Winter brewing, no running water

I started brewing about 2 months ago and have had 2 very successful brews. 3rd is in primary and should be amazing! I thought 15 gallons would last me through the winter but this stuff goes down fast! I am in South Dakota and winter came early... I doubt we'll see above freezing temperatures before April... I've been brewing in my garage and use an immersion chiller hooked up to a garden hose. With the cold temps the IC is not going to be an option. My pot is too big for kitchen sink and can't hook up the IC to faucet. I've had some thoughts about chilling wort with ice. For a 5 gallon batch I usually start with 4 gallons and after the boil and chilling I top it off to 5 gallons. So what if I add 1 gallon of frozen water? Or what if I froze some water in a milk jug, sanitized the outside, and dipped it into the hot wort? Any other ideas?

 

I think you'd be better off filling a bucket with icewater, and pumping the cold water through the chiller and back into the bucket with an aquarium pump. I think that's better than dumping ice (which may not be that sanitary) into your hot wort. Or, put the pot in a snow-bank, and stir for a half an hour. How do I know it takes a half hour? I brewed in january once, and discovered my garden hose was frozen rock solid. Aquarium pumps work ok (not great), and can be had for a decent price. I did this for a while with a 30 gallon/hour pump, and it was ok. If I were to do it again, I'd go with a higher flow pump.

 

I'd use ice water or stick it outside for a bit. It must be about -146° in South Dakota right now.

 

Why not do a no-chill? Brew your beer as you usually do. After the boil, put the lid on the kettle. Keep the kettle in your garage until the wort cools to pitching temp (this could be several hours), rack to your fermenter and pitch.

 

Wouldn't that create risk for infection?

 

You do have to be very diligent with sanitation. Here's the wiki on the no-chill method.

Edit: My bad. The no-chill shown in the link involves racking to some intermediate container. Which could still be a viable option for you.

 

brew in the garage and stick that *&^% in the wall of snow that will be covering your house.

 

I have heard of people using ice like you're describing. You just have to make sure it's sanitary, as freezing does not kill bacteria. Maybe bring a little over a gallon of water to a boil, then freeze that?

Without running the numbers i don't know if a gallon will get you to pitching temp. I would personally set up an ice bath in a big plastic tote, or as mentioned above, stick it in the snow. Keep stirring, and move to a new snow spot from time to time.

 

Just put the lid on and set the brew pot outside for a while, it will chill fast enough. If its cold enough to freeze your garden hose, the ambient temperature will cool your wort just fine. You can start with a washtub with cold water, the brew pot will warm up the washtub water to keep the whole thing from freezing. Just keep an eye on it, dump the washtub water when it starts to freeze, bring the brewpot in and siphon to your fermentor when it cools off. After you do this a few times, you'll get an understanding how long it takes at different outside temperatures.
You could also get a cheap stainless steel 6 qt pot at walmart, freeze your gallon of water in it then drop the pot of ice into your hot wort.
I think you'd still have to put the brew pot outside to get to yeast pitching temp in a reasonable amount of time.

 

I think the air is a better option than snow. Snow is a surprisingly good insulator. Lots of air trapped in it. Ice water or cold air will work better.

 

I use the same big-a$$ container I use as my swamp cooler

fill it with cold water add frozen milk jugs filled with water, then set brew pot in it. swap out the jugs every so often until I'm at pitching temp.

 

I have the same issue. I brew in a shed out back and use the hose for chilling and clean up.. I think for chilling I am gonna drain the boiling wort into a sanitized keg.. seal it up and let it set over night.. pour it into my fermentor and pitch yeast.

 

I can get behind this advice. I've done this even in non-sub-arctic temperatures, holding the lid down tight with binder clips. Just spray the lid (and maybe the interior of the kettle not submerged in wort) with starsan.

And contrary to the suggestions above, snow, while cold, is a pretty good thermal insulator. You'd be better off leaving your kettle in the open (cold ass) air than putting it in a snow bank.

 

MN here. It went from 50's daily to 20's daily with nothing in between, didn't it? I'm on my first year brewing and was planning on chilling my next batch with the IC hooked up to the kitchen sink. I found a garden hose sink adapter at Menard's that'll work just fine. It will require moving a 212 degree pot of wort from the outside into the kitchen though.

 

It'll still take a long time to cool down via cold air. I pasteurized 5 gallons of apple cider at 160 degrees, and it was still over 60 after spending 12 hours in a 34 degree walk-in cooler.

I would use the snow to make an ice bath.

 

Yep, where did the second half of our autumn go? Now with 6" snow on the ground and no predictions of highs above 20s in the foreseeable future. Time to put away the garden hoses.

But for those of you who have attached garages--you could plumb a hose bib on the wall of your garage opposite of the house side. I did that last winter, using a "freezeless" hose bib. My situation is lucky--the back wall of the garage is opposite the laundry room, so I only needed a few feet of pipe to tap into the cold water line. I now have running water in the garage and no worries of the valve freezing.

 

Get one of these for your kitchen sink and call it a day.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/Beer/...Kitchen-Sink-to-Garden-Hose.html#.VGVx4_nF9qU

 

I have done both cold air and snow. Snow has worked faster as long as the sides were not completely covered with snow to allow heat to rise away from the pot. The only time that air worked even close to as fast was when it was windy as he!! outside and I worried about getting an infection in that batch. The key to cooling quickly for me was to move it frequently. Now I don't even worry about that. It is much easier to rdwhahb. Everyone keeps saying stir but that means that you have to take the lid off and keep something sanitary. .... too much work and risk for me. This is supposed to be relaxing for me not stressful.

