Winter Brewing Outdoors

[BigRedHopHead]

I always brew in the garage. In winter I leave about 2ft open on the bottom of the garage door. Never had any issues with gas build up. In fact I usually fire up a patio heater too in the garage to keep it nice and toasty warm.

 

[Johnd170]

Planning on brewing this Sunday. Expected temp is 30F with a northwest wind at 17mph.
From all I read on this thread it looks like there is no reason to cancel! Of course I don't think I can smoke up ribs at the same time....

 

[Hockeyhunter99]

Mix some of that whiskey with a little hot wort for an extra tasty warmup.

Whitetail, Glennlivet, or Revelstoke. all good brewing companions this winter so far. just brewed today, temp said 9F, worked in the garage with a bottle of Revelstoke to keep me warm. shoveled snow until it started snowing again. i love brewing and i don't care the temp. if it is too cold or too hot i won't brew but that is a matter of opinion.

 

[Yesfan]

Mix some of that whiskey with a little hot wort for an extra tasty warmup.

I may have to do that for my next brew. I brewed a German Alt yesterday and got a bit chilled as the night closed in. This would also give me an excuse to do a bourbon brew.


I also need to get one of those heater belts for my buckets this winter for my ales.

 

[JonM]

Equal parts of whiskey and wort. I did that with wort from a 1.100+ barleywine and it was a little glass of heaven.

 

[Johnd170]

Successful brew day. It wasn't too bad temp wise but the wind was tough. Used a burner with no legs and setup a wind break with some ply. No problem getting water temps up or maintaining temps. Had a fire pit for the guys helping out. Once the sun went down and we were cleaning up - now that was a different story!

 

[cclloyd]

Winter brewing here only lasts a few months (if we're lucky) but it sure beats the 90* and 90% humidity we get the other 9 months. Brewed yesterday with a high of 62* and was thrilled that my immersion chiller got my wort below 80* in a half an hour.

 

[glassbottom]

from our brew day yesterday, cold but worth it! sorry for the size of the picture..

 

[beerspitnight]

We brew all of our batches outside in Beijing and our last batch during the first week of December was the coldest by far. It was below zero and we had trouble getting the water to flow through the wort chiller! Mash temps were a bit all over the place, but at least the wort chilled down quickly! Thankfully we had strong homebrew and a firepit to keep us warm!

 

[Chipman]

I live in Jackson, WY so winters get COLD with a capital FREEZING. While the short wort chill time is nice frostbite is not. I actually cut back to brewing with extract in the winter for comfort and health. Only a few hours and can do the entire rundown indoors. Nice and warm!

 

[SpottedDogBrewing]

I brew in garage all year around. Eliminates the wind problem. + I have hot/cold water lines in garage to use.

 

[glassbottom]

nice snowy UP brew day