Winter Brewing

[motobrewer]

hot d*mn winter brewing sucks. It's about 6F here in good ol' Wisconsin. Mashing went fine, since it was done inside the house. Well, aside from heating my sparge water. overshot sparge temp, put the pot outside to cool....dropped way too fast, heat it back up, repeat....

i had to have my garage door open so i could see (water vapor quickly filled), so that make it take a real long time to come to a boil. now, at flameout, when i WANT it to cool quickly, it's taking forever! wtf! it's been an hour and it dropped to 130. good thing this is a porter....freakin chill haze....

unfortunately i cant set it in a snowback, because it's so cold the snow is frozen solid. so it's just sitting in my driveway....

fun stuff. at least i hit 70% efficiency (good for me), and this was my first complete all-grain.

 

[SOB]

Sorry for you troubles but honestly...I love winter brewing...

Bundle up, get a few cold beer to warm you up and keep your feet under the burner to keep them warm. Yes, you have to battle to get things warm enough to boil but (especially when it's snowing) it's so serene!

 

[EO74]

I was going to do an ESB but its supposed to snow till monday an I aint got no garage!!oh well theres allways next weekend.I allways mash inside u get less temp loss,but u cant boil 7 gall inside!?!? U gotta love all grain.

 

[motobrewer]

i just realized i left the hop bags in....1.5 hours later.

oh, btw it's still steaming. wish my outdoor faucets weren't turned off so I can use my immersion chiller.....freakin' 2 hours to chill....

i don't find it serene so much. just cold, dead, and salty. to me, winter looks like sh*t, especially the roads

 

[wyzazz]

Sissy... ...;0)

 

[motobrewer]

lol, i am.

grew up in wisconsin all my life. realized everyone here is wacko

no reason to deal with this cold. no reason at all.

it's still at 98F 2 hours later....what. the. h*ll? thermodynamic reverses itself, simply to p*ss me off

 

[motobrewer]

check that, it's 3.4F. it's finally down to 85F.

whirlpool, rack, pitch, hahb.

 

[BrianTheBrewer]

Ya I like winter brewing as well...

 

[wizardofza]

I found that winter brewing just enforces the fact that you need all your equipment in working order, otherwise it'll be miserable.

I love winter brewing, but that's only because if I have my equipment setup in a manner that makes it enjoyable - water, heat, etc in my garage. Otherwise it's a PITA as you now know.

 

[Pivot]

haha you wimps down south. Take a trip up to New Brunswick. you will be begging to go back to Wisconsin!

 

[Brew-boy]

Hell all my pump hoses and garden hoses froze on me today between batches.

 

[motobrewer]

arg, hydro sample was hoppy as h*ll

siphon also broke, leaving ~1 gal in the kettle. tried to re-siphon, no dice. didn't have a funnel filter handy to pour the rest in. oh well, it'll be back down where I planned it to be, since i got a better eff. than normal.

 

[Grizzlybrew]

Hell all my pump hoses and garden hoses froze on me today betwqeen batches.

I know, I know... poor kid from Georgia... but...

I went to turn on the water to my immersion chiller and the hose was frozen. I had to go grab a new hose out of the house and break it in - lucky I've had one sitting there for the past few weeks. I did love hitting 76 deg in about 20 min though...

 

[nebben]

This was the beginning of my brewday today:

We get sunshine in winter too. Really, we do... I brewed under blue skies just minutes after this picture was taken this morning. It was awesome. Oh, and insulated Home Depot cooler HLT and mashtuns FTW!

 

[IceFisherChris]

It's -13 in WI right now and will be -19 when I wake up. I plan on doing an outside brew tomorrow if my friend is still willing!

 

[ronaldo_fanbelt]

glad you guys don't mind chillin while your brewing. Good luck out there!

 

[Houblon]

I brewed a BW yesterday freezing my @ss off at 45f and yet I love brewing in the winter. Try brewing when its mid to high 90s w/80% humdity, add horseflies,mosquitoes and hungry bees all while standing over boiling keg of wort.
Thats sucks


Its 23f right now.

 

[oceanselv]

I brewed a BW yesterday freezing my @ss off at 45f and yet I love brewing in the winter. Try brewing when its mid to high 90s w/80% humdity, add horseflies,mosquitoes and hungry bees all while standing over boiling keg of wort.
Thats sucks


Its 23f right now.

Houblon I agree with you. Summertime brewing in the south does have its challenges. Especially when the water coming out of your hose is 75 degrees and you are trying to cool your wort with the immersion chiller. When it gets hot here I'm thinking of buying an immersible pump fro Home Depot. Then placing the pump in a plastic garbage can filled with ice water and circulate that through my wort chiller.

 

[azscoob]

Summertime brewing in the south does have its challenges. Especially when the water coming out of your hose is 75 degrees and you are trying to cool your wort with the immersion chiller. When it gets hot here I'm thinking of buying an immersible pump fro Home Depot. Then placing the pump in a plastic garbage can filled with ice water and circulate that through my wort chiller.

my summer faucet temps hit 93° average, I have a big cooler that I fill with 40lbs of ice, top up with water and use a pond pump with my immersion chiller. I use this same method all winter long as well, brewing in the winter here is a little odd, it was 28° when I started my last batch, by the end of the brew it was up to 68°

 

[petep1980]

8 degrees here in Buffalo and I am absolutely itching to brew. I have a detached garage full of garbage and there is about a foot of fresh snow so it just isn't happening.

I decided maybe today I'll develop a recipe, then figured whats the point, it'll only change 10 times before I brew anyways.

I could bottle my wine I guess..... Ugh. I hate bottling wine.

 

[Bulls Beers]

Brewing when It's snowing blows...The snow is blowing all around. I can't wait until I'm trying to cool the wort down. With all the snow going in my keggle.....WTF!!

 

[Ragutis]

Here's how my buddy does it Arkansas style.

Took 15 minutes to go from boil to 70 degrees by putting the wort in a sanke keg and dropping it in the creek.

 

[IceFisherChris]

That's a neat and natural way to cool!

 

[Brew-boy]

Now that's Hardcore...

 

[JohnnyO]

That's awesome!!!

 

[wyzazz]

Hmmmm, now that's an idea!!! I've got a creek in the backyard about that size, and the small hike would be good exercise!