Its fun brewing at 14°f, my hands keep freezing to things once they get wet, hard to release the wort chiller you are stuck to…lol
Been there, done that. I had a 14° brew day once this year and a few between 15-20°. I was going to brew this weekend but I put it off because there are lows of -17 and -10 coming the next few nights. I don’t mind brewing in the cold… but not that cold. Cheers northern hemisphere brewers!
I brewed the last time it was like this. My propane kept freezing. My pump froze. My hose froze while trying to get the pump thawed so I couldn’t even use a IC. What a mess and made it a bad brew day… not what I want to enjoy about a brew day.
The cold isn’t as bad as the wind makes it out to be. Please tell me you at least have a wind block. No? I remember those frost wretched days. Cleared out my garage and put a wood burning stove in it. I’m brewing Sunday with a low temp of -1 and a high of 14. I’ll be in my T shirt at times. Before that I would mash inside and boil outside, a PIA for me.
Are you cooling outside with your WC or do you bring it inside to run water?
At those temps you could just use Mother Nature to cool down or you might have some frozen water issues.
Outside Northern Brewers in the winter. A tough/dedicated bunch indeed!
I was in a detached garage. I have a CFC that requires a pump. Also 10 gal batches still take awhile to cool. Go figure that Tues I almost made a starter for this week but luckily someone mentioned it was going to be cold so I checked it out.
I hear ya. At least in a garage your out of the wind. The boil pot area might be 10 to 20 degrees warmer than ambient. Making the area a balmy 20-25 deg. If you fanny up of coarse!
Ain’t that the truth. Of course that day it went from 0° to 2°. I always tell people when else can you say its 200% warmer when I finished than when I started 
I have yet to cancel a brew day due to the cold, but perhaps I’ve been lucky as well. Typical January/February temperatures here are 0-15F. Almost every year, we have a week or two of temps that go to -10F or colder, but so far that’s never intersected with my brew dates. By preparing right, the cold doesn’t really impact things, except that a boil can get challenging. My burner output maxes out, and I have had the propane tank valve freeze, though not since I started wrapping a towel around it.
Also need to dress properly. They have a saying here: there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.
LOL you guys are hard core. I canceled my brew day last weekend because it was in the low 30s. I rescheduled for tomorrow since it’s going to be 49 :mrgreen:
I was going to brew today but canceled. I have no problem with the cold but it’s also brutally windy here the past couple of days. I mash in the kitchen and boil in my attached garage with the overhead door open about a foot. But my house faces west and the wind in there is bad news and messes with my flame too so screw it. I will wait until sometime next week when it hopefully gets into the 20s or something. They’re calling Chicago “Chiberia” now. :x
This is why I brew indoors, my shop is 65 in the winter and 70 in the summer. I have a gas analyzer and the CO level rarely goes above 10 ppm.
I brew extract this time of year when the temps are that cold. Too much time invested outside to have something go wrong. I’m thinking about brewing up an IPA today actually. I have almost a foot of snow on the deck where I usually brew so that’s one of the reasons I go indoors during the winter. I don’t have a garage or any shelter. Still make some good brews that way and can keep the triple tap functional.
I was lucky with the Chicago area winds this last Saturday. They were coming from the back side of the garage, so I was pretty comfortable and the flame behaved.
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ElGuita ... 5.mp4.htmlNot 14 degrees but it was in the 20’s when I brewed.
I dont have a garage, but I do have one of those “garage in a box” shelters for the 4 wheeler and snowblower. No front door any more but it does sheleter from most of the breeze.
I was really hoping it would snow cause that would have been cool.
I typically hunker in and have a couple bottles of homebrew in a nearby snowbank to keep carb levels up.
I usually put the brewpot in a wheelbarrow, add 2- 5 gal pails of water from inside, then shovel snow into the water. Chills down in roughly 20-30 mins.
I actually like it better than summer…its easier to deal with the cold than mosquitos and blackfiles IMO! :cheers:
I hear you, I’ve been trying to get my first batch in with my new setup (20gal megapot 1.2 and Edelmetall Brü Burner) but this winter is brutal! Luckily before the bottom fell out I was able to get two vienna lagers, two pale ales a munich helles and a golden lager in on the old 5gal system. Hopefully I can get my first 10 gal batch in next weekend, but I don’t feel like running a test batch in -10 degree weather.
Last weekend had three buddies and their families over for a brew session and it might have reached 15 degrees tops. I brew in the garage with my door open about a foot for ventilation and put up a windblock in front of my burner. Thankfully one of my buddies brought one of those Edenpure heaters so it wasn’t terrible. New pot allows less monitoring of the boil so we could go rotate back inside and help supervise the kids. The nice thing about it being so cold is that my ground water works REALLY well with my CFC. Went from boil all the way down to 60 in less than 10 minutes. 
:cheers:
Rad
