With the onset of cold weather I can’t use my outdoor hose for running my wort chiller. I’m trying to think of an alternative to trying to carry 10 gal of boiling wort through the house to the utility sink.
Do you think throwing some dry ice in the wort would work? The CO2 bubbles produced would mix the wort to increase cooling. Only CO2 is produced, so there should be no hot side aeration (if you believe in it). You could leave the kettle cover on to reduce infection chances. Dry ice sublimates completely, so it won’t dilute the wort or leave anything behind. In theory you should be able to get the wort really cold, so there should be tons of cold break.
I fill a five gallon bucket with ice and water. I put in a $10 submersible fish tank pump (harbor freight) and pump the iced water through the chiller. Don’t recirculate the hot water into the chilled water. If you had a second bucket with water, you could add it to the ice water as needed.
I think its a very cool idea. (pun intended)
The only concerns I can come with is: 1 safety (splashback/boilover)
and 2, Metering. Who knows how much to add to get to what temp?
Please be careful, but after you try it… respond with results. Positive or negative.
[quote=“WiVikesFan”]With the onset of cold weather I can’t use my outdoor hose for running my wort chiller. I’m trying to think of an alternative to trying to carry 10 gal of boiling wort through the house to the utility sink.
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I use a 50’ hose with a faucet adapter (like the one linked in this thread) to get water from the sink to the beer. Additionally, you’d probably be okay using flowing water from your outdoor faucet, provided that you drained it (and your hose) well enough after you finish. The flow rate difference is 5x between outdoor & indoor faucets.
I think there are a few other people on this board who have mentioned–if only in passing–using their outdoor faucets for chilling in the wintertime, too…
[quote=“Silentknyght”][quote=“WiVikesFan”] Additionally, you’d probably be okay using flowing water from your outdoor faucet, provided that you drained it (and your hose) well enough after you finish. The flow rate difference is 5x between outdoor & indoor faucets.
I think there are a few other people on this board who have mentioned–if only in passing–using their outdoor faucets for chilling in the wintertime, too…[/quote][/quote]
agree.
With dry ice I think you would need a costly amount to get it chilled to where you would want it.
A couple years ago I changed my regular outdoor spigot with the frost free sillcock. No more needing to drain before the cold hits. Before replacing it I did use the regular one but was a pain to have to drain again (it was 1 more step to the brew day I didn’t want). Sometimes I forgot too.
I use my outdoor faucet in the winter. I do drain it and turn the inside valve off when done, also drain the hose before storing it in the garage. Definitely disconnect the hose when you are done. Haven’t installed the frost free version yet, would love to have hot and cold running water in the garage, probably will do this at some point.
I use a wort chiller connected to a small fountain pump. I put my brew pot in the mop sink full of water to take the sting off the pot, then I fill a 10 Gallon cooler with water and the ice from the ice maker, place the pump in the cooler and the chiller in the wort and connect the pump to the chiller and pump ice cold water through the chiller. if you want to speed it up get a few pounds of dry ice and place them in the cooler with your wet ice. And i do recirculate it back in to the cooler. Dry ice is cheep, so I add it after the water has circulated for a while and it will chill it back down pretty fast. :cheers:
Dry ice is not typically pure. You’ll be adding some undesirable by-products in there as well. I wouldn’t ever suggest it.
I also use the hose from the sink method for my immersion chiller. I find the slower flow to be much better at chilling than the outside faucet anyways. I tried using my outdoor faucet a couple of times until I used the bathroom while chilling one day. The pipe to the faucet is at ear-height in the wall right next to the toilet. I suddenly realized that my slumlord had his worthless lackey attempt to repair a previous blowout & had completely failed at it.
Another trick that comes in handy with the hose coming from the sink is if you have a long enough hose you can put a couple coils in the sink. When the wort gets below 120F I fill up the sink with water & some ice packs made for coolers to pre-chill the water in the hose. I can chill a 15 gallon batch with 12-13 gallons of water in about 20 minutes. The extremely slow water flow is a big part of that.
Where is everyone getting theses submersible pumps? I purchased one off of amazon the other day, but the hook up to my hose (from wort chiller) isn’t 3/4 inch compatible. It’s much smaller! Here is a link of what I purchased. Thinking of sending it back unless you all think it would work, or know how to make it work.
i have been hooking 2 chillers together. the first chiller ( attached to city water) goes in a bucket with 20 pounds of ice. the second chiller goes in my wort so ice cold water is running through. i can get the temperature from 214 down to about 68 in about 15 to 20 minutes using this method. hope that helps.
T
