Winter Brew Day

[Crafty_Brewer]

Yesterday was an outdoor winter brew day for me. Mostly sunny, 21F, slightly breezy.

The temperature didn’t pose any issues.

I lost 4F over an hour mashing in the igloo cooler; I did stir and check temp every 15 minutes, I may just keep the lid on in the future, but I was curious what the cold would do to my mash temps.

I tried out Biermuncher’s saucepan sparge and hit around 80% efficiency compared to my normal 70% when I batch sparge. I may have to install a spigot in my HLT and build a sparge arm, because now I’m hooked on the fly sparge.

My windscreen I fashioned after Bradsul’s design; I was able to keep the burner very low to maintain a vigorous boil and didn’t have to re-light at all. More LP efficient than in the summer without the screen, it will be a regular addition to my setup now. I used clothespins instead of rivets as a temporary measure, because I want to integrate the flashing windscreen into an upcoming brew stand design.

For cooling I used an aquarium pump in a bucket of water/snow fed through my immersion chiller (with a GFCI dongle), as 21F temps with snow on the ground would have led to a frozen hose.

I brewed a mostly Irish Stout:
Dunedain Stout:

70% Maris Otter
20% Flaked Barley
10% Roasted Barley

153F single infusion mash, 60 min

Boil 60 min
EKG & Fuggles at 60 min, 0.8:1 BU:GU

WLP-028 Scottish Ale Yeast
Fermenting at 66F

The brew dog was enjoying being outside.

I still need to get something to deal with the snow/rain, but winter doesn’t have to interfere with brewing. Maybe next time I need to wait until it is 0F and/or snowing and report back with more outdoor winter brewing.

 

[rburrelli]

Cool! Literally!

 

[IslandLizard]

Excellent, sir! You did very well!

You could wrap a sleeping bag around your cooler mash tun to reduce heat loss even more. Good idea to keep it closed. Once you have the right temp, close the insulation over it and let it be.

Your tall windscreen helps more than you may have anticipated. The hot air from the burner rises along the outside of the kettle, further reducing heat loss. Keeping the lid on partially (and stick some non-flammable insulation on top) is another way to reduce heat loss.

Just one thing, when you get to brewing at 0F, be prepared, your gas tank may start to freeze up. Start it out warm and try to keep it that way.

Reconsider sticking to batch sparging. I'm not sold on fly sparging for (small) 5 or even 10 gallon batches. I batch sparge 2x with equal volumes. I mash at a water to grain ratio of 1.5, so about half of the total water goes in the mash. The other half (or thereabout) is for sparging. Good stirring is essential for optimal batch sparging, as well as draining as completely as you can (0 deadspace). I also use converted coolers, except they are rectangular (54 quarts/13 gallons). 85% mash efficiency without any tricks or trouble. I do mill rather finely, 0.034" gap, look into that too.

 

[brownni5]

I used to go with the quilt over the cooler method, but found my efficiency skyrocketed when I began stirring more. I like that more - I don't get bored during the mash and my direct heat BIAB setup allows me to hold temps better.

Been a pretty mild winter here in MN, but we still call 21 in February "pretty nice."

 

[Crafty_Brewer]

Thanks Everyone!

 

[Crafty_Brewer]

Excellent, sir! You did very well!

You could wrap a sleeping bag around your cooler mash tun to reduce heat loss even more. Good idea to keep it closed. Once you have the right temp, close the insulation over it and let it be.

Your tall windscreen helps more than you may have anticipated. The hot air from the burner rises along the outside of the kettle, further reducing heat loss. Keeping the lid on partially (and stick some non-flammable insulation on top) is another way to reduce heat loss.

Just one thing, when you get to brewing at 0F, be prepared, your gas tank may start to freeze up. Start it out warm and try to keep it that way.

Reconsider sticking to batch sparging. I'm not sold on fly sparging for (small) 5 or even 10 gallon batches. I batch sparge 2x with equal volumes. I mash at a water to grain ratio of 1.5, so about half of the total water goes in the mash. The other half (or thereabout) is for sparging. Good stirring is essential for optimal batch sparging, as well as draining as completely as you can (0 deadspace). I also use converted coolers, except they are rectangular (54 quarts/13 gallons). 85% mash efficiency without any tricks or trouble. I do mill rather finely, 0.034" gap, look into that too.

I like the sleeping bag idea, I might have to use that next brew day.

I didn’t consider the tank freezing up; if it gets in the single digits or lower I may put the tank in the same tote I used for chilling, but drop my spare aquarium heater in. That should keep it warm enough.

Our batch sparging methods are pretty similar, although I will bet I don’t stir enough.

Good to see that 3 vessel guys consider 0.034 a fine crush, I mill at 0.035 and have always wondered if I could go finer, but I’ll probably leave it right where it’s at unless I BIAB a batch.

 

[Crafty_Brewer]

I used to go with the quilt over the cooler method, but found my efficiency skyrocketed when I began stirring more. I like that more - I don't get bored during the mash and my direct heat BIAB setup allows me to hold temps better.

Been a pretty mild winter here in MN, but we still call 21 in February "pretty nice."

What does your direct heat BIAB setup look like? I do 3 vessel outside or BIAB on the stove depending on the day, but I haven’t ordered a bag for my big kettle yet as I’m not sure how well the mash would fare in the winter outside.

 

[Genuine]

This post reminds me of my early days of brewing. Slowly we moved inside to a buddy's barn with a woodstove for winter brewing however it made the 100' run of hose from the house to the barn to freeze by the time we needed to chill the batch down. Now we're inside and brewing w/electric and down to 3.5-4 hour brew days.

 

[kh54s10]

I always put off brew day when it was that cold or did a small stove-top batch when I lived in the frozen north.

I now live in Florida and today the high will be 77 degrees. But I am not brewing today and it would be indoors anyway.

 

[str1p3s]

Brewing itself in the cold doesn't bother me. It's the cleanup after. Can't help but to get wet cleaning and rinsing everything and I'm already tired and want a hot shower by time the yeast is pitched.

 

[baulz]

I brewed Saturday in the Garage and it was -21C. Since switching to all electric it's way easier to do in the cold, but I didn't clean up right away and the hoses/Pump/Rims tube all frozen on me. Lesson learned, I should just throw it all in a bucket right away and bring inside.

When it's this cold I don't bother with using a chiller, one less thing to clean.