what is the most "water conserving" method of cooling wort quickly?

[Pappers_]

If you use liquid yeast, it will give you a real nice headstart on aeration as well

I don't understand - would you say more, please?

 

[emjay]

I don't understand - would you say more, please?

He's referring to the fact that dry yeast doesn't really need to be aerated, whereas liquid yeast (or repitched yeast from ANY source) does.

However, experiments done by the yeast companies to determine dissolved oxygen levels using various methods of aeration/oxygenation have concluded that "stirring" (and similar methods) is the absolute worst method, and barely gets any O2 into solution... so it's really a piss-poor way of getting a "head start", and shouldn't be counted on.

Not to mention the whole issue of HSA (Hot Side Aeration), which many brewers dismiss as "just another brewing boogeyman", despite their being significant merit to the entire concept. Not to mention that said dismissive brewers invariably rely on fallacious logic, and/or a poor understanding of the pertinent science.

 

[Nashbrewer]

For those that use ice to cool water in a container and circulate that an additional way of conserving water would be to use gallon jugs, or 2L bottles filled with ICE that can be re-frozen so when the ice melts you are not just dumping the water. I realize this requires a lot of freezer space, but it does reduce your overall water usage even further.

 

[ere109]

Hey now, my grandmother had a gravity-fed spring box. We did have to climb into it one winter to get rid of a dead frog, but no one died.
As for water waste, I use a counterflow chiller, and hook the output water up to my soaker hose in the garden. Kill two birds.

 

[blacks4]

No one mentions agitating the wort with IC chillers. Its all about delta T. Grab a glove and stir/shake that chiller baby....... as you run the chiller the wort closest to the chiller will cool down, leaving a transition layer near the coils that has very low temp differential.

Agitating the wort makes keeps the hottest possible wort right next to the cold coils and maintains efficiency. Uses half the water.

Plate chillers (in addition to huge surface area) naturally have turbulent flow

I have always "stirred" the IC around in a circle as it was cooling and recently starting using one of the "in carboy drill attachment aerators" to just whirlpool the wort around the IC as it cools.

 

[Ridebreck]

Not to mention the whole issue of HSA (Hot Side Aeration), which many brewers dismiss as "just another brewing boogeyman", despite their being significant merit to the entire concept. Not to mention that said dismissive brewers invariably rely on fallacious logic, and/or a poor understanding of the pertinent science.

I would say that Charlie Bamforth at UC Davis understands the pertinent science far better than anyone on this board and he disagrees with you wholeheartedly.

 

[mahe]

We have way more energy than fresh water, so using ice seems like a good idea to me. Freezing containers and reusing them in what ever cooling system you are using.

 

[mtnagel]

Because many of the people here are brewing All Grain or are doing full wort extract boils, neither of which allow for adding water (or ice) post boil.

Instead of adding ice that will melt into your wort, could you add an ice pack that you sanitized to your wort?

 

[geezerpk]

In the winter, when spigot water temps are relatively cold, I use the IC and stir method to bring the wort relatively close to pitching temps. In the hot months I use the IC only until temp reaches under 110º or so, and try to capture most of the water for the garden watering. I use a combination of crudely-rigged swamp cooler and ice packs to do the final chill to pitching temps. Not perfect I guess, but it's worked okay so far.