 70 much faster than during the rest of the year.

To echo the points above, if you stick a hot kettle in a snow bank the heat from the metal will surely create an "igloo" around your vessel and insulate it, thus making it very difficult to cool down

I brewed a batch in microbiology class, we just took the pot outside with the lid on, it was -20f that night. Tried putting it in the snow and it didnt work out so well. We just set it on the concrete for a bit, it cooled down really fast.

spazzy said:

I brewed a batch in microbiology class, we just took the pot outside with the lid on, it was -20f that night. Tried putting it in the snow and it didnt work out so well. We just set it on the concrete for a bit, it cooled down really fast.

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see, i tried that, and when I set my pot just on the concrete (i think it was maybe -8) it took like 2 hours to come down. did you have a full 5 gallon pot?

oh, and snowbank is useless. works ok for starter worts.

I've done the snowbank cool a few times. Took forever, plus the neighbours probably wondered why 3 drunk guys were stirring big pots at 1am for an hour.

Yup, what they said, unless you stay active and pack snow you don't get enough contact area. I've since moved to floating my kettle in recirculating hose or tap water and it cools much faster

Yes, we have used a snowbank for cooling wort, but I wouldn't recommend it except for an emergency backup plan.

Put the pot into the snowbank and keep moving it around. Frequently pick it up and move it to a fresh part of the snowbank. It won't cool it off as fast as a CFC or IC, but it will definitely cool it down faster than just leaving it air cool.

Snow ='s a great insulator, therefore making your chilling efforts take way longer than necessary.

It works great as a no chill option. Sit it in the snowbank and leave it overnight.

It's going to take too long to stand there and wait for it.

I like leaving a large rubbermaid storage bin outside during the winter. Fill it up with snow/water and let if mostly freeze or chop up with shovel if frozen solid. Put kettle in mini-iceberg bin while IC is running for a quick chill

Believe it or not but snow actually has a high R-value which means it will insulate the pot from losing heat if air voids form around the pot. If using snow to cool you have to constantly watch and make sure air voids don't occur.

arnoldk2 said:

Believe it or not but snow actually has a high R-value which means it will insulate the pot from losing heat if air voids form around the pot. If using snow to cool you have to constantly watch and make sure air voids don't occur.

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likewise, don't try chilling your kettle in the belly of a ton-ton

motobrewer said:

see, i tried that, and when I set my pot just on the concrete (i think it was maybe -8) it took like 2 hours to come down. did you have a full 5 gallon pot?

oh, and snowbank is useless. works ok for starter worts.

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we screwed up and only boiled 4 gallons, added 1 gallon of ddH2O then chilled