Question for my California homebrewers

The reason I'm asking my fellow California homebrewers is because we're in a drought and I'm always looking to do my part in helping save water (you should see how dusty my car is). I know it's a small footprint in the whole scheme of things, but with water usage regulations getting a bit tighter around here, I'd like to save water where I can.

I'll be making a wort chiller this weekend. How do you guys lessen that amount of water you end up using for during the chill or better yet, how do you recycle that water? Normally, I did the ice bath, but that's a lot of ice and water in itself.

I watched a video about a guy using one of those elaborately coiled chillers and in less than a minute, he filled up an entire 6 gallon bucket with water. That's a lot of water during the whole chill duration. Another video I saw showed a guy filling up his top loading washing machine with the output water.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Do you have a pool? If so, draw from it using a pump and send the water from the chiller back to the pool until the wort reaches pool temp, then use a cooler full of ice water to bring the wort to pitching temps.

[emoji115]that's a good idea!
Similarly, my plan is to use my hlt as a cold water source for my counter-flow chiller. Basically, I'll fill the hlt with 5 or 10 gallons of water, add a bunch of ice, then use a pump to recirculate through the cfc. Then I'll reuse that water to clean the whole system with pbw. Hopefully it'll be pretty efficient.
Either that or you could go the "no-chill" route.

I've only done one brew so far (still fermenting) and I didn't have a chiller. I opted for an ice bath in the sink. After I was done I scooped up as much of it as I could into a bucket and used it to water the plants around the house the following day. My car is nearing maximum dirt, I may have to wash it soon or risk having it towed under the assumption it's been abandoned.

-- Nathan

I use a counterflow chiller, and my first step is to run the water off in to a few buckets for cleaning purposes (about 10 gallons).

Then I slow the flow rate of the water to much slower (about 1/3rd the rate), while measuring my output temp of the chilled wort, looking for about 85°. The runoff water goes in to a huge (40 gallon?) trash can that I keep on my back porch.

The carboy goes in the fermentation fridge to chill down the rest of the way (usually overnight and I pitch the next morning), and over the next few days I use the water I collect in the trash can to water my wife's plants, and then the rest goes on the lawn or the orange tree. At least this summer, I've only run the sprinklers twice - the rest has been watered by my brewing excess (so maybe once every 2-3 weeks).

So overall I 'use' 50 gallons of water, but it's used twice - to chill and to water plants or to clean.

I am not in Cali but I went round and round about water use and waste

I have dug wells 16 and 22 feet sometimes I have lots of water sometime not

I do no chill here in the cold month but int he warm months I use a chiller

I just put the output hose of the chiller in the well and it is all good


all the best

S_M

Try no-chill. I've been using that method successfully for several months.
Not for everyone but it helps save water for sure.

I bought a King Cobra immersion chiller which is very fast. I put the output hose in a big trash can and save the water. I'm usually down to or close to pitching temp. before the trash can is full. I then let the water cool over night and use it to water trees, shrubs, etc. in my yard with a gallon watering can. I may buy a sanitary barrel and fill it up with water next time I brew and just keep it as an emergency water supply.

ClunkClunk said:

I use a counterflow chiller, and my first step is to run the water off in to a few buckets for cleaning purposes

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pvpeacock said:

I bought a King Cobra immersion chiller which is very fast. I put the output hose in a big trash can and save the water. I'm usually down to or close to pitching temp. before the trash can is full. I then let the water cool over night and use it to water trees, shrubs, etc. in my yard with a gallon watering can. I may buy a sanitary barrel and fill it up with water next time I brew and just keep it as an emergency water supply.

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N4teTheGreat said:

I opted for an ice bath in the sink. After I was done I scooped up as much of it as I could into a bucket and used it to water the plants around the house the following day. My car is nearing maximum dirt, I may have to wash it soon or risk having it towed under the assumption it's been abandoned.

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I'm doing all these things with my immersion chillers and ice baths on various size batches.

I live in California also, i save my water from my chiller in 5 gallon buckets then dump in the washing machine.

