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mcgeebc

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I am interested in moving to all grain, but I have one concern that is holding me back. I live in a condo and don't have a hose or a kitchen sink that will allow me to connect a wort chiller. I have one of those sinks with a spray connection only.

Are there any other options for cooling wort for all grain? I am currently doing an ice bath for my extract boils and pouring it on top of 2 gallons of cold water.
 
Does your kitchen sink not have a screw-on aerator? If it does, you can get an inexpensive brass adaptor that screws on in place of the aerator and then you can screw a hose onto the adaptor.
 
Yup, what cweston said. The other option is a dishwasher adapter which is what I did. You click it on.
 
Put a submersible water pump in a bucket that has a standard garden hose fitting
 
Boil two ziplock bags, put one inside the other, fill the inner bag with water and seal it up. Then seal up the outer bag and throw it in the freezer. When you are ready to chill, remove the outter bag and toss the inner bag (still sealed up) into your wort.

You could also boil up some of those plastic-covered ice cubes and then toss them in a sanitized bag into your freezer, I suppose.

Or get a cooler, fill it with ice water, and use gravity to siphon the ice water through a standard copper coil wort chiller.
 
You don't have a kitchen sink in a condo? Where do you live, Somalia? :)

Seriously, as other posters have indicated, it should be no problem to rig up your faucet to hook a hose to your wort chiller.
 
mcgeebc said:
live in a condo and don't have a hose or a kitchen sink that will allow me to connect a wort chiller. I have one of those sinks with a spray connection only.

I think he means that he has a faucet that is a spray head instead of the standard facuet, my parents have those, no screweing aparatus on it.
 
If you know how to plumb and can do it without your condo owners knowing about it, you can splice into the cold water under the kitchen sink and put a T and a shut off valve. I thought about doing that, but ended up just buying a longer garden hose.
 
I also have one of those pull-out sprayhead faucets. I thought I could not use anything with it, but sure enough, it screws off leaving a female thread. Just need an adapter. Look at it closely. Otherwise, try some of the previous suggestions. Or an ice bath and change the ice water often.

I have also seen setups with an icebath and then a motorized stirring mechanism attached to the brewpot lid to slowly stir the wort with the lid on the whole time. Keeps the wort moving so there it comes in contact with the cool wall of the pot. One I saw had a ice cream maker motor with a ss serving spoon attached.
 
tbulger said:
I think he means that he has a faucet that is a spray head instead of the standard facuet

That is correct.

I do have a kitchen sink, but I don't have a screwing aparatus.

It looks like this:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=52571-866-87560CSD&lpage=none

Thanks for all of the ideas, but I just had another thought. Could I remove my shower head and connect a hose? I believe the pipe that the shower head connects to is threaded.

I may have to settle for the pump and bucket idea, but I would like to avoid buying a pump if I don't have to.
 
mcgeebc said:
That is correct.

I do have a kitchen sink, but I don't have a screwing aparatus.

It looks like this:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=52571-866-87560CSD&lpage=none

Thanks for all of the ideas, but I just had another thought. Could I remove my shower head and connect a hose? I believe the pipe that the shower head connects to is threaded.

I may have to settle for the pump and bucket idea, but I would like to avoid buying a pump if I don't have to.

What about the bathroom sick? Does that have a "regular" thread?
 
knights of Gambrinus said:
I have also seen setups with an icebath and then a motorized stirring mechanism attached to the brewpot lid to slowly stir the wort with the lid on the whole time. Keeps the wort moving so there it comes in contact with the cool wall of the pot. One I saw had a ice cream maker motor with a ss serving spoon attached.

Any chance you have a URL for that system? I would be very interested to see it. I would like to rig up something for stirring my wort as it cools so that I get maximum efficiency with the immersion chiller.
 
It definately should detach just below the handle, thats how they are installed and the tube is fed through the neck.
 
