Summer time brewing stinks

Since I started this mess.... I went and looked at Wyeast, White Labs, andf Danstar...

One of them had Belgians up to 76 F I think,,, what ever it was it was 2 degrees warmer than the other...

One offered Saison that went to 80 F.

So, in the Summer-Time; a Saison yeast in all my recipies??? Hell why not,,, it will not go to waste...

DPB

My summertime chilling routine is very different than my wintertime routine. In the winter it's straight tapwater through the plate chiller, takes the wort as low as 65. In the summer, here in NY, where it's been 90F for the last, idk, 2 months, it's different. I knock out, use my old immersion to get to about 170, then transfer the immersion to an ice bucket to act as a pre-chiller for the plate chiller, which even then can only take it to 70. Also adds about 15 minutes to my day. Damn yoooouuuu suuuuunnnnn!!

bmick said:

My summertime chilling routine is very different than my wintertime routine. In the winter it's straight tapwater through the plate chiller, takes the wort as low as 65. In the summer, here in NY, where it's been 90F for the last, idk, 2 months, it's different. I knock out, use my old immersion to get to about 170, then transfer the immersion to an ice bucket to act as a pre-chiller for the plate chiller, which even then can only take it to 70. Also adds about 15 minutes to my day. Damn yoooouuuu suuuuunnnnn!!

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Don't get me wrong... I LOVE SUMMER.

It is just the Brewing in Summer...

Many good ideas...

DPBISME said:

Since I started this mess.... I went and looked at Wyeast, White Labs, andf Danstar...

One of them had Belgians up to 76 F I think,,, what ever it was it was 2 degrees warmer than the other...

One offered Saison that went to 80 F.

DPB

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From what I've read they recommend starting Belgians lower (65-68 ) and then ramping up temps once the yeast get going. The risk is hot alcohols (solvent flavors) and medicinal/band-aid like flavors if they start the ferment too high.

On the flip side, I've definitely pushed the white labs saison 2 over 85 ... If you get a good starter and have it at the same temp as your wort, it should ferment. Just make sure you spend extra effort to aerate the wort - you'll have less O2 dissolving at the higher pitch temp.

BTW - did our first run with the therminator on Tuesday. Worked well until it clogged, but the temp was still coming out around 84. Looks like I'll be trying the pre chill method through my Immersion chiller.

We ended up pitching the Nottingham yeast at 86 (package read 90 or below). I'll let you know how it works out.

Here's a picture of the setup.

I just brewed this last Saturday and had to give up at 80, it just wouldn't chill any further - my tap water is lukewarm basically. Pitched the yeast at 80, put the carboy in a closet at 68 room temp. Will see how it turns out in a few weeks...

I brew in the sub-suburbs of Phoenix and I brew all times of year including summer. Our ground water in the summer has to be above 90°F. I use my ground water to get the wort below 100°F. I then dump 20lbs. of ice (it costs $2-$3) into a tub filled with water. I then hook the intake to my wort chiller to the output of a portable sump pump and place the sump pump into the ice water. I make sure the output of the wort chiller is feeding the tub of ice water and I turn on the sump pump once connected and continue chilling.

This process from start (ground water) to finish (wort getting below 70°F) takes about 20 minutes. I've even brewed when it's been over 110°F and this is still the case.

I hope this helps.

Thats the same set up I have and get similar results.

RmikeVT said:

Thats the same set up I have and get similar results.

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Well, I got the idea from this message board, so I assumed it was a good idea. Apparently that's the case...

brewguyver said:

BTW - did our first run with the therminator on Tuesday. Worked well until it clogged, but the temp was still coming out around 84. Looks like I'll be trying the pre chill method through my Immersion chiller.

We ended up pitching the Nottingham yeast at 86 (package read 90 or below). I'll let you know how it works out.

Here's a picture of the setup.

View attachment 70479

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After a few years of extract brewing I kind-a forgot what temp to pitch Nottingham (I used it all the time).

I would pitch at 80 and let the wort cool down in the house (Fall, Winter, Spring) and never had a problem...

NOW these were 5 Gallon batches so I assume that this might not be safe now that I do 10 Gallon batches...

