Tandoori
Member
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2014
- Messages
- 19
- Reaction score
- 3
My partner and I are moving into a house in the beginning of January. I’m excited, as our current living situation has left a lot to be desired, except for one thing: the current apartment has worked out well for brewing (at least I think so). I won’t get into the drama behind our move, save that we have a crappy landlord and even worse neighbors.
I’m currently an all grain stovetop brewer who uses a 10 gallon igloo for a MLT, and stainless steel pots for HLT and BK. My batches usually end up being about 6 gallons. (I also have 2 7 gallon stainless brew buckets for fermentation, and I still have my 5- and 6- gallon glass carboys if I ever feel ambitious enough to have more than two beers fermenting at once – at least until I throw down for another stainless brew bucket – I love those things!) We currently have a large gas stove with fan hood. I rigged up an outside threaded nozzle to our kitchen faucet to allow me to attach lines to my immersion chiller, as well as a 3.5’ length of silicon tubing that I use for a sprayer hose when cleaning and filling. Overall, we had a good system down for brewing that served me well through last winter (my first brew season using All Grain), and spring and allowed me to make some pretty quality brews.
Now, we are going to be renting a house (which we may end up buying). I’m going to have to come up with a new process. The situation there is:
Small kitchen with approximately the same sized stove, but no fan hood. Kitchen has a door that leads out to a fairly large deck, that then has 5-6 steps leading down and across a small backyard to a detached two-car garage. Off the kitchen are also stairs that lead down to an unfinished basement where, I imagine, I’ll be fermenting, unless we end up with someplace on the ground floor for me to stash a fermentation fridge (unlikely, as this is a pretty small 2BR house).
Obviously, the lack of a fan hood in the kitchen concerns me for brewing. I figure I might use it to heat my mash and sparge water, but for the actual boil, I imagine you guys would advise me to go for an outdoor propane burner. Which should be fun in Wisconsin winter. Also, I would be doing it on a wooden deck, which may be against local fire codes. There is also the possibility of brewing in the garage, I suppose, but I don’t relish the prospect of lugging a hot, full brewpot across a snowy/icy yard and up several stairs across a frozen deck in a Wisconsin winter. Plus, I don’t believe there is running water out there. Of course, I’ll probably also be lugging fermenters up and down a narrow staircase to and from the basement as well. Now that I have the room, and the basement, I imagine I’ll start looking to acquire/build a proper temp-controlled fermentation chamber, and put it either in the garage or in the basement. Garage concerns me, mainly because it would probably be too cold in the winter, and a little bulb in a paint can or ceramic casing probably wouldn’t suffice.
So, what would you do here? Should I just try stovetop brewing, and try to crack the windows and doors (which means I'd have to be constantly aware of cats trying to escape), or would I just be better off going with a propane burner, despite the logistical problems that I would encounter? What other suggestions might you have? Since we’re currently renting the place, and may or may not purchase it, I’d like to avoid any solutions that require any modification to the premises for now.
Other things to consider: This new place has a water softener installed, which isn’t ideal for brewing. A shame, because, in this are, the “raw” tap water here in Madison is rich in mineral content and nearly perfect for brewing. Not sure if there’s a way past it, or if there are any faucets not connected to it.
I recently noticed that our current apartment’s fan hood doesn’t appear to be attached to any sort of ventilation – it’s basically just a hood with a fan in it and a light that, I guess was just blowing out the top. So, perhaps stovetop brewing might be fine, and I could just crack the window?
I’m currently an all grain stovetop brewer who uses a 10 gallon igloo for a MLT, and stainless steel pots for HLT and BK. My batches usually end up being about 6 gallons. (I also have 2 7 gallon stainless brew buckets for fermentation, and I still have my 5- and 6- gallon glass carboys if I ever feel ambitious enough to have more than two beers fermenting at once – at least until I throw down for another stainless brew bucket – I love those things!) We currently have a large gas stove with fan hood. I rigged up an outside threaded nozzle to our kitchen faucet to allow me to attach lines to my immersion chiller, as well as a 3.5’ length of silicon tubing that I use for a sprayer hose when cleaning and filling. Overall, we had a good system down for brewing that served me well through last winter (my first brew season using All Grain), and spring and allowed me to make some pretty quality brews.
Now, we are going to be renting a house (which we may end up buying). I’m going to have to come up with a new process. The situation there is:
Small kitchen with approximately the same sized stove, but no fan hood. Kitchen has a door that leads out to a fairly large deck, that then has 5-6 steps leading down and across a small backyard to a detached two-car garage. Off the kitchen are also stairs that lead down to an unfinished basement where, I imagine, I’ll be fermenting, unless we end up with someplace on the ground floor for me to stash a fermentation fridge (unlikely, as this is a pretty small 2BR house).
Obviously, the lack of a fan hood in the kitchen concerns me for brewing. I figure I might use it to heat my mash and sparge water, but for the actual boil, I imagine you guys would advise me to go for an outdoor propane burner. Which should be fun in Wisconsin winter. Also, I would be doing it on a wooden deck, which may be against local fire codes. There is also the possibility of brewing in the garage, I suppose, but I don’t relish the prospect of lugging a hot, full brewpot across a snowy/icy yard and up several stairs across a frozen deck in a Wisconsin winter. Plus, I don’t believe there is running water out there. Of course, I’ll probably also be lugging fermenters up and down a narrow staircase to and from the basement as well. Now that I have the room, and the basement, I imagine I’ll start looking to acquire/build a proper temp-controlled fermentation chamber, and put it either in the garage or in the basement. Garage concerns me, mainly because it would probably be too cold in the winter, and a little bulb in a paint can or ceramic casing probably wouldn’t suffice.
So, what would you do here? Should I just try stovetop brewing, and try to crack the windows and doors (which means I'd have to be constantly aware of cats trying to escape), or would I just be better off going with a propane burner, despite the logistical problems that I would encounter? What other suggestions might you have? Since we’re currently renting the place, and may or may not purchase it, I’d like to avoid any solutions that require any modification to the premises for now.
Other things to consider: This new place has a water softener installed, which isn’t ideal for brewing. A shame, because, in this are, the “raw” tap water here in Madison is rich in mineral content and nearly perfect for brewing. Not sure if there’s a way past it, or if there are any faucets not connected to it.
I recently noticed that our current apartment’s fan hood doesn’t appear to be attached to any sort of ventilation – it’s basically just a hood with a fan in it and a light that, I guess was just blowing out the top. So, perhaps stovetop brewing might be fine, and I could just crack the window?
