Using water butt to chill wort

Hi!

I'm making the switch from kits to all grain having recently moved into a house with a double garage, half of which I'm planning to convert into a brewery, having learnt a lot from all-grain brewers here and finally plucking up the courage to have a go myself!

We're on a meter so I'm conscious of the water bill. Thankfully rain in Cheshire isn't hard to come by so I have plans to install a 250L water butt on the outside of my garage. I was wondering if anyone has experience of using water from a water butt to cool their wort. I'm a novice on these kinds of things but would like to ask about tips for installation, pumps, volume and flow rate required etc. I would like to have a system that draws from the water butt and feeds back into it. Hoping to make my own wort chiller from scratch so I can be flexible with hose diameters etc.

And is it worth it or should I just use the outside tap? I'd like to make environmentally-friendly beer, but not if it costs more!

I echo the thanks from all the novice AG brewers here to everyone for their contributions on helping us on our way. I really have learnt a lot from a couple of years of lurking here so thanks everyone!

Regards.

Yes it will work if you have a big enough water dump, 250l should do it imho
remembering of course you wont be able to chill below the temp of the cooling water..

The other route you might want to consider if your conscious of water use is no-chill method

Just a thought but in my experience water butts are pretty filthy things as they not only collect rainwater but all the muck and dust off the roof.
I know you're not getting it in the actual beer, and I know I'm the last person to be giving advice on sanitation, but personally I wouldn't want to be dipping my equipment into bacteria soup in case it does end up getting into the wort.

Cwrw666 said:

Just a thought but in my experience water butts are pretty filthy things as they not only collect rainwater but all the muck and dust off the roof.
I know you're not getting it in the actual beer, and I know I'm the last person to be giving advice on sanitation, but personally I wouldn't want to be dipping my equipment into bacteria soup in case it does end up getting into the wort.

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Pretty valid thought there, something I was wondering about when I started using a water bath, so to try to stop any nasties growing in the water bath water. I put a cap full of milton fluid in with the water. It was really to stop any stagnant water smells seeing as my kitchen and living room are one area and my water bath is sitting in the corner of my kitchen

Thanks for all the replies.

I guess the only problem with the no-chill method is the time it takes. I don't think I can commit enough time to give a good stab at making a good no-chill AG brew.

Thought about installing a filter into the water butt to keep out the nasties, not least because it'll clog up my nice new shiny copper heat exchanger and I'll have to see how that effects flow.

Maybe I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work too well I'll go for the mains water. I hope a little 12v pump might work out a treat and it hasn't got far to travel into the brew! Thinking of replacing the tap that comes with the water butt with a larger tap to improve flow.

Thanks again!

HowbeckAles said:

Thanks for all the replies.

I guess the only problem with the no-chill method is the time it takes. I don't think I can commit enough time to give a good stab at making a good no-chill AG brew.

Thought about installing a filter into the water butt to keep out the nasties, not least because it'll clog up my nice new shiny copper heat exchanger and I'll have to see how that effects flow.

Maybe I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work too well I'll go for the mains water. I hope a little 12v pump might work out a treat and it hasn't got far to travel into the brew! Thinking of replacing the tap that comes with the water butt with a larger tap to improve flow.

Thanks again!

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Dont understand why you think No Chill would take any longer to brew, imho it may even take less time and effort, the starting of fermentation will be delayed due to the time it takes to cool to optimum pitching temps, but that is just time elapsed.

and no time spent preparing a chiller or cleaning one has to be a time saver

Fil said:

and no time spent preparing a chiller or cleaning one has to be a time saver

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You're 110% right about that one!

I don't actually do AG (yet!) but I think I've heard that there is a reason why the wort is chilled quickly, though I can't remember what it is offhand. However, when I do my kit brewing I have to boil all the water going into my FV because we have a polluted water supply. Actually I don't mind doing this as the boiling sanitises everything, the FV included. A full FV of boiled water takes round about 6 hours to cool to yeast pitching temperature. I suppose I could speed it up with a fan or something but I don't really see the point. My beer tastes pretty good so I don't think the slow cooling hurts, though you might loose some hop aroma.
So all I do is make the brew in the afternoon, leave it and then at bedtime pitch the yeast and put the FV in the airing cupboard as our house is quite cold, even in summer.
It would also be ok to make the brew in the evening and leave it overnight before carrying on.

afaik the main reason for the post boil chill is to aid the precipitation of cold break, proteins which clump together during a rapid chill,

i understand that with a slow cool down the cold break will still ocour but rather than clumping together the cold break will drop out with a much finer granularity which is less stable as a sediment and can take longer to drop out.

i have No Chilled a couple of beers one i did set aside for a few weeks and the sediment in the cube before adding yeast grew to include a pale layer which i took to be the cold break.

If the cold break proteins cary through to the bottle or keg they can be responsible for a chill haze ruining your beers clarity if chilled to fridge temperatures, No effect on taste, and the best cure for a not so crystal clear pint is an opaque quaffing mug :drunk:

Fil said:

If the cold break proteins carry through to the bottle or keg they can be responsible for a chill haze ruining your beers clarity if chilled to fridge temperatures, No effect on taste, and the best cure for a not so crystal clear pint is an opaque quaffing mug :drunk:

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Yeh, just drink it. Who says beer has to be sparklingly clear? :lol: