Wort Chilling Without Ice and Without a Chiller

Okay, well, I've been doing something that I haven't seen mentioned in the forums. Of course, I haven't really looked that hard, either.

After my first brew session, I tried to chill my wort with a sink full of ice. Complete and utter failure. 1) Not enough ice from the ol' icerator in the freezer and 2) It was just a pain.

I thought, "What the h3ll am I going to do now?" I looked at my sink (which has a faucet that you can pull out of the main "stem" and is attached by a hose. After a few moments, I decided to place a wet wash cloth over the drain, placed the boil pot on top of the cloth and pulled the faucet out from the stem and let it sit down in the bottom of the sink. I then turned on the faucet, full cold, and let the water fill in around my boiler. I was able to find a state of equilibrium with the sink almost full to the top, but draining slowly enough that the water level never changed.

As I checked the temp (with a sanitized thermometer, of course), I stirred the wort a bit so as to mix the wort from the sides of the brew pot in with the wort that was in the center of the brew pot. The overall effect was that I was able to chill my wort down to 75 degrees F in this manner in roughly 35 minutes.

I have been using this technique from that point forward with the same results. I realize that not everyone has a faucet they can pull out and leave down in the bottom of their sink, but for those who do... this works really well. I have a friend who uses ice in the sink to cool his wort and it generally takes him over 45 min. to do so.

Anyway, hope this helps.

I do something very similar. I drape a kitchen towel over the drain and then place the pot on the towel. I then fill the sink and turn the faucet back until I hit equilibrium. Works well enough as long as the groundwater is cool enough.

Excellent idea.

This is pretty much how I chill my starters. Of course we are talking a much smaller volume of wort but this is how I do it.

I make ice a few days ahead and replace as needed. Save the water. Save the planet!!