The Pool Chill Method


I like to keep things cheap and simple in the brewhouse, its working for me so far!
  • My grain crusher set-up is a fairly ghetto system involving a couple of plastic buckets from Bunnings Warehouse and a terrible hacksaw job, but it works quite well :-)
The original no chill.
  • And I used the No Chill (NC) method: this is where the wort is racked, generally into a cube or other container and the air removed by squeezing the sides (this requires a plastic container). The wort is left overnight to cool and when it reaches pitching temperature, the wort is aerated and the yeast is pitched (description ripped from here at HBT).


I was a big fan of the NC method up until a few weeks ago when I got talking to a brewer friend, he asked how I chilled my wort and scoffed slightly when I said no chill... He then asked why wasn't I using the pool water to chill via some copper and tubing?


This got me thinking, I am way to lazy to go out buying and shaping copper, adding fittings etc.  so I thought why not just throw the whole no chill cube in the pool?!

An American Stout Chilling in the Pool!
And what do you know? It works quite well, the pool water is about 14ºC at the moment, I tied a rope around the handle to save getting in the chilly water to retrieve it, plonked it in the pool and took the kids to the park.


We arrived back an hour and a half later and low and behold the wort was a delicious 20ºC, perfect for pitching the yeast. 




So there you go the "Pool Chill Method", not sure how it will go in the middle of summer here in Queensland, but its working brilliantly at the moment, I can pitch on the same day and the brewhouse is clean and tidied all in one day (which makes SWMBO happy...)

Cheers

Comments

Post a Comment