I live in Nor Cal and we are ALL ABOUT conservation at times like this. It's BAD here right now. Hell were saving our bath and shower water to water the plants. That said, IF you have a pool then using that is the best method IMHO. If not then you can use the water you are running for things like watering your trees, plants, lawn etc. Your not WASTING it your just reusing it. I will first fill up my HLT for cleaning water ETC. Then once the cleaning water is all PBW'd up I will use that water for the washer and wash my clothes in it... I have ran it through my immersion chiller and ran the hot water from there into the tub for my kids to bathe. You get the idea.
Good for you for looking for ideas on how to save.

Cheers
Jay

Use dry ice (not water)

Thank you all of your ideas!

Unfortunately, I don't have a pool, so no recirculating cool pool water. But this really does sound like the best option, as far as using the chiller.

If I do use the chiller, I'll probably end up trying to save some of the water for cleaning brewday stuff and then once that fills up, fill up our washing machine. For those that said they do this, by the time your washing machine is filled up and you've got a few buckets of water for cleaning, is your wort chilled to pitch temps already?

For those saying do no-chill, wouldn't I need one of those cube-shaped fermenters or will my 6-gal buckets be alright? Do those buckets have any heat limitations, just wondering if pouring in boiling wort is safe?

I collect it all and put it in the washing machine as well. I also leave the hose on pretty low and it probably takes an hour or an hour and a half to chill. But that is including how hot it was when I brewed (at least 95F).

AQUILAS said:

For those saying do no-chill, wouldn't I need one of those cube-shaped fermenters or will my 6-gal buckets be alright? Do those buckets have any heat limitations, just wondering if pouring in boiling wort is safe?

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You don't really need one of those cubes to prevent infection in "standard" no-chill. I gather those cubes are really for long term storage of wort.

Actually I do a partial chill. When the boil is done, I put the lid on the brew kettle and let the wort cool overnight. The lid on the kettle keeps the “bugs” out of the wort. Next morning I transfer it into a thermowell equipped carboy and put that into my fermentation chamber. I use a “low limit alarm” probe in the thermowell and when the chamber has brought the wort to my target pitching temperature, I rehydrate and pitch my yeast.
My Local Home Brew Shop owner recommended not putting the lid on the kettle after the boil until the wort was down to about 165 *F. His theory was more of the precursors being driven off during the boil have a chance to escape and “bugs” cannot live in the 165 * wort so increased chance of infection was minimum. I’ve never really had a DMS problem but decided to try it on my latest brew. The main thing I noticed was that the wort cooled much faster down to where I put the lid on the brew kettle and that resulted in a lower morning temperature. That helped me because my fermentation chamber is a wine cooler appliance I got off of craigslist and so doesn’t have a lot of horsepower. So the lower morning temperature allowed me to pitch earlier the next day.
Another thing I like about this method is it lends itself to Hopstand. Basically hopstand is waiting until the wort has decreased in temperature to 180* F before putting in your flavor and aroma hops. So what has been working really well for me is to use the normal method for bittering hops. Be sure to use a hop sock so it can be removed when the boil is done. If you don’t remove them when the boil is done, the bittering goes way up because isomerization is still happening until 180*. I use my low limit temperature alarm in the brew kettle during inital cool down to notify me when the wort is below isomerization temps and then usually around 176* I add the flavor and aroma hops. The result is WOW. Great flavor and aroma without super bitter beer. I have found you need to add more hops with this method though. I’m starting to gravitate toward 2 ounces of each type of finishing hop the recipe calls for during the hopstand period.

I am by no means an expert but the beer is turning out really good.
Some folks on this forum have been doing both no-chill and hopstand for a long time so you might want to research both terms on HBT.

Materials:
Pump, Immersion chiller, silicone tubing. Frozen water bottles.

