changing my cooling method

[mitchm84]

Hey forum peeps. In my past brews ive had access to a outdoor water source. I have recently moved to a second floor apartment and no longer have that acces to use my immersion chiller. Im looking for a way to cool my wort now without using running water. The current plan is to recirculate my wort through an ice bath running it through the immersion chiller or using silicone tubingin the bath.

Has anyone had any success trying this before?

 

[ong]

You can just use an adapter to hook an immersion chiller to an indoor sink. Or does that not work for your situation?

 

[RyanVTBrew]

What ong said. BUT!
I will say that I've never had any ill effects from letting it cool naturally. Besides the risk of hot side aeration, and a slim chance of infection(slim chance considering you have a good cleaning/sani regime.)
When I had no other way of cooling, I'd flameout, quietly stir to create a whirlpool, add wp hops, cover with sanitized aluminum foil, rack and pitch by the next day.

 

[ubnserved]

You should be able to get an adapter for you sink that will allow you to hook your ic up.. doesn't anyone remember filling up waterbeds? Go to home Depot or other and ask for a waterbed fill kit. The aerator comes off and is replace by a threaded adapter that has hose threads on the other side.
Amazon....

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...field-keywords=kitchen+faucet+to+hose+adapter

 

[mitchm84]

I was semi hoping to conserve on water. Didnt want to run water lines through the apartment.

 

[dkevinb]

I put ice/water in a 5-gallon bucket and use a pond pump to recirculate the ice water through my IWC. The caveat is I use the garden hose to drop the temperature to 100-120 F first, otherwise you'd use an awful lot of ice. You could either use the sink adapter to cool it a little bit first, or put it into an ice bath in the tub, then recirculate the ice water through your IWC.

 

[soccerdad]

There is no harm at all in no chill.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

No chill is a great technique for the right beer and brewer. My only caveat is that if you are dry hopping and/or don't separate your trub from your wort, you may need to adjust your recipes to account for additional bitterness and/or chlorophenols. The first no-chill beer I ever had had an amazing aroma, but the flavor of freshly mowed grass, which was corrected for on the next batch by dry hopping after the chill, and getting the wort off the spend kettle hops. Of course, as will all things brewing, your results may differ.

 

[aviator01]

I put ice/water in a 5-gallon bucket and use a pond pump to recirculate the ice water through my IWC. The caveat is I use the garden hose to drop the temperature to 100-120 F first, otherwise you'd use an awful lot of ice. You could either use the sink adapter to cool it a little bit first, or put it into an ice bath in the tub, then recirculate the ice water through your IWC.

If you're trying to conserve water, fill the bucket with tap water, reciprocate to get the initial temps under control. Empty and fill back up with ice to get down to business.

You could build a counterflow chiller and reticulate as well which would probably use less water than recirculating through an immersion chiller.

Cheers

 

[dobes]

Agee with the no chill method. Like the others said you may have to do some recipe adjusting but if you use one you used before and liked it won't turn out bad.
I just put the lid on with a thermometer in it and cover it with plastic wrap. Set it on my porch till its at pitching tempView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1420311229.712976.jpg.

 

[vincentAlpha]

+1 on a counterflow chiller, just built one and I'm still playing with it to see what flow rate I need to achieve cooling (full blast does a lovely job but a bit wasteful I'd bet), given the time involved for counterflow vs immersion(from what I've read here) I'd bet counterflow uses less water by virtue of being faster. Also lets you scale upwards without a much greater lag in cooling. Can't say for sure but depending on the copper you've used for your current chiller you could probably recycle it into a counterflow if you were gentle enough. Also played with no chill a bit, works alright but you'd have to be ok with perpetually hazy beer (or brew dark enough you couldn't tell :cross: )

 

[MattyIce]

On my last batch, I used a small ice bath in addition to my immersion cooler. I ran the exit line of my cooler into my washing machine tub. I was able to reuse about 20 gallons of chilling water to do laundry.

 

[Wynne-R]

Long time apartment brewer here.

I cool the pot in the bathtub until it’s no longer hot to the touch. Then I pour it into the carboy, which then goes into a rope tub filled with water. I add frozen water bottles until it’s at pitching temperature.