For your space constraints, I think someone else here had the best idea. Get a 5 gallon paint bucket and fill it mostly with ice, along with enough water cover the ice. Get some kind of immersible pump (like an aquarium pump) that you can attach to one of the tubes on your immersion chiller. Simply pump this water though the immersion chiller and back into the bucket. When your ice melts and the water in the bucket isn't cold enough to do much good, re-fill it with ice and water and resume. This would be a whole lot faster than just running tap water through the immersion chiller.
 
If you run plain tap water through for the first 5 minutes without recirculating back into the bucket, THEN throw the ice in, you won't have to fill the bucket with ice twice. Tap temp is so much lower than 200F that you get really fast cooling without wasting ice. It's when the wort is around a 100F that you start slowing the cooling process with tap. Cue the ice.
 
Bobby_M said:
If you run plain tap water through for the first 5 minutes without recirculating back into the bucket, THEN throw the ice in, you won't have to fill the bucket with ice twice. Tap temp is so much lower than 200F that you get really fast cooling without wasting ice. It's when the wort is around a 100F that you start slowing the cooling process with tap. Cue the ice.

Seconded. I have 85°F tap water in the summer an this technique is still effective.
 
You could always do what I do - the No chill method!!!!

In australia we are suffering one of the worst droughts known to man. We are entering stage 4 water restrictions, no watering the garden, lawns etc, no washing cars even with a bucket or anything, no outside watering at all, no comercial car washing companies may operate, no public parks to be watered, no public areas to have gardens that are to be watered etc etc. Basically, you can only shower, wash and drink with water. And 50 litres for cooling down wort is stupid. So I dont chill my wort - "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO THEN KADMIUM?!" is probably what you are screaming at me right now... well

I do what is called the "no chill cube" I just got a 25 litre water and food safe jerry can from bunnings ( the hardware store ) when I finish the boil, I rinse the cube with no-rinse sanitiser and just siphon the boiling hot wort into the "no chill cube" I then press the sides in with my knees till the wort almost spills out the can and screw the lid on (makes it air tight) doing that gives two benefits. Like I said, makes it air tight and means when I come back to pop her open, if its not under vacuum it means air got in. The boiling hot wort kills anything inside the jerry can and leaves it contamination free!

But what about DMS? well, Australian wheat does not have the same enzyme in it found in european and american malts, which converts into DMS, which means I can boil my malt with the lid on and liquid dripping back into the pot and get no vegetable flavours! yeah, I dont suffer from hot wort syndrome due to the pure Australian malt I use.

But what about cold break!? well, I let the "no chill cube" sit outside over night, then in the morning bung it in the fridge till its down to temp, I pop it open, pour it into the fermenter vigourously and wallah! down the bottom is a crap load of cold and hot break. Infact, the wort the comes out is almost twice as clear as what I used to get with my immersion chiller cold break. The wort and the beer come out so clear its a joke!

And the other benefits?

- It cuts my brew day down by about 2 hours
- I can brew multiple things on one day
- I can store them in the cubes for up to 6 months (longest I went before popping one open and using, and it was freaking fantastic - it was a mates, not my own)

and the list goes on!!

:mug:
 
Well, that just blew away all of my pre-conceived notions about needing to cool the wort fast. I think I'll stick to < 70' in 10 mins, though. ;)
 
Ingenious.
:mug:
But...

Kadmium said:
I then press the sides in with my knees till the wort almost spills out the can and screw the lid on

Having a boiled weenie could rank up there as the
Worst.
Brewday.
Accident.
Ever.

:D
 
hahahhaa, dont worry, I do it backwards, so the worst im going to get is a burnt bum :) I cant figure out any other way of pressing it together save using my hands = burnt face! :D

:mug:
 
another easy way is get a couple of two liter bottles. Fill with water and put them in the freezer. sanitize and drop those bad frozen boys in your hot wort. Will cool it fast. Ive used this method before i had a wort chiller.
 
tdavisii said:
another easy way is get a couple of two liter bottles. Fill with water and put them in the freezer. sanitize and drop those bad frozen boys in your hot wort. Will cool it fast. Ive used this method before i had a wort chiller.

Do you need to worry about sanitizing the bottles?

The integrity of the bottle isn't compromised by the wort temp?
 
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