-19º Stout

Had a day off of work today, unfortunately it was -19º out. Bundled up and headed out in the garage. Everything seemed to go well overall. An amazing amount of steam was produced, glad the neighbors didn't call the fire department! Here's a pic and video.

[ame]http://youtu.be/muvb8XHRff8[/ame]

 

That is pretty awesome!

Good way to spend a cold, COLD day!

 

Curious to know did the wort chill in ambient air, and if so.. how long to get to temps?

 

Wow, it's -5º F here in Pittsburgh at the moment. I'll bet the evaporation rate just went way up!

 

That would have been a great experiment, wish I would have thought of that, I just bought a new immersion chiller so I hauled the wort into the basement and chilled it there.

 

Hi YF,
I like the name "-19* Stout" That's definitely a keeper.
I brewed a batch in my garage back on 1/1, and it was so darn cold, I had to use a hairdryer to thaw the drainage tube from my MT. Didn't take a pic of my steam cloud because I didn't want to expose my fingers for that long.
Brewing is FUN, ain't it.

 

This is why I'm glad I have a wood stove in my garage..Brewed an IPA yesterday when it was -14 out, but while wearing shorts and a t-shirt. :rockin:

 

The strangest thing about all the steam is that if was so thick, I absolutely could not see if the wort was actually boiling or not! (Or how how heavily it was boiling). I know it was at some point as I had my first boil over (this is only my second ever batch though). I even got a flashlight to see if I could cut through all the "fog" -- didn't help.

 

Nice!

 

I brewed last week in the garage while a winter storm raged outside. I still keep the garage door open, I don't like to take chances with the CO from the burner. That irreversibly binding to hemoglobin part still scares me .



This is just after the wind and snow died down, my able assistant is holding my counterflow chiller end.

 

I hear ya with the Co2 thing. I had the garage door up about 4 inches and the back service door open about the same. Not sure if that's enough "safe" airflow, but that's what I went with.

 

If you are still alive that must be a good sign . The other thing I notice in the winter is that the boil off rate shoots way up.

 

Yup, still alive
Only my second batch, so not a lot to go off of, but... I did a 3 gallon boil, and after wort cool down, I added another 2 2/3 gallons to get up to a total of 5 gallons water. So total of 5.66 gallons to make 5 gal.

 

That isn't bad, this time of year I am boiling off way over a gallon an hour.