Method: (initial chill with tap, further chill with water and frozen water bottles)
1. I have a pump I put in the sink, attach to immersion chiller with silicone tubing. (one tube attached to pump in sink and one end of the IC, and another tube from the IC back to the sink)
2. fill the sink with tap water. Run pump until water in sink is pretty warm. While I do this I swirl the Immersion chiller to make sure its cooling the wort in the kettle uniformly.
3. Drain the warm water into a bucket.
4. Fill sink again, add water bottles with frozen water. Swirl the Immersion chiller to make sure its cooling the wort in the kettle uniformly. At this point the wort is pretty good, maybe 80 degrees.
5. transfer wort to the fermentation bucket, this process aerates and also cools the wort further.
6. put lid fermentation bucket
7. Set Fermentation buck into water bucket, put t-shirt over the bucket (now I have my passive cooling technique)
8. in an hour or so I check the buckets temp using the sticker on the side. This is usually pitching temp.
9. Water plants with bucket of water. Empty sink into bucket, water more plants. (I live in California; I try to be careful with water usage)
10. Refreeze water bottles for future use.

Save the water from immersion chilling and put it in your washing machine to wash your clothes.

Use it for cleaning (mix it with pdw or oxiclean free)

Water plants

Freeze water bottles for ice baths, or simple ice/fan fermentation cabinets (if you're still doing that)

I live in San Diego, so i'm under the same restrictions as you. I use 100 feet of stainless steel tubing coiled up in a cooler it looks similar to an oversize immersion chiller. I fill the cooler up with ice when my wort is ready to be cooled i just hook up a piece of cotton braided nylon hose to my kettle outlet valve the other end to the inlet of the stainless steel tubing and a piece of regular nylon tubing to the outlet going into my carboy. My cooler is on the ground and my kettle is about 3 feet above I open my valve all the way and just use gravity I'm able to chill my wort down from 210 in to 75 degrees out to my carboy in under 10 minutes. and all i'm left with is a cooler full of luke warm water

afro_lou said:

[emoji115]that's a good idea!
Similarly, my plan is to use my hlt as a cold water source for my counter-flow chiller. Basically, I'll fill the hlt with 5 or 10 gallons of water, add a bunch of ice, then use a pump to recirculate through the cfc. Then I'll reuse that water to clean the whole system with pbw. Hopefully it'll be pretty efficient.
Either that or you could go the "no-chill" route.

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This is exactly what I do. Save the ice for the second load though, returning the first load to the MT and second load to HLT (which is acting like a cold water source). I use all that water for cleaning.

No water shortage in Hawaii but I water my garden with the water coming out of my submersion chiller

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Home Brew mobile app

Apartment dweller. Don't have my own laundry machine, can't communicate with landscapers to not water if I do that. Last time I used my IC I tried to collect all my water for reuse, and ran out of vessels near the end. I think for my next go, it'll be this:

First few minutes, fill up dish sink for cleaning with the hottest water. Then into mash tun with some PBW in it. For the coolest part at the end, run into carboy , adding Star San concentrate at the appropriate time.

Hoping that will do. If there's any left, I'll try to get it into the bath tub for a nice post-brew soak.

Fellow Cali brewer here.

I bought a rain barrel to catch my water from chilling for one batch. Now I use a pump with a pre-chiller ( copper tube in ice bath) in front of my IC going back to the rain barrel so zero loss after first batch. You can also use the water for sanitization and plant watering!

Hope that help.

Some easy ways to save water. Use a designated bucket or 2 in the shower. Especially during the frequent wasteful time when trying to heat up shower. Use that water to flush toilet or water plants. You can also shower with the bucket still collecting for the same purpose. I also catch water in buckets when cooling wort and dump that in grass or gardens. This allows me to turn sprinklers off following a brew day. Good luck

DesertPunk1981 said:

Some easy ways to save water. Use a designated bucket or 2 in the shower. Especially during the frequent wasteful time when trying to heat up shower. Use that water to flush toilet or water plants. You can also shower with the bucket still collecting for the same purpose. I also catch water in buckets when cooling wort and dump that in grass or gardens. This allows me to turn sprinklers off following a brew day. Good luck

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Here's another one...turn sprinklers off EVERYDAY.

You should be ashamed. Water shamed.

No-chill is great, though you need to have containers that can withstand both the heat of the boiling wort and the pressure developed when it cools (so not your regular brew bucket). These work well and I use them as fermentors too once the wort has cooled (though I'd love to find a 7G version for the extra head space).