Geometry, the mass of the wort, and such causing the heat to stay longer at a higher TEMP.

dfc said:

I brew in the sub-suburbs of Phoenix and I brew all times of year including summer. Our ground water in the summer has to be above 90°F. I use my ground water to get the wort below 100°F. I then dump 20lbs. of ice (it costs $2-$3) into a tub filled with water. I then hook the intake to my wort chiller to the output of a portable sump pump and place the sump pump into the ice water. I make sure the output of the wort chiller is feeding the tub of ice water and I turn on the sump pump once connected and continue chilling.

This process from start (ground water) to finish (wort getting below 70°F) takes about 20 minutes. I've even brewed when it's been over 110°F and this is still the case.

I hope this helps.

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This is exactly what I do. It's pretty cool when it's 95 degrees outside and you see condensation dripping off your wort kettle.

I stick my immersion chiller in a 6g fermenting bucket full of water, and stick it in my deep freezer till it is rock solid. Then I run my ground water through that and into my counter flow. Works, not 100% but I agree I'm in Indiana and have all but given up summer time brewing.

I feel spoiled - her in MN my tap water is rarely above 55, so chilling isn't a problem here. It's winter brewing. Bringing a 15g batch up to a boil when it is below zero takes mucho propane, not to mention the boil off you get when there is no humidity and it's -20. Unfortunately, this summer I haven't brewed but one batch for a collaboration brew at my club. Remodeling sucks!

mbauer013 said:

I feel spoiled - her in MN my tap water is rarely above 55, so chilling isn't a problem here. It's winter brewing. Bringing a 15g batch up to a boil when it is below zero takes mucho propane, not to mention the boil off you get when there is no humidity and it's -20. Unfortunately, this summer I haven't brewed but one batch for a collaboration brew at my club. Remodeling sucks!

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I am using Keggles and I even though I am not brewing in that cold of weather I have considered wrapping the top two thirds of my Brew kettle with insulation... so creating an outer shield of some kind that would capture the heat coming from under the Keggle to force it along the sides… Hot Air Insulation…

Again this fits in with Cheaper Brewing

mbauer013 said:

I feel spoiled - her in MN my tap water is rarely above 55, so chilling isn't a problem here. It's winter brewing. Bringing a 15g batch up to a boil when it is below zero takes mucho propane, not to mention the boil off you get when there is no humidity and it's -20. Unfortunately, this summer I haven't brewed but one batch for a collaboration brew at my club. Remodeling sucks!

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You need one of these... Hell for 15 gal, maybe 2. I use one with a 7-7.5 gal preboil and I barely keep the gas on. It's saved me at least 2 propane tanks over the last several batches.

I made a 45 ft copper / garden hose CFC. I am always able to get my wort down to within 1° of the temp of my tap water in one pass, even in a blazing hot summer like this one.

duckmanco said:

You need one of these... Hell for 15 gal, maybe 2. I use one with a 7-7.5 gal preboil and I barely keep the gas on. It's saved me at least 2 propane tanks over the last several batches.

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Forget a link? I am all about saving propane!

joelrapp said:

I stick my immersion chiller in a 6g fermenting bucket full of water, and stick it in my deep freezer till it is rock solid. Then I run my ground water through that and into my counter flow. Works, not 100% but I agree I'm in Indiana and have all but given up summer time brewing.

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I tried something like that but there must have been some water in the IC. I couldn't get any water to flow through it. Either that or the water entering it froze and blocked the tubing.

Brewing outside in the summer in TX is horrible. Something about standing over a propane burner in 105 degree heat just doesn't do it for me.

I've decided to switch to extract during the summer so I can brew inside. Chilling wort has become somewhat of a challenge. My chiller will only get my wort to 85 F or so. I know this is frowned upon, but lately I have just been throwing ice into my wort to get it down to pitching temp. I've done this 5 or 6 times without any ill effects, but I can't wait till it cools off some so I can switch back to brewing AG outside.

drkaeppel said:

Brewing outside in the summer in TX is horrible. Something about standing over a propane burner in 105 degree heat just doesn't do it for me.

I've decided to switch to extract during the summer so I can brew inside. Chilling wort has become somewhat of a challenge. My chiller will only get my wort to 85 F or so. I know this is frowned upon, but lately I have just been throwing ice into my wort to get it down to pitching temp. I've done this 5 or 6 times without any ill effects, but I can't wait till it cools off some so I can switch back to brewing AG outside.

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I just started home brewing so excuse my stupid question. Why is this frowned upon? Does the ice need to come from boiled water to be safe? Also someone mentioned putting frozen soda bottles that have been sanitized in to bring down the temp. Anyone else have experience Witt this?

