Cold Weather Brewing Tips

I am brewing SAT and it is going to be a cold one. I am going to start around 10am so I can be cleaned up and ready to watch the NFL wild card games.

I will be in the garage, and have doors cracked and ventilation going.
I will be dressing in layers and will try to keep myself comfortable.

Anyone have some good tips or tricks to make the brew day go better?

I will be preheating the mashtun (igloo cooler)

I may consider carrying the mashtun inside after strike water is added and return it to the garage for sparging. But would rather not deal with this much moving of heavy objects

I had bad luck last year when using my immersion chiller, and created a slip hazard in my driveway, so this time I will be chilling on the snow covered lawn.

I also will be storing the hoses and chiller inside the house hooked up tonight to make sure everyone is fully thawed and wont turn on the hose untill I am ready to chill.

I feel that I boil off more in the freezing cold than in the warm weather so I may adjust my final batch size up to compensate.

Last January we brewed in the garage while it was 0 degrees out (negative wind chills). We thought that dropping the boil pot outside in snow would chill in no time. Ha - it took forever.

After the snow melts around the pot it creates almost an insulation layer keeping the wort nice and warm.

Your results may vary - good luck!

1000ml said:

Last January we brewed in the garage while it was 0 degrees out (negative wind chills). We thought that dropping the boil pot outside in snow would chill in no time. Ha - it took forever.

After the snow melts around the pot it creates almost an insulation layer keeping the wort nice and warm.

Your results may vary - good luck!

Click to expand...

In case you missed it, here is how we chill during the cold snap in Arkansas.

you could also fly to san diego tomorrow to brew, it will be around 75ish here

In all seriousness, do plenty of push ups, it will keep the blood flowing.

Go J E T S

I brewed two batches last saturday, it was 10 above. I ran the burner outside. I sat my MLT just inside the door. I shot about 5 degrees high, added my strike water to the MLT about a gallon at a time with a stock pot, stirred it until i hit the correct temp, then added the grist. I did all of my mash and runoff in the house. It was a bit of a drag but it was better then standing outside the whole time and loosing temps on the MLT. have fun!

I brewed last Saturday in my shop.
Shop is heated so that was no problem. I've brewed in the cold several times.
I had planned to leave the water running slowly to prevent the line from freezing. It got turned off and froze in about 10 minutes. Realized it in time that shaking the line broke it up and started it flowing again.

Cleanup was not much fun.

Good luck and have fun.

brewing was awesome, I had a lot of hppy beers whilst brewing this ipa.

hopslam
double trouble
pliney
left hand warrior ipa
the oracle
le freak
and some homebrew

clean up sucked, but I am doen and now comfortable in my man chair watching the game.

the spicket was frozen I had to heat it with my propane torch and it opened right up
putting ic output into lawn worked great, much better than a buclet which overflowed onto the driveway.

that pic above of the creek is bad ass