OK, my hoses are under 2' of snow now, how effective will cooling be by putting my 10G kettle (5.5G batch) in a 2' snow drift? I will keep stirring and moving as the snow melts..

Thoughts?

"Thoughts?"

Buy a Wort Chiller ....LOL

well i did the same thing a few months ago but with a 3 gal extract batch and it took around 3 hrs or so to cool to pitch temp even with stirring the air temp was about 20* or so. if you have time then go for it other wise be prepared to wait a while. if your pot is aluminum then it will be faster, otherwise stainless will be longer as its not a good heat transferring metal

I can tell you for certain that a snow doesn't work well. It makes an igloo around the keggle. I wound up just leaving it in the garage overnight. It went from 140 to 65. Next time I'll either work a sink adapter or get a little garden pump to recirculate the cooling water. Then putting snow in the cooling water is good.

I'll see if I can dig the hoses out. I have two IC's and a CFC. Brewing in the garage with the door half open. BRRRRR lots of snow... Some 6' drifts out here!

Cold water is better than snow. If you've got a little wading pool outside, that should work. It will give you time to clean up anyway.

I'd rather chill in a Hot Tub out in the snow...

i used to cool with snow, and it worked fairly well, exept that you have to leave it ouside for a while. i'de buy a chiller.

like mentioned, snow is a good insulator. You need something that will recirculate cold water for it to work well. You could buy a cheap plastic container that holds 1/2 kegs and ice, fill it up with some water and then start shoveling it in. That would be very fast if you used lots of snow and a little water but far less convenient than a chiller.

Ah, just left it in a snow bank and kept moving it. Had to shovel my ass out. 25.6" of snow fell today and really stopped the area in its tracks...

If you have to do it without a chiller find a bigger container to put the brew kettle in, fill that container partially with water, put your kettle in and use some snow make slush. Stir it around every few minutes and dump some of the water and make more slush as necessary. I had to do this a few weeks ago and it worked pretty good. The snow by itself, no so good.

Chilling with snow does not work, I tried yesterday cause my outdoor water faucet is frozen. I ended up saying screw it after about 45 minutes (dropped only 40 degrees) and hooked up my wort chiller to a sink in my basement. That finished the job quickly.

I also want to say...

I didn't mean to sound like a dickhead if I did the other day.
I already know I did... I Apologize to everyone here.

But especially Dave.....
I hope you forgive The Pooper?...

Ha Shawn you kill me!

I was just out your way for a week...good old Akron/Uniontown doing some work. I was gonna hit you up but I was slammed...working at night and stuff so not too conducive to a session. I did manage to grab a few Great Lakes beers which are always pretty good. Had the Irish ale this time too. Pretty good schtuff.

Bud,

Please if your going to be in Akron again...
WRITE THIS DOWN!!!!

(330)-526-1707
You got a place to be at friend
I wanna share some chat Booze and Music.
I'd also really love to show you my new Taps

Ya for sure mate. This last trip was hectic not a whole lot of spare time but I will most likely be making another trip within the next 6 months. So I will hit up ahead of time.

Awesome Bud

Theres Lager and Ale with you name on it at Shawn's anytime
Maybe a Single Malt too

Count me in man. Thanks!

Always Bro