 

[djt17]

In the winter I don't like messing with cold/frozen hoses. No-chill works great, saves water too.

 

[Milan37]

Also played with no chill a bit, works alright but you'd have to be ok with perpetually hazy beer (or brew dark enough you couldn't tell :cross: )

This is a myth. I brew BIAB & no-chill, and my beer comes out very clear. Some tweaking of the recipe in relation to hop additions, but it's not all that complicated.

Some people ferment right in the kettle. Some people chill in a cube and ferment there. I transfer it to a cube, let it chill, then ferment in a bucket. But I'm tempted to skip the bucket.

 

[Mr_Walleye]

A buddy of mine cleans and sanitizes empty gallon milk jugs, then fills them with boiled water and puts them in the freezer a few days before his brew day.
On brew day he cuts the bottom off with a sanitized box cutter and drops the frozen blocks right into the fermentation bucket.
I've always just laughed at him, but it works for him and his beer has always turned out fine.

My vote is the counterflow chiller though.
After getting mine about 4 months ago I can't imagine life without.
I've never monitored the actual water usage, but also know I've never had to open the cold water source completely open to take a 10 gallon batch from boiling to 70 degrees in minutes.
There are plenty of ideas on this site and others to make one DIY style for really quite cheap.

 

[vincentAlpha]

This is a myth. I brew BIAB & no-chill, and my beer comes out very clear.

Just out of curiosity how do you get it to clear? I just did a batch of no chill and while it wasn't hard to adjust the hop additions it definitely has quite a haze to it and I don't see it going away any time soon.

 

[Milan37]

Just out of curiosity how do you get it to clear?

Honestly, nothing special - this last time I even forgot campden tablets and it came out (what I would consider) very clear. I do no filtering, dump all of the trub into my fermentor, use US-05 for most of my beer, and bottle (I've never kegged).

There's a lot that goes into beer clarity, but maybe part of the issue is that my "very clear" could well be your "quite a haze." A Google search turns up some interesting information, mostly saying that no-chill doesn't cause haze.

Compared to what I do, above, do you do anything different?

 

[vincentAlpha]

Compared to what I do, above, do you do anything different?

Sounds about what I do, though did you cold crash or anything? I'd crash mine but I've yet to get the capacity to crash a keg(still hunting for a fridge that I can move into my apartment). As for clarity I may have somewhat high standards (maybe?) as I call something fairly clear when I can actually see things through the beer fairly easily. I've gotten that a few times with previous batches just cooling in a bathtub (cold Canadian water helps with that method) and I've read sections of a page through a glass of a cider I just made, so by comparison the no-chill beer is definitely hazy. It actually looks a bit like a wheat beer I made a while back.

 

[Milan37]

Sounds about what I do, though did you cold crash or anything?

I don't cold crash. From your description, my 'very clear' is perhaps a little clearer than your 'fairly clear.' I can typically see through it and make out words, but I haven't really tried to read text. For me, it's one of those things where if it's pretty good, that's good enough. Extremely clear beer hasn't been one of my goals.

 

[soupfist]

I put ice/water in a 5-gallon bucket and use a pond pump to recirculate the ice water through my IWC. The caveat is I use the garden hose to drop the temperature to 100-120 F first, otherwise you'd use an awful lot of ice. You could either use the sink adapter to cool it a little bit first, or put it into an ice bath in the tub, then recirculate the ice water through your IWC.

I do the same thing as you, dkevinb but I don't think it's a viable option if you're using this as your only cooling stage. Really only makes sense as a 2nd stage. So if you can't hook your chiller to your sink, I'd pursue the no-chill option.

 

[Franky]

+1 to what MattyIce said. Collect or put your exit hose into the washing machine. Then do some washing when your finished. Not that it's the first thing you want to do after a brewday...but it will save on water.

 

[splyn]

i adjust the flow of my immersion chiller to use less water. I collect the used water and water plants with it or use it for my cleanup. I usually only get the wort below 80* and then i put it in the fermenter and set my ferm chamber to cool the wort the final 20*. The next day, i pitch my yeast. I find that i can use far less water by not using the chiller to go to pitching temps.