Good Cooling Method

[Michael]

I realise that at this time of year in NZ, this may not be an issue, but I thought I would share what I have been doing lately since ambient and water temps are too high here for pitching. I thought I was being novel, until I saw others are doing this as well. :(

 

If you are really having a hard time getting your wort temperature down, try throwing a bunch of ice in a chilly bin with some water from the mains. Drop in a utility pump or sump pump, and push the water through your immersion chiller.

 

It works a treat! I am finally pitching at the right temps!

[Ralph]

Nice one. 

 

I wish I had that problem here! Although I am getting my brews down to pitching temp in about 10 mins with the water out of the taps at the moment, I am pretty over this winter :(

[Michael]

I know mate. My trouble in NZ was keeping the wort warm enough during fermentation. I ended up using the heating pads, then I lifted them off of the pads with a little wood after seeing JT do that. This got the temps about right. Then I saw Mike use a heating pads in a chest freezer, with a temp controller. That looked awesome.

 

Now I need to find a way of keeping my brew at a cooler temp without cooling the whole house. My wife likes it at 28 - 29, and my beer likes it at 18-19. If it were not for different electric mains, I would by a chest freezer and bring it back to NZ with me, and use a temp control module. However, that is not an option. May dry ice and a fan/switch?

[Ralph]

no cheapo fridges going? I wired a $20 fridge up with a thermostat. I have a 40 watt heater in the bottom which keeps things warm, and have wired the thermostat up to the fridge parts as well (pretty optimistic for Chch!), which means it will turn the fridge on if it ever gets too hot in there. The electronic thermostat would be easy enough to bring with you, and just dump the cheap fridge.

[Sam]

I was thinking of setting up a 3metre wort chiller in a chilly bin with a bit of ice / icy water, and from there run the chilled water through the main wort chiller in my keggle. Haven't tried it yet though.

 

On the subject of fermentation temperatures - I have real trouble working out what the actual temperature is. I have a digital thermometerl, but it's hyper sensitive and seems to read surface temp only. The stick on thermometers are fairly poor too. Do people just rely on ambient temperature more than anything else?

[Rhyno]

I have a tempmate wired up to my fridge. The thermometer that comes with it I just stick to the side of the fermenter and cover it with a bit of poly to insulate it. This gives a better reading of what the actual temperature of the brew is, not the temp of my fridge.

[Sam]

Good idea about covering the thermometer on the barrel.

 

When I said a digital thermometer, I actually meant an infrared gun type. I don't recommend one of these, as it appears to read through liquid (so reads the side or bottom of the fermenter) - this was up to 10C off compared to a standard thermometer

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

If you put salt in with the ice water it will chill faster as well

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

Also if you are using a truly closed loop immersion chiller you can run ammonia through it that has a much higher heat transfer rate than water. Just make sure you don't have any leaks!