Saving water for brewing

[Richard Deeble]

Given the current water situation in the Wellington region, I thought it is worth asking what people are doing to save water when/if they plan to brew and avoid using the garden hose or excessive waste.

The biggest issue in my brewery is definitely waste water from my immersion chiller. To save water I have collected some rain water in old fermenters left outside last night. I'm planning to pump this through the chiller using a bilge pump to lower the initial temperature, then recirculate icewater through the chiller to get to pitching temperature. Saving the initial hot water that comes out of the chiller can than be used for cleaning. I've used the pump to chill wort below the temp of tap water before so I think this should work provided I get a good whirlpool going and knock off the initial temperature of wort to a level where I can recirculate without warming the ice water too much.

I'm also thinking of buying water from the supermarket to try and reduce the amount I use from the tap to a reasonable level. Plus it also makes water chemistry slightly easier given the doubt about the origin of our water at the moment.

Any other water saving tips? Are you going to bother brewing?

[Karl Hayes]

Thanks for starting this discussion Richard. Before the water restrictions began I've had a couple of dozen baths in water that has partially passed through an immersion chiller. I will easily get 70 or 80 Litres of 40'C water after a 40 Litre brew. Now however, I'll be returning to the No Chill method pioneered by Australian brewers. I've tinkered with this before and it makes a mess of Late Hop Additions but i reckon it'll be fine for a stout.

[Matt Smith]

Ultimate intimacy with your brewing process, awesome! I usually do the washing machine thing, but taking bath is next level

[Ralph]

Not in welly, but I have thought about the idea of immersion pump, large bucket of water and using ice to chill the water for the immersion chiller too.

I think the other things is that you pretty much want to get the temperature of the wort dropped to below 50 deg pretty quickly, but once at 50 or so deg you could probably leave it to air chill overnight and put into a fermentor and pitch the next day without too many worries. Dropping the first half of the temperature happens much more quickly than the second, requiring a whole lot less water?

[Kerry Davis]

I'm in Welly and went no chill and couldn't be happier - shaves an hour off the brew day and saves 80+ litres of water so Win-Win.

[jamie roberts]

I'm lucky to have mains and a water tank. My rain water gets filtered for my brewing, and i use it for chilling but fill the laundry tub for cleaning, the rest gets lost.
I whirlpool chill with a pump on and get through about 40l or so which was heaps better than my old CFC.
I've thought about using some spare copper to make another immersion and stick it icewater, it would be plumbed in on the way to the kettle and pre-cool my water from 20 to 2ish and hopefully shorten the cooling time and hence water used.
Taking brewing off the meter has made a good dent in my water bill. I would recommend a small tank connected to a part of your roof if you're on town supply.

[Grant R Baker]

I'm just going to not brew until the ban / drought has passed.

I have one 30L fermenter full of a 6 week old brew and about 60 bottles to drink.  I'll survive.

 

WDC needs a kick up the arse for leaving it so late before declaring the water ban. They will just use this drought as an excuse to bring in water meters too.

As with the Kapati region they haven't done a thing to cater increase water demand of a growing population, but they have managed to poison our river.

[Jono Galuszka]

A huge kick up the arse! Here in Palmerston North, we had restrictions since before Christmas & warnings when we only had 40 days of water left. Putting out the alarm when you only have 10 days left is laughable, lazy & probably dangerous.

 

I'm still brewing here. Putting my water through a bucket with ice in it to speed up chilling. I'm collecting my water in my mash tun to clean that, then in buckets to clean my kettle once I've emptied it. After that (granted, there's not much left at that stage) it's on my chocolate mint plants for my upcoming minted stout.

[paul m]

I'm on tank water. In summer the water can be pretty warm. I prechill my worrtchiller water by using ice in a 10Lbucket and around 6 coils of copper. Then flows on to my wortchiller then return the water back to the guttering so it can return to our water supply tank. So no loss. Works really well. Temp drops real quick.But we're still aint go much water so no brewing. I'd guess with all cleaning etc to make 25L of beer I'd guess i'd use 200L all up. So no brewing at present