Brewzilla G4 - use pump to run wort through ice bath?

[SaskBrewer306]

Hi all. Is this a dumb idea... I live in Canada, and I brew in my detached garage. There is no access to water during the winter.. and getting that outside would be a ridiculous cost and a lot of work.. I don't see that happening, the sewer connection would be insane costly.

Good news is that for several months a year snow and cold are free. Can I fill a cooler with snow and just run the wort throgh the chiller and back into the g4? Or would this take too long to chill? My other thoughts are a no chill option. Maybe even just putting a lid on the brewzilla itself and leaving it overnight sealed.

I generally keep the garage at 4C unless I'm working out there. Oh the lagering I'm excited to do in the coming months!

 

[JohnSand]

I haven't tried, but it sounds like it should work. Keep us posted.

 

[SaskBrewer306]

I will. It'll be a little while yet (thankfully) until I'm covered in snow here. Just put an email into my homebrew supplier to find the connectors I need... have to go from the 1/2" stainless to some sort of food safe silicon tubing. Failing that I have a larger copper wort chiller that might be easi to source parts from. Otherwise maybe I'll try the distilation lid with a bung in the hole for a no chill... and a cheap extract kit... and see if that works. So many fun experiements, so little time, so few fermenters I need a few more all rounders!

Actually that's my next issue to solve.. I still have fermenting buckets and carboys... I can't find a good way yet to fill my sanke kegs from those.. so I put co2 in the all rounder, siphon in, then transfer. I'm sure there's a better solution that I haven't thought of yet. This method is the least oxidized I can come up with so far, but requires im not fermenting in the all rounder at the time. Need more supplies!!

 

[BandonBrewingCo]

What about getting in a few fermenter buckets of snow to make very cold water? You could gravity feed it to your chiller.

If you couple that with a counter flow chiller a few buckets will be easily enough.

Is a hose from the house to the garage completely out of question?

 

[Grizwold1]

Larry (Beer-N-BBQ) has a video on making a chiller from a cooler filled with ice:


Not sure how it would work with snow but as long as you are able to shovel more snow it should work. I've used it as shown and it is effective, altho buying the ice adds a little to the overall cost of the brew. Took me about 10-12 lbs for a gallon batch.

 

[BEER-N-BBQ_BY_LARRY]

Larry (Beer-N-BBQ) has a video on making a chiller from a cooler filled with ice:


Not sure how it would work with snow but as long as you are able to shovel more snow it should work. I've used it as shown and it is effective, altho buying the ice adds a little to the overall cost of the brew. Took me about 10-12 lbs for a gallon batch.

It works great with snow. I just did that on a live stream brew day on my YouTube channel back in February. Some people were getting a kick of me going outside and back in with shovels of snow. LOL

 

[SaskBrewer306]

It works great with snow. I just did that on a live stream brew day on my YouTube channel back in February. Some people were getting a kick of me going outside and back in with shovels of snow. LOL

I ended up just brewing in my kitchen, didn't have time to make a lot of beer, and very sadly my taps are all dry. Hopefully Friday!!

 

[rmr9]

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of running wort through the chiller instead of water, can never see if there is gunk in there and I don’t trust it’ll be sanitized.

I bought a small pond pump and have a cooler full of ice water that I pump through the immersion chiller. I bet that would work perfectly with snow water too!

 

[SaskBrewer306]

It works great with snow. I just did that on a live stream brew day on my YouTube channel back in February. Some people were getting a kick of me going outside and back in with shovels of snow. LOL

Do you have a link to your video? I'll give it a watch.

 

[SaskBrewer306]

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of running wort through the chiller instead of water, can never see if there is gunk in there and I don’t trust it’ll be sanitized.

I bought a small pond pump and have a cooler full of ice water that I pump through the immersion chiller. I bet that would work perfectly with snow water too!

Yeah I was thinking of that too, at a min would have to run boiling wort through it a while to ensure no bacteria lives, but I got concerned my sketchy plumbing skills could let the snow leak in or wort out... I'm using the stock chiller, and it isn't that good... maybe i'll upgrade to a better one next black Friday!

 

[rmr9]

Yeah I was thinking of that too, at a min would have to run boiling wort through it a while to ensure no bacteria lives, but I got concerned my sketchy plumbing skills could let the snow leak in or wort out... I'm using the stock chiller, and it isn't that good... maybe i'll upgrade to a better one next black Friday!

Not a bad plan! The stock chiller isn’t great that’s very true, maybe I should keep my eyes open too.

Yeah, I hear you on the plumbing skills…I’ve had only one dumper batch so far (knock on wood) and it was because my immersion chiller wasn’t tightly connected to the hose so I was dripping hose water into the kettle the entire time I was chilling.

 

[SaskBrewer306]

Have

Not a bad plan! The stock chiller isn’t great that’s very true, maybe I should keep my eyes open too.

Yeah, I hear you on the plumbing skills…I’ve had only one dumper batch so far (knock on wood) and it was because my immersion chiller wasn’t tightly connected to the hose so I was dripping hose water into the kettle the entire time I was chilling.

Have you ever explored better chillers? I have a homemade thing for my propane burner pot. It's too big for the G4 that I have (35L or whatever the smaller one is), but it's WAAAAy more efficient even though it's a bit ugly. Think I'm going to sell off all my old gear and maybe that'll pay for something better.

 

[rmr9]

Have

Have you ever explored better chillers? I have a homemade thing for my propane burner pot. It's too big for the G4 that I have (35L or whatever the smaller one is), but it's WAAAAy more efficient even though it's a bit ugly. Think I'm going to sell off all my old gear and maybe that'll pay for something better.

I honestly haven’t looked into it in depth. I was curious about the jaded chillers but never really looked into it seriously. I’ve always just accepted the stock chiller for what it was and added the ice/cooler/pond pump combo to make it better.