Well down here in Florida I have started brewing extract batches this summer as the sun is unbearable and the thunderstorms have been unpredictable this year. I don't bother with a CFC though, I just fill my old bottling bucket with 20 lbs ice and 5 gallons water and switch from the faucet to the bucket when the wort hits ~95'F. Set the bucket on top of a cabinet, no pump needed.

Beer-lord said:

OK, I like this idea. Not to sound a like total d'bag, exactly how do you have this connected? Is the idea just to use the same water over and over or change the water often? How's the pump connected to the pump? I'm just not thinking clear enough to put all the parts of this together. Sorry. I'll probably figure it out once I'm clear headed but help a brother brewer out.

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Agree. I think I get it. I would like to see some pics or a video to alleviate my weird deviant thoughts.
Ryan, I am not far from you. If you want to come critique a brew day let me know! Sounds like a much better method than my IC.
Jay

Dutch218 said:

I just started home brewing so excuse my stupid question. Why is this frowned upon? Does the ice need to come from boiled water to be safe? Also someone mentioned putting frozen soda bottles that have been sanitized in to bring down the temp. Anyone else have experience Witt this?

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So if you want to put ice directly in to you wort,,, let's say after it gets as cold as you can using other methods it is recommended make your own and biol the water.

Reasoning: you know nothing about the commercial ice maker... Not that it is not clean and safe it just might not be clean and safe enough for your wort.

I boil water to get the air out and to sanizize... I then put int in gallon ziplock bags, freeze it, and when ready to use, sanitize the out side, cut the bag, and drop it in.

others use the bottle method...

Me? I am buying a sump pump to build a keg washer and to use to lower the temp of my wort in the summer... ALSO to washout my six (6) keg Keggerator lines.

I use two immersion chillers. Even when it is about 95F outside, I get 75F tap water that goes to a 25ft pre-chiller in an igloo cooler with 14lbs of ice, then to a 50ft whirlpool chiller (Jamil style). This gets my wort down to about 72F in less than 30min. If I'm making a lager, I will then siphon into a bucket and place that in my ferm chamber, which gets it down to pitching temp (46F) in about 4 hours.

The pre-chiller/whirlpool chiller combo works pretty well and is not labor intensive.

As a kid we used to make homemade ice cream all the time outside on 90 plus degree days. We used ice and rock salt to make the ice cream. As the rock salt melts the ice, itwill cause a chemical reaction with the ice and your water will drop just under 32 degrees F. You should be able to use less ice and cool the wort a little faster. A 50 lbs bag of rock salt is only $10.00 at The HD or Lowes and a 50 lbs bag of rock salt is more than enough to use over 10 5 gallon batches. I hated turning the crank to make the ice cream, but we had ice cream ready to eat in 20-30 minutes.

Let's all agree that Houston is pretty hot in July and August... heck, it's hot about 9 months out of the year here!

I brewed 4 times in July and my method is to use my 50 ft ss wort chiller to get the wort down to about 90 in maybe 20 minutes?

Then, I just place my 30 quart brewpot in a water/30lb ice bath (using a Walmart laundry plastic tub with rope handles $6) for another 10 minutes or so. I get to sub 70* pitch temps in about 30 minutes in Houston... in July. August has yet to see a brew day, but the weather is essentially the same as July.

To recap: My process is to chill in 20(ish) minutes using +/- 85* tap water my wort down to about 90*. Then, another 10-15 minutes in an ice bath, stirring with a sanitized spoon, gets me down to my personal preferred pitch temp of high 60's to 70.

TCGMAN said:

As a kid we used to make homemade ice cream all the time outside on 90 plus degree days. We used ice and rock salt to make the ice cream. As the rock salt melts the ice, itwill cause a chemical reaction with the ice and your water will drop just under 32 degrees F. You should be able to use less ice and cool the wort a little faster. A 50 lbs bag of rock salt is only $10.00 at The HD or Lowes and a 50 lbs bag of rock salt is more than enough to use over 10 5 gallon batches. I hated turning the crank to make the ice cream, but we had ice cream ready to eat in 20-30 minutes.

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After reading through 7 pages here, I was going to recommend the same to get water cooler - use salt! Also, if you can buy ice in block form, that will go much further than buying bags of ice cubes. You'll get more surface area touching the water to cool it and it will melt more slowly. Or, just fill up milk jugs, 2-liter bottles, etc. with water and freeze those so you can reuse without buying ice at the store. The only thing to look out for with the salt is that you'll need to rinse everything off well after the fact, and I'm not sure if some of those water pumps will work with salt water - they may corrode.

