finally got my act together - ice for chilling

[Walker]

You're right on the money though. The only problem is if you brew back-back, the ice-maker does not have enough time keep up. Ask me how I know...

At the rate I collected ice thos week, I'm sure i could brew every weekend and have a solid supply. More often than that and I would have to buy.

Furtunately, I usually brew every other week, so I should be good.

 

[azscoob]

Damn, that's a lot of ice. Are you doing 10 gallon batches?

For full disclosure, I use my IC in a backwards manner.

My copper coil is also the HEX for my HERMS, so it has a temp probe connected to one port of it. During HERMS mashing, I have my hoses set up so that the temp probe is at the output of the coil. When it comes time to chill, I swap the hoses so that the temp probe is at the input of the coil.

Then I sit the coil into my HLT, fill the HLT with ice water, and start pumping the wort through the coil. The output of the coil goes right back into the kettle.

I keep circulating this until the temp probe shows me that I am at pitching temp, then I pull the coil out of the ice water and redirect the output of the coil into the fermenter.

That is for a 5 gallon batch, it will also cool off a 10 gallon batch though. my biggest problem is that I have had 103 degree cold water out of the tap, this melts a lot of ice pretty quick so I go through a bit just prepping the ice bath. I am looking into a counterflow setup or a plate chiller and use subzero brine or glycol. Or maybe I could just move out of hell.

 

[demonrichie]

youre lucky u got one of those ice makers. i gotta make my ice in those 12 cube ice trays(and ive only got a couple) luckily im only doing 3 gal batches once in a blue moon or id be screwed. when i get my 6 gal fermenter and bigger pot swmbo is guna kill me when she sees the fridge freezer packed with ice cube trays

 

[Ohio-Ed]

Walker -
Sorry... I guess I'm responsible for derailing your thread by suggesting the idea of freezing bottles for reuse. I was thinking of myself and something that could be done all at once during brew day cleanup. I agree, collecting ice is a pretty simple solution. In fact I may start doing this myself.

 

[Walker]

Nah... That was still chilling related. We really went into the weeds when Revvy showed up. Midget clown porn?

 

[mrk305]

Yeah, well... I just filled up a tupperware with ice. Thanks for the hint/reminder. My icemake almost holds enough to chill a batch. I still use a frozen bottle in the middle of my chiller more as a spacer & then fill the outside with cubes.

 

[Budzu]

More food for thought on this topic: I brew alot of lagers and all 12g batches so chilling is quite an ordeal. I use about 60-70 lbs of ice to chill a batch, and I've been using the same water and ice for several batches I have a deep freezer right beside my rig and 16 ice trays. When I'm done chilling (wort is at 45F) I just refreeze it all. I have to dump and refill the 16 ice trays a few times before the next brew however. I wonder how much electricity I end up using to do this... Oh Well!

 

[weirdboy]

Got my batch chilled down to 45F no problem using my saved up ice yesterday.

 

[KCPyrate]

I know this thread has gone all different directions but, thanks Walker for passing this on... such a simple solution that will save me about $9 per brew! Midget Clown Porn? Seriously?