BeerBorg

BigPapaG wrote: When it's that warm, I use a wet t-shirt...

Oh, you tease you.

Do any of you take a tap water temp before chilling? Once your wort gets withing 5-10 degrees of your tap water is where you really start wasting water with little benefit. Tap water temp can really vary around here with the time of year.

I do the same when needed, use an immersion chiller to get down to usually 70's no problem. So far this year I have been able to hit my pitching temps doing just that but it hasn't warmed up yet. As it gets into summer I'm thinking of trying m pump to circulate ice water through the chiller when I can't get temps down any longer.

For my fivers, I start with an IC alone, and I stir the wort counter to the flow in the IC, to create more surface contact. Once it gets down to double digits, I put the pot in a large bucket of ice water, still using the IC and still stirring. Gets it into the mid-60s in 15 - 20 minutes.

For my 2.5g batches, I put the pot in a sink full of cold tap water and begin stirring, creating a counter-flow with the sink water. I have to empty and refill the sink a few times to get it below 100 degrees. For the final 15 or 20 degree drop, I use two gallons of water that I've been chilling in the chest freezer all morning. It takes longer this way, but I don't feel like using the IC for a smaller batch.

Kealia wrote:

BigPapaG wrote: When it's that warm, I use a wet t-shirt...

Oh, you tease you.

It's even more exciting at kegging time when the wet t-shirt comes off!

Pudge wrote:Do any of you take a tap water temp before chilling? Once your wort gets withing 5-10 degrees of your tap water is where you really start wasting water with little benefit. Tap water temp can really vary around here with the time of year.

I don't but I know that getting my wort down past 80 in the summer with my IC just isn't going to happen. So like a few others, at that point I move to an ice bath with stirring.

BigPapaG wrote:

Kealia wrote:

BigPapaG wrote: When it's that warm, I use a wet t-shirt...

Oh, you tease you.

It's even more exciting at kegging time when the wet t-shirt comes off!

Hahahaaa

Counterflow Chiller, I whirlpool also, in the summer I get down to between 90-100 then use my immersion chiller in front of the CF in a cooler of ice water as a pre chiller.

Pudge wrote:Do any of you take a tap water temp before chilling? Once your wort gets withing 5-10 degrees of your tap water is where you really start wasting water with little benefit. Tap water temp can really vary around here with the time of year.

Yes. That determines whether I will use my pond pump and what temp I will switch to it if I do.

Pudge wrote:Do any of you take a tap water temp before chilling? Once your wort gets withing 5-10 degrees of your tap water is where you really start wasting water with little benefit. Tap water temp can really vary around here with the time of year.

I would if I used my immersion chiller in the summer. But summer is the one time of year I absolutely never use it. Because it requires me to not have a lid on the pot. Which in my house is around something like 50+% chance of Brett C infection happening. Nochill or ice bath with lid on, or brewing a dense wort and dumping a hella lot of ice water in is safer for me.

I'm still ice bath and if that doesn't get low enough or I forgot to get ice then I pitch the next morning after leaving the fermenter in my insulated closet.

I usually do stovetop partial mashes, so I usually add some ice and/or refrigerated water to the pot, then put it in the sink with an ice water slurry. I'll sometimes add salt to the ice to get it even colder.

When I use an immersion chiller, I recirculate ice water using a swamp cooler pump (similar to a pond pump, but costs less).

Well, since I am just doing a gallon of water plus the DME etc, I cool that down to 90-100 F by putting the pot in the sink in ice water, and then I put a gallon of refrigerated water in the LBK and then pour in the cooled wort and top off with more refrigerated water. Take about 15 minutes total. But I make 2.25 gallon batches, so I'm a weirdy.

Monty

^ That's pretty much what I do too. Although with my "new to me" 5G pot, it barely fits in my sink with only an inch or two to spare so I might have to re-think my cooling strategy. Just might have to invest in an immersion cooler. I'll have to see how long it takes with the next partial boil 5G batches I do.

Lately I've been just using the wort chiller and tap water, then putting it in my fermentation chamber till the next morning. (Kind of like the Aussies do it) I pitch the yeast while my coffee is brewing.