check my logic

OK, getting ready to brew this weekend and need to make sure I'm on the right track with this being the first brew with the keggle. Finally got the top cut off and going to put in the siphon this week and got the banjo burner in the mail this past Friday, got two propane tanks. When finished putting everything together, scrub it with Barkeepers. Steep the grains seperately. Fill up with water for a total of about 6 gallons, right? Start boiling and add the hops as usual. Now cooling. I have a home made IC, but been puzzeled how I'm going to get cold water through it as I'm in the garage and not next to the sink as I've done in the past to cool it. Solution: I have a submersible pump that came with a 5 gallon aquarium, it's adjustable. Rig up the tubing for it all to fit together, place the pump in a bucket of ice water and turn it on. Let it pump until temperature is met. Then crank open the valve to dump into primary. Will be using hop bags so there shouldn't be no break. For aeration, was planning on using an aquarium pump or brew spoon and/or shake the bejesus out of it. Don't have a 02 system yet, but it's on the books.

You'll be trying to chill with lukewarm water before very long, using the pump. You'll need a lot of extra ice. You don't have a garden hose that will reach?

Hoses-in/out, floor drain, or do it outside.

Yeah, I got one. I guess I'm not thinking in shear volume as opposed to doing partial boils all this time. I WAS thinking that a couple of buckets of ice water with the pump running would chill 'er down fairly quickly, but after reading ya'lls post, don't think that will work. I will be outside and I do have a hose that will reach the garage, no problem. But what I was thinking about way ahead is that in the summer, the water temperature, and by the time it travels through the hose, it's going to be pretty high. It will cool it off some, but not to pitching temps. Hmmm, need to ponder on that for a while. Maybe, use the garden hose method to get it the initial temperature down, and then hook up the pump in ice water method later to get the temperatures to around pitching temps.

Ol' Grog said:

Maybe, use the garden hose method to get it the initial temperature down, and then hook up the pump in ice water method later to get the temperatures to around pitching temps.

Click to expand...

I think this is the way to go.The ice water will be very effective and cool it down the rest of way.

I would go with a little less water. I know you've got boil off to think about, but your extract will add about a gallon. You are doing extract, right?

Just one warning, in case you didn't know, watch your hops on this one. You probably read all about it by now, how lower gravity boils raise hop utilization. If I remember correctly, you're not a hop head so an oversite here could be disasterous. If you get a kit that assumes a 2-3 gallon boil, back off a bit on the hops or reduce your bittering boil time.

Thanks. Yes, it's still extracts....but I'm slowly migrating to the DARK SIDE.
I had read into reducing the bittering hops, definently not a hop head. Right now I'm thinking, and knowing my particular taste, is to use half of the hops as listed in the recipe. I tried reducing boil times and I did notice a difference. One thing I do want to do this time is add lactose to increase the sweetness. When do I add it? During the boil?

Why not craft your recipe with less fermentables instead of adding the lactose? If you want, you could also see how it comes out without the lactose and add it to the keg after.

Well, thankfully I made a test run of the water pump last night because this pump, literally, has no head. If you pick up the hose anymore than 1 foot above the pump, it can't do it. So, either look for another pump or design a newer system that would use a shallower bucket of ice water sitting above the keggle and use the pump in combination with gravity to try and finish dropping the temperature 10 or so degrees.

how long is your hose? Even with a 50' hose here in the summer heat the water coming out the end is still damn cold...

Just make sure you either boil your IC or sanitize it.

about 99% of the time I brew late afternoon into the night so the sun isn't a problem.