 

Thanks for the ideas. I think I'm going to experiment with boiling water first. No snow yet but that sounds like the best option. I'll see what I can do with the ice in the pot. Also thinking a pump sounds like a good idea. My parents have a small sump pump that hooks up to a garden hose. They use it for draining the hot tub. I think a small pump like that is less than $50.

Although I'm thinking that the water in the bucket might get warm from transferring the heat...

 

Guys, the chances of the wort getting infected by chilling outside on a sub-freezing day is really darn low, even if stirring (with a sanitized paddle, of course). RDWHAHB.

 

I don't understand why the IC is not an option. I've brewed outside with temps in the single digits and not had a problem. You just have to unhook the hose and drain it quickly after chilling. I think you should just brew as usual. I get super excited when the temp drops because I think it's so much easier to brew.

 

I have chilled in below zero temps with an immersion chiller. Need to do the hose hook up last second and turn off and disconnect quick once your are done. Also have left it on the driveway to cool. I was worried about the wind blowing stuff under the lid so I covered the top 1/4 of the kettle with towel and put a 15 lb weight on the lid to maybe improve the seal in my mind. Both worked well.

 

X50. Just run a hose from you sink to your IC. Done.

 

Now is a great time to explore no-chill brewing. Forget the hoses that freeze and plumbing in a frostproof hose bibb. Set your pot out in the wind and let it cool. I seem to get just as clear of beer that way and I save a bunch of water.

Setting your pot into the snow seems like a great idea but as soon as the snow isn't touching the pot the cooling slows because that snow is a great insulator. You can set the pot into a tub of water and add snow to that to keep the water cool and it will chill pretty quickly.

 

This is what I do in the winter when I don't feel like messing with frozen hoses & skating rinks. Works great.

 

I second this.

Windy air works well. Moving it around so that fresh cold snow constantly gets to sides of kettle works better. Perhaps if kettle too big for sink, use bathtub, and snow.

...and I'm too late.

 

Is it Spring yet. I live in Western Montana, Bitterroot Valley. Brewing in a grarage / shop that does not have running water at all and heating with a wood stove, Rustic but beautiful. I haul my water in five gallon buckets for brewing / cooling / cleanup and also have to haul my water out and dump it outside. This is not really a problem.
What I do is have a 35 gallon plastic garbage can with water, I add sanitizer to keep it clean. I have a pond pump from HF to move water through my IC. I freeze water in 2 liter bottles to chill the water down to about 35 degrees. When chilling, I save the first five gallons to clean up , catch another 5 for rinsing and then recirculate the rest. I can chill a five gallon batch in about 20 minutes, no problem. Good Luck.

 

I think this should do it!
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1416524933.216929.jpg

 

Thats the same setup I use and it works fine. You may have to add some ice to the water initially to get the wort to chill but other than that you'll be fine.

 

FYI, I put a y splitter on my clothes washer cold connection which is the same as a garden hose connection. Works for my chiller.

This.
http://www.sears.com/craftsman-y-co...a=07199084000P&kpid=07199084000&mktRedirect=y

 

I brew in my basement and usually "slow chill" in my kettle and have never had a problem. No way in hell I would use a chiller outside in the South Dakota winter!

If you no chill in a winpak HDPE container, people claim you can keep the wort for months without pitching. If you "no chill" in the kettle, I would pitch ASAP, likely within 12 hours.

In SD, I would be concerned about my wort getting too cold if left outside, rather than not chilling quickly enough...I've been doing this a long time and am getting good at RDWHAHBing.

IMHO, it's just not worth it, Leave the kettle open and add a hop addition at 160 degrees, put the lid on the kettle and go inside the warm house!

 

Don't fear no chilling, I just finished doing a no chill "test":

- At kill boil I transferred from kettle to a sanitized bucket. Since the wort was near boiling it also sanitized things.
- I put sanitized paper towel over the vent hole and let it sit in the basement till the next day when it was down to pitch temp.
- I then pitched my starter which I had made from chilled diluted wort from that batch.

The rest of the fermentation was normal and I kegged the beer last night. Tasted fine, looked nice and clear. It also started at 1.075 OG and ended up at 1.011

This was also my first BIAB where I normally use 3 kettles. I let the bag hang and did a sparge over the bag to get boil volume. Way shorter day and quicker cleanup. :rockin:

Edit: Yes I realize that is not the traditional "no chill" to a sealed container but the plan was not to store the wort just to let it cool naturally.

 

Just gave this a test run with boiling water. Temp dropped from boiling to 150 in about 5min, maybe less! But then the cold water bucket started to warm up! I guess I was expecting this, but didn't think it would happen that fast. After 30 minutes the temperature of the pot and the bucket had equalized at about 100 in each. I think this should work fine. I usually start my boil with 4 gallons and then after cooling i top off to 5 gallons with cold water.

 

Put the hot kettle (lid on) on top of some hard snow, so there's ice on the bottom and the sides are exposed to the wind. It will cool however fast it will cool; everything is sanitary. Don't top up until after it's chilled because there's a higher temperature difference and less mass that way.

I've done this before in Minnesota. I don't remember how long it take cuz it was a long time ago. Do not cover the top or the sides with snow, just the bottom.

 

Two buckets, start pump and outflow in one, 5-10m, switch pump & outflow to other which is only half water, half snow/ice/whatever, another 5/10m you'll be done.

 

Thanks balrog! I just finished my first batch using this idea and got the wort to 90 in about 20min!

 

I can't take credit, I covet the Jaded's "warm ground water" package and mimic it (http://jadedbrewing.com/collections...eral-lee-kit-complete-hot-groundwater-package)