Beer Cool Down

[Indian_villager]

Yep. Like a thin flat rectangular sheet of metal with holes for the water to come out of at the end but with no threads or fittings to attach anything there. Works great as a normal faucet. Not so great if you want to attach anything to it.

Is there a section that pulls out to help wash dishes and stuff? If so the bit where the hose attaches to the faucet outlet is threaded.

 

[worlddivides]

Is there a section that pulls out to help wash dishes and stuff? If so the bit where the hose attaches to the faucet outlet is threaded.

A "section that pulls out to help with dishes"? I'm trying to imagine what that might look like, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure I don't have it.

 

[worlddivides]

There are plenty of pond pumps listed on english language Amazon. Just don't get a 2000gph one. You want it slower to give the water time to transfer the heat into the water.

I ended up buying one with essentially the same specs as Jose's (which is also very similar to Tony B's). It arrived pretty quickly and I found that the typical silicon tubing used in homebrewing for transfers, racking, and so on, fit perfectly over the smallest outlet adapter. I imagine I'll probably need to use a clamp on the end attached to the chiller, though.

 

[mac_1103]

I'm trying to imagine what that might look like

Kinda like this, but rectangular of course:

Only they're not necessarily threaded connections; some are proprietary PTC.

 

[worlddivides]

Kinda like this, but rectangular of course:
View attachment 883022
Only they're not necessarily threaded connections; some are proprietary PTC.

I definitely would have been using a wort chiller from day 1 if I had something like that.

 

[beerisyummy]

Before I built my dedicated basement space. I teed off the supply line to the faucet and added a valve and garden hose thread.

I did this too (well, my friend the plumber did it) and run my cfc that way

 

[beerisyummy]

We’ve probably all heard that “no-chill works fine.” But what does everyone think about not getting cold break to settle out & leave behind?

 

[Skeeter686]

Really wish I could use a wort chiller, though. Then I'd only use the ice once the chiller got my wort down into the 80s to bring it down into the 60s.

Buy yourself an aquarium pump or something similar.

You could have it in a bucket, into which you're running your flat faucet, and still use an immersion chiller. The best part of this is that you can use the warm tap water to take down the temperature to something reasonable, and then start adding ice to the bucket so that your chiller can bring the wort down below the temperature of your tap water.

I can't hook my IC to the faucet for a similar reason, so this is what I do when I'm using my IC.

 

[worlddivides]

Buy yourself an aquarium pump or something similar.

You could have it in a bucket, into which you're running your flat faucet, and still use an immersion chiller. The best part of this is that you can use the warm tap water to take down the temperature to something reasonable, and then start adding ice to the bucket so that your chiller can bring the wort down below the temperature of your tap water.

I can't hook my IC to the faucet for a similar reason, so this is what I do when I'm using my IC.

Yeah, thanks to everyone's helpful replies (especially Tony B and Jose Diaz), I've bought an aquarium pump and plan to try this using my cooler. I do still plan to use ice, but instead of the 30+ pounds of ice total that I use now, it'll probably be less than 10 pounds. I do think that even if I didn't use the cooler, I could probably lower the temperature pretty quickly in the sink simply using my current method but by circulating that water through the wort chiller, but just delaying the adding of the ice until under a certain temperature (and also probably draining the warm/hot water, while adding fresh tap water).

The method I've been using has been able to get the temperature of the wort down to pitching temps within about an hour, but it has taken an excessive amount of ice and a lot more effort than when I used to use a wort chiller just regularly hooked up to the faucet, so there are quite a few benefits I can imagine this method having.

It also should allow me to try some different methods of hop whirlpooling and hop stands.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Just curious of how many homebrewers skip the normal cool down with a wort chiller of any type, put the wort in the fermenter and place it somewhere to cool down over night to pitching temp.
I talked to homebrewer that has done this for years. Of course he lives in an environment where this is easy to do most of the year.

I do not do this. The few situations where I've had to, I haven't been happy with the final result. The most recent was coming back to brewing after a multi-year hiatus, and realizing that my counterflow chiller... Wasn't... Flowing, that is. So my beer got put into the fermenter and had to go from hot to pitching temp in the fermentation fridge.

That said, I don't always chill ALL the way down to pitching temps. I can do so, if I use my pumps, CFC, and ice... Even down to lager pitch temps. But more likely is that I'll chill down pretty close to the temp of the ground water recirculating the wort through the CFC, and then push it through the CFC into the fermenter. Then I put it in the fermentation fridge to get it down to pitch temp.

This can often be a 6-7 hour process for ales, but for example the lager I brewed yesterday started at 98 degrees in the fermentation fridge and it took about 24 hours (10 gal volume) to get it down to 55 degrees where I could pitch the W-34/70 slurry I had from the pilsner I had just kegged.