Using an IC in the freezing cold.

[Beertk]

Ok, I have gotten setup to brew in the garage and that seems like it should work out well. I have one issue of concern... I don't have a faucet in the garage and I don't dare turn on the house (outside) water in these freezing temps. What do you garage brewers use for water in the cold? I am thinking about running hoses into to kitchen when neccessary. I may end up doing a little soldering just to make it work out.
Your thoughts?

 

[Krazy Bazturd]

If you have any snow outside you can put the kettle in a snowbank, pack snow around it as needed and stir the wort occasionally to help it cool. Its definitely allot slower than an IC, but it works. I made a batch last week and used the above method and it took about an hour and forty-five minutes to bring the temp down to 70°.

 

[srm775]

Ok, I have gotten setup to brew in the garage and that seems like it should work out well. I have one issue of concern... I don't have a faucet in the garage and I don't dare turn on the house (outside) water in these freezing temps. What do you garage brewers use for water in the cold? I am thinking about running hoses into to kitchen when neccessary. I may end up doing a little soldering just to make it work out.
Your thoughts?

As long as the pipes in your house aren't frozen and you have a hose that isn't full of frozen water, you should be perfectly fine to use your outside spigot. Running water won't freeze in the time it takes to cool your wort.

I brew in the garage and use my outside spigot. I just hook up my garden hose to it, then to the wort chiller. Once you're done cooling your wort, unhook the hose right away and drain the water out of it (either blow the water out or use gravity). You should be just fine.

 

[uglygoat]

the way our house is designed, you have to go into the garage, to get to the basement. we just haul the boiling wort into the washroom, and hook the chiller up to the slop sink.

i haven't used the outside hose bibs in the winter, but do to some shoddy shut off valves, that leak, the water is still on to the bibs, and i've had no trouble in three years in ne ohio during the winter.

 

[CBBaron]

Hook up your hose and turn on the water just before you need it for cooling. It takes some seriously cold temps to freeze running water that starts at 50F+ in the house. This is what I do since I have a detached garage with no water source. I tried the snow bank technique once but it takes much too long.
Craig

 

[ohiobrewtus]

I had a spigot put in the garage when I built my house. It works out great for chilling wort.

 

[SuperiorBrew]

Just get a frost free hose bib and replace one of your outside ones. just dont leave a hose hooked up to it or it wont be able to drain itself

 

[FSR402]

I agree, just hook the hose up when you need it and unhook when you don't.

 

[boo boo]

I agree, just hook the hose up when you need it and unhook when you don't.

I do this and take my hose inside to my basement. I know you already bring your IC inside because you still have it.

 

[Bromley]

Add me to the list of people who drag 5.5 gallons of near boiling wort through my entire house to get it to the basement. I sit it on my washer, hook it up to the faucet in the utility sink and let 'er rip.

 

[ScubaSteve]

The colder the better. Nothing will drop the cold break out like an ultra fast chill. You might overshoot and get the wort too cold if you're not careful, so consider doing a lager.

 

[Brew-boy]

I brew in the garage as well that does not have a sipgot. What I did was buy one of the wind up flat garden hoses. I hook the hose up to the outside sipgot and put my kettle on the pinic table and chill as normal. When its all done I wind up the hose and keep it in the house nice and warm for next time.

http://www.mysimon.com/9015-10974_8-47649270.html

 

[sirsloop]

Why not just attach a hose to your kitchen sink with a threaded attachment, then neck it down at the other end with barbed fittings... then into your chiller? You'll have a long hose to run, but you wont have to worry about anything freezing.

 

[jds]

Dumb question: Is your washing machine in or near the garage? If it is, you can just disconnect the cold water to the washer and connect your hose. Heck, if you have a good quality hose that won't leak, you can run it all through the house if you have to.

Personally, I've used the outside hose bib in sub-freezing weather. Unless it's SERIOUSLY cold, like sub-zero, the water won't freeze in the hose as long as it's running.

 

[5 Is Not Enough]

Do you own a pump? You could get a few gallons of NONTOXIC antifreeze and circulate that through your chiller. If its very cold out, it can get much cooler than water would be able to. You could leave it outside all winter with no worries...

 

[millstone]

I’m brewing Monday and the predicted temperature is 15*. I’m also brewing in the garage and the hose connection is about 40 away. Has anybody tried gravity?
This is what I mean. I was thinking of taking my IceCube cooler and pushing a hose through the drain, filling the cooler with water, that will keep getting colder because of the temperature. Then setting the cooler up about 5 feet off of the ground, hooking the hose to the IC and another hose for the water exit and letting gravity take the water from the cooler through the IC and out to waiting buckets. I use about 20 gallons of water to cool my wort to 55*, so I won’t need to do a lot of hauling of water in buckets. Do you think it will work?

Thanks

tom

 

[skifast1]

Do you own a pump? You could get a few gallons of NONTOXIC antifreeze and circulate that through your chiller. If its very cold out, it can get much cooler than water would be able to. You could leave it outside all winter with no worries...

I'm doing something similar, using snow/ice water in a 2.5 gal cooler with a submerged coil and a trusty March809 to circulate water between the IC and the coil in the cooler.