However, with highly hopped beers no-chill will give you additional flavors from the long, slow cool - similar to what you'd get from first wort hopping or a hop-stand. While these are fine, I don't necessarily want them in all my IPAs so I still use the immersion chiller with some of them.

To minimize water use there I do multiple BIAB batches on a single brew day, starting with the batch to be chilled. I then use the first ~8G of hot water from the immersion chiller as mash water for a subsequent no-chill batch (saving propane too). The next 10G of warm water gets saved for clean-up, and the last 5-10G of cool water goes into a barrel for later use around the yard.

normonster said:

Here's another one...turn sprinklers off EVERYDAY.

You should be ashamed. Water shamed.

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Not ashamed. I water once a week. My lawn is dead, just barely keeping my fruit trees alive...

normonster said:

Here's another one...turn sprinklers off EVERYDAY.

You should be ashamed. Water shamed.

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DesertPunk1981 said:

Not ashamed. I water once a week. My lawn is dead, just barely keeping my fruit trees alive...

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Also, drink your own urine and shower with the water from your toilet and I'm not talking about the tank water.

:rockin:

Shooter said:

Also, drink your own urine and shower with the water from your toilet and I'm not talking about the tank water.



:rockin:

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Drink the urine of others as well. Have urine drinking parties. Tie the dog up, strap him with a tap, and drink his urine too.

normonster said:

Drink the urine of others as well. Have urine drinking parties. Tie the dog up, strap him with a tap, and drink his urine too.

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That's the spirit of Conservation at work!!!

Shooter said:

That's the spirit of Conservation at work!!!

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You guys are sooo behind the times. I've been sparging with urine for years now.

I mean, that's what they says to do, right? "Sprinkle the grain bed"

afro_lou said:

You guys are sooo behind the times. I've been sparging with urine for years now.

I mean, that's what they says to do, right? "Sprinkle the grain bed"

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You're officially an SF hippy. Congrats. [emoji16]

To the original poster... I live in Los Angeles and what I have been doing is I use cooler and 3 bags of ice. I then put 4 gallons of water in the cooler. I then pump the water to a plate chiller and then back into the cooler. With this I can take 5 gallons of wort from 200 degrees down to 58 degrees in about 7 mins. I found it saves a ton of water versus using my old way of using the immersion chiller and attaching the faucet in my kitchen.

cooler with pond pump and Ice - circulate through immersion chiller - also immersion chiller goes in ice bath and I add right at flame out - still gets pasteurized and I keep a pretty clean space, never had a problem. initial dunk helps and the ice is out of my fridge, i have it make a bunch and bag it.

I use a standard 50' copper immersion chiller, plus a cheap fountain pump from Harbor Freight (I use this 264 GPH one, not bad for $15). Several 5 gallon buckets (cheap HD homer buckets are fine) come in super handy, but anything that will hold water can be pressed into service.

Fill a bucket with water and get it up at least level with the height of the brew pot. Be sure you can lift another bucket high enough to refill that bucket as needed. Throw in the pond pump and connect it to your immersion chiller input.

(note: technically you could use a gravity feed / siphon for this first part, but you'll need a pump for the second, recirculating, step)

Capture the first 10 gallons (refill that high bucket as needed) of hot water from the output hose into other buckets for later reuse: cleaning, watering plants, etc. That should get you under 100 degrees.

Once you reach 100 degrees, all you need is the one bucket, add ice and/or frozen water bottles, and put the output hose into the same bucket as the pump for a recirculating system, so that's the last of the water that you'll use, and can bring you down to whatever temp you need, depending on how much ice you use. (I find a 10 lb bag of ice plus several 2l frozen bottles is more than I need.) There little point to adding ice while the wort is still very hot, so save it for when it's needed.

Total water use approx 15 gallons, all of which can be reused for watering plants, cleaning brew gear, cleaning your car, washing clothes, etc.

Considering a California-spec showerhead uses 2.5 gal/min, that's the equivalent of one 6 minute shower. (or one 5 minute shower plus 1 minute to let the water heat up) Skip a shower for one day (assuming your body chemistry permits!), and it's net zero water use. Or less than zero if you're able to re-use that water in ways you would have needed fresh water for, otherwise.