Lawrence Brewers Guild

I've decided to pay attention to it this year. I'm an IC/whirlpool guy and I'm trying to track the point in the year I have to start prechilling my water. I'm also going to start recycling water. Any comments on either of these practices?

Today's temp: 58.8 F

Seems perfectly adequate for straight IC and great for you CFC and plate chiller guys. I'll keep this post updated.
Lee

Almost a month has past and the weather has been getting warmer...

Today's water temp is 65.5 F.

We'll see what the temp increase does to my chilling on Sunday's brew. CFC and plate chiller guys should still be in the clear. Any of you out of town brewers have similar ground water temps?

Lee

60d F out here.

58 @11:30 pm

Today's tap temp at the start of our chill was 67deg. We are ICC\whirlpool guys as well. At 12 min we were at 80 deg in the kettle coming straight off the faucet. We then took a Gott type cooler, filled it with ice and water to near the top; the spigot had a hose to a pump; the pump had a hose to the IN on the IC, the IC had a hose from the OUT that fed back into the top of the cooler. We then just closed-loop recir'd with the same ice water through the chiller and brought it down to 63 deg and ready for the fermenter in less than five. There was still ice in the cooler when we were done. Saves on water and works like a charm. External assistance to the Lawrence city tap always seems to happen every year at the first on June for as long as I can remember.

I do pretty much what Jenson does, except that I use a cheap submersable pump placed in a cooler full of ice water. I think it works a lot better than a pre-chiller. At least it does for me. And my tap water approaches 80 in the summer.

60 gal. at 48 d, sitting in the cold room ready to chill 23 gal. of Octoberfest !!!