 

[njnear76]

Hook up your hose and turn on the water just before you need it for cooling. It takes some seriously cold temps to freeze running water that starts at 50F+ in the house. This is what I do since I have a detached garage with no water source. I tried the snow bank technique once but it takes much too long.
Craig

I have a similar concern. The garage is attached, but the spigot is on the side of the house. Unfortunately, it is not frost-free.

So this is no big deal as long as I unattach the hose after I'm done and winterize the spigot again?

Mike

 

[Jolly McStanson]

My wort chiller froze and split last week. I was already to start cooling the wort and turned on the fawcett. The wort started bubbling like crazy so i yanked the chiller out.

Too cool the wort as quickly as possible I pored the hot wort into three different sanitised pots. I pored the wort back and forth over and over until it cooled. It was so cold out that I got the wort down in about a half an hour or less.

The wort was so oxygenated from all the poring in the cold that I had to put a blow off tube on the fermenter 5 seconds after I pitched the yeast, lol. It was like poring vinegar into baking soda.

 

[Moonshae]

Just get a frost free hose bib and replace one of your outside ones. just dont leave a hose hooked up to it or it wont be able to drain itself

How do you install something like that? I wouldn't have the first clue how to swap out an outside faucet.

 

[njnear76]

How do you install something like that? I wouldn't have the first clue how to swap out an outside faucet.

I'm thinking about doing this myself and I have never done any plumbing work before.

Here's a couple of good guides:
Basic Soldering
Installing a Frost Free Sillcock

My project is a little bit easier, because there already is a shutoff inside. I'm still a bit nervous, because I never have used a blowtorch before. I'm also a little bit nervous about measuring and doing the pipe cut.

Knowing me, I probably would cut too short, and I would need two female adapters. Maybe the thing to do is cut the pipe as close to the old spigot as possible. Then I can cut the pipe again after I feed the frost free spigot into the hole.

 

[vtchuck]

and I decided **** it, I'm going to brew. Waited until about 8:30 and it had warmed up to -24 F. I went to the back shed, opened 2 windows about 3", started the gable exhaust fan & fired up the banjo burner. I had my carbon monoxide detector and heated my mash water. I preheated my mash turn inside (10 G RUbbermaid), but mashed in the shed. It only lost 1 F over an hour.

By noon, the shed had warmed up to 5 F and everything went smoothly until I hooked up the immersion cooler. I had neglected to tighten one of the hose fittings and it sprayed water onto the shed floor... where it promptly froze before I could wipe it up. Only took about 15 minutes to cool the wort. Ran the drain hose out the window into a snow bank.... no problems.

YMMV

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

If you decide to do any plumbing project remember the first rule of amateur plumbing: Never start a job unless the local hardware store/plumbing supply shop is open!

 

[flyangler18]

I use a recirculating pond pump with my IC with a Rubbermaid bin of water/ice. Keeps the driveway from turning into an ice slick, and I conserve a fair bit of water. It's my all-season chilling set-up.

 

[Zymurgrafi]

I use a recirculating pond pump with my IC with a Rubbermaid bin of water/ice. Keeps the driveway from turning into an ice slick, and I conserve a fair bit of water. It's my all-season chilling set-up.

I like that idea a lot! What size pump? I suppose in the winter it works great as you can shovel snow in there as the returning water warms it up? Doesn't it overflow at some point though as you add ice to re-cool the water? Any problem with the pump freezing?


I have been running a hose from the laundry sink out the back door as my outside spigot does freeze up.

 

[flyangler18]

I like that idea a lot! What size pump? I suppose in the winter it works great as you can shovel snow in there as the returning water warms it up? Doesn't it overflow at some point though as you add ice to re-cool the water? Any problem with the pump freezing?


I have been running a hose from the laundry sink out the back door as my outside spigot does freeze up.

I think my pump is rated for like 500+ GPH, if memory serves. The trick is don't recirculate the water for the first 5-10 minutes; use that to clean your MLT, for example. It's counterproductive to put 150+ ° water back into your ice bath. I originally adopted the idea from Ed for summertime cooling, but it works equally well in the winter when there is a risk of the pipes freezing.

No problems with the pump freezing!

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I have been running a hose from the laundry sink out the back door as my outside spigot does freeze up.

This just made me think...has anybody ever used their washing machine as the recirculator? Just fill it with water/ice and connect the washer drain line to the IC inlet then let the IC outlet run back into the top of the washer. Ok that sounds kinda silly but...it would work.

 

[mmb]

I've dumped the discharge from the chiller into the washing machine, but never used the washer as a pump. I don't fear the foam but I would fear the laundry detergent.

 

[springer]

this is what I did this weekend recirculate with one of those little pumps that use an electric drill worked great .

with my state of the art drill trigger lock...

used very little water and just kept adding snow to it then just dumped it into the storm drain.
I just give the hose a blast of air from the compressor to purge the water.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Great ideas, I always learn something reading here.

 

[njnear76]

I just put in my frost free spillcock. Pretty awesome. I went with the 6 inch only because it was my first plumbing job and the existing shutoff valve was 10.5" from the exterior wall.

Bottom line, I'm quite happy. I probably will still shutoff the valve in cold weather, but it is nice to have some extra protection with the frost free spillcock. Also I got some plumbing experience. Knowledge is power!