BeerBorg

In reading an article elsewhere I noticed that the author stated that he used his immersion chiller to get down to about 80 degrees before putting his carboy in his fermentation chamber to drop it to pitching temps. It was at that point that he pitched his yeast (~4 hours later).

It never even occurred to me to do that versus using my IC to get all the way to the pitching temp that I want, but I started wondering how everybody else does it.
I'm not changing my ways, but like everything else I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat (with apologies to Inkleg).

I've had to do just what the article mentioned a few times in the summer and my ground water is hot and that works well with my keezer but normally, I use the ground water to get to 100 or so then I switch over to my pond pump and recirculate in an ice chest with lots of ice. I can usually get down to 65 relatively easy except for about 3 months of the year when it takes longer just to get to 100 then it takes longer to get to 65.

I love the new avatar!

Same here....usually the IC does the trick. But in the middle of the summer, the water just isn't cold enough to get it down to temps. So it goes into the chamber for a few hours, then it's pitching time.

Even using a counter-flow chiller, in the warm weather I use the chest freezer to drop down to pitching temperature, otherwise the chiller alone is all that's needed.

Because I split my batches, and use the LBKs, I start with a gallon of refrigerated water in the LBK, split the ~2 - 2.5 gallons of wort, then top off. Wort is ~100 (brought down to that temp in 15-20 minutes by sitting the pot in the kitchen sink with ice blocks created by using old Cool Whip containers or plastic containers), at the end I'm usually around 60. While I realize that most of you are doing all grain or BIAB 5 gallon batches, this works great for 5 gallon extract batches that start with 2.5 gallons of water, steeped grains, and 6 to 8 pounds of LME. No cooling apparatus needed.

But, if I did need to cool, I wouldn't have any issue using my fermentation chamber once I got down to 100 or so.

I have a cheap pond pump. I get my wort down to around 90 with tap water, then switch my chiller to the pond pump and recirculate a cooler full of ice water. Brings my wort right down to 65 degrees even in the mid 90s. And I only need one wort chiller to do it. My pond pump was $15.

No apologies needed. If you have the right kinda cat you don't need to skin it prior to putting it on a spit and Bela would have agreed. (I still miss my Baby Kitten )

I do like Gymrat, though it depends on the time of year.
Winter I can get it to ale temps with straight faucet water. Summer, chill with straight faucet water to 85-90 the hook up the pond pump that has been sitting in 16 lbs of ice and water for 5 minutes and pump that through the chiller with no recirculation. Lagers I'll chill as low as I can get it the toss it into the fermentation fridge to bring it to 50*. Pull out, oxygenate, pitch yeast and walk away. The wort of the RIS (you know you want to brew one ) I brewed away from home on National Homebrew Day was 78* when I put it in the fridge around 6pm. At 10 pm and 68*, I oxygenated and pitched a pint of WLP007 slurry and went to bed.

I will add that when I'm brewing at home I have my pump going and whirl pooling. Away from home I'll stir and or move the immersion chiller the whole time. The movement of the wort while chilling makes a huge difference in dropping temperatures quickly.

Immersion chiller and then chest freezer. It really doesn't take all that long.

I have a plate chiller, and I just built my water reclamation setup. I did a test and realized I was wasting 40 gallons of water to chill 13 gallons. So I put 4 blocks of ice in the cold container and run the hot water to an empty container. After chilling I just refill the ice containers out of the hot side and let it sit while I clean up. Now I think I wasted 1 quart of water ( what came out of the plate chiller).

Our county has a new rule that we are supposed to claim rain off of our roof. So I complied, and got their rain barrels, and use it to chill wort. HA like it is gonna rain in SoCal....fools

This thread would make a good poll.....
1) Chiller and then fermentation chamber to cool
2) Top off water then fermentation chamber to cool
3) Chiller then pond pump and ice bath

When I used a wort chiller, I always ran my water into a cooler with block ice and then with the pond pump in the cooler through the chiller. Took 20 minutes to chill 5 gallons to 68*

All very interesting. I usually just use my IC to get the wort down to 80 and then an ice bath for the pot to get it down to pitching temp. I never thought about just putting it in my fridge to chill it down. I think I would forget about it if I did that and forget to pitch altogether. I like the idea of chilling, oxygenating, cleaning up and being done.

A good number of my batches I top up (even AG ones because my BIAB capacity is limited). So if I am doing an extract batch or a BIAB Partial Mash that is 3+ gallons, I have no problems with taking jugs of water and putting them in my freezer until it's just about to start to freeze and top up with that water to chill things fast. I'm splitting a 5 gallon between 2 fermenters, so a 1/2 to 3/4 gallon top up per fermenter can do some major chilling on its own. Edit: I would likely have used my immersion chiller first to get it down part way if that's not obvious. Or some other method. See below...

For 2.5 gallon BIABs, I do have an immersion chiller that I can use, but if my tap water is too warm to chill enough, I might still intentionally leave a half gallon or so out of my boil volume and top up with near freezing water anyways after I chill regardless. I no longer have any pre-conceived bugs up my butt about "having to do things full volume or it won't be as good/cloneish/whatever", I got over that when I got back into brewing, and now I really don't care as long as it makes good beer. Also, I have to be really careful in the summer though (brett), so sometimes when I know the brett is around I will go old school and chill with the lid on in my sink with ice, a partially blocked drain, and a little trickle of water running from the tap to keep the water recirculating around the pot and through the ice.

And I have also done no-chill in my pot with the lid on overnight without any issues. I often do this when I mash up some of the "juice" of various types that I will use as a PM base for other beers. I just let it chill on its own overnight, put into containers the next morning, and store it in my chest freezer until I'm ready to use it. I've never had any problems doing this. I've made beer this way too, just put into fermenter and pitch yeast in the morning. It works too.

So how is that for a mess.

After some initial cooling with the IC, then a hopstand...

It's back to the IC which gets me to lager temps in winter, low ale temps in spring and fall...

Best I can do in summer with the IC is 68°F for part of the summer and about 72°F for the rest of it.

When it's that warm, I use a wet t-shirt and ice packs to knock off a couple more degrees.

Sometimes I wait to pitch in that case, other times I pitch while it's cooling a bit more.

No worries either way.

I use my Therminator, which usually does an excellent job of getting it down. It's easy in the winter, in the summer sometimes I can only get it down to 70 to 75, in that case I just throw it in the fermentation fridge for a couple of hours to get it to pitching temps...not too bad though