Ditch that pre-chiller.

Buy a submersible pump.

I live in Tucson AZ, it has been over a hundred degrees for the last 40 days. I found that immersion chillers work way better than CFC, and a whole lot easier to clean.

Either make block ice, or buy block ice, and a lot of it.

Put the ice in a cooler or a sink and add water, then put your pump in.

First run your tap water through your immersion chiller until you stop seeing results.
Then hook up your pump and run the ice water through the chiller.
When the output of your chiller water drops below the temperature of your tap water, you can recycle it back into your cooler.

I use the freezer portion of my kegorater to make ice:

I found that immersion chillers work way better than CFC, and a whole lot easier to clean.

Step 1) Run water through it after brew day is complete.

Done.

Sweep said:

After reading through 7 pages here, I was going to recommend the same to get water cooler - use salt! Also, if you can buy ice in block form, that will go much further than buying bags of ice cubes. You'll get more surface area touching the water to cool it and it will melt more slowly.

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Quite the opposite - ice cubes bought in the store are usually even hollowed out and have a MUCH larger surface area than a big chunk of ice. But you're definitely right on the slower melting; there will be a lot more ice to melt since the mass of a block is much higher than that of the ice cubes

DO NOT USE SALT. It works for ice cream because you want to freeze it, which will never ever happen with plain ice. The freezing point of ice cream is a little below the melting point of ice due to the sugar. This is the same thing that happens with the salt. Pretty much anything you dissolve in water will lower it’s freezing point.

If the freezing point of the ice cream is 30° F, 32° F won’t freeze it, no matter how much ice you use. 28°F saltwater will.

This doesn’t help with using ice to cool wort. We don’t care about the melting point, we’re getting most of our cooling from melting the ice. This is called the heat of fusion.

If I have a gram of ice at 31°F it will take a half of a calorie to heat it to 32°F (specific heat of ice). Now if I want to turn a gram of 32° ice into a gram of 32°F water that takes 80 calories (heat of fusion).

Since we’re not trying to make beer ice cream, the freezing point is mostly irrelevant, we’re counting calories (energy).

LandoLincoln said:

I found that immersion chillers work way better than CFC, and a whole lot easier to clean.

Step 1) Run water through it after brew day is complete.

Done.

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Step 2) Sanitize the CFC prior to use during your next brew day. One more thing I dont have to do, or worry that I did well enough, on my brew day.

And lets not forget that in hot climates, with hot tap water, immersion chillers just work faster, and use less water. I determined this from repeated experience, my CFC now sits in the attic.

With exception to the whirlpool Jamil-o-chiller, the submersible pump with ice and recirculation is the way to go. I get down to 62ish in 35 minutes with a puny 200 gph pump and 50ft 3/8" IC. Much better control when trying to hit a particular temp as well.

Also, I use the runoff for my hot oxiclean soaks as well, saves energy

Grossy said:

Step 2) Sanitize the CFC prior to use during your next brew day. One more thing I dont have to do, or worry that I did well enough, on my brew day.

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Step 2) Run boiling hot wort through it for a minute before draining to your carboy, to sterilize the insides.

Still pretty easy.

LandoLincoln said:

Step 2) Run boiling hot wort through it for a minute before draining to your carboy, to sterilize the insides.

Still pretty easy.

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Anyone tried poping their IC in an ice bath and running wort through (ala jockey box). I use mine as a herms coil anyway, so not too worried about problems.

Beer-lord said:

Thanks for the info. I definitely get it now.
I wish I wouldn't need so much ice. 30 lbs is about another $10 which adds up quickly.

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Yup I hear you. I go to an ice station where it's $2.00 for 18lb bag of ice.

I hook my immersion to a bucket of Ice water and let gravity do it's thing. I just replace Ice and water if needed and let it go while stirring the wort (this is important). When refilling the bucket, I use a separate container to fill water from the sink that I throw ice in to "pre-cool" it.

I brewed the other day in 80-85 deg weather and got my wort down to 68F without a problem. When finishing it was so cool it started building up condensation on the brewpot from the humidity (that's the dirty south for ya).

IC in bucket of ice water connected to CounterFlow Chiller. Cools 6 gallons of Wort in roughly 10 mins. My buddy did this yesterday in 104 degree ambient weather.