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Cooling your wort, in house?
Well, in the winter time, I'm a big wimp, and have been looking for a solution to winter brewing. At my new place, I have no shelter, ie: garage. So I started brewing 5 gallon batches on my gas stovetop. Now the second problem was cooling it. I devised an ingenous method if I do say so myself.
I take my 8 gallon brewpot, and drop it in my 15 gallon brewpot, with the faucet running on the outside of the 8 gallon kettle. I then open the ball valve on the 15 gallon to let it run continously into the drain, works unbeleivably well. I can drop to pitching temp in less than a half our.
I actually use this method alot, and it saves alot of time, I can do a 5 gallon batch in 3 hours.. Not that I don't use my 10 gallon set up alot, but my 5 tap kegerator has become very popular, and I gotta keep up with demand.
When I started late in the winter, I took my brewpot and plopped it down in a big snowbank and stirred. You have to keep pushing snow up to the pot, but it does cool fast, And without an immersion wort chiller, it makes it much easier to whirlpool so you end up with a nice pile of trub right in the center of the pot.
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Primary - Dirty Belgian Blonde
Bottled - African Amber(enjoying one right now 
)
Rye IPA
1554 clone
On Deck - American Blonde Ale
Caramel Amber Ale
More African Amber
I have a plate chiller, but I see no need to break it out in the kitchen. After cooling about 4 full boil batches in the kitchen sink, I decided to find a solution. Makes things alot easier.
I do all 5.5 gal batches on the stove.
I keep 6- 5# honey bottles of ice in the freezer.
Cover the hot wort pot, put it in the slop sink with the ice bottles, fill until the pot just starts to get light.
Usually cool in under an hour.
I didn't used to be a wimp, but I'm turning into one, so am getting set up to do 5 gallon batches on the stove. I built a 2000 watt heatstick which along with the 2000 watt element on the stove should get a 5 gallon batch boiling fairly fast. I just potted the element yesterday and have it soaking in a pail of water today to make sure there are no water leaks before I plug it in.
Although if the weather stays the way it has been it might not be necessary. Highs in the upper 30's and low 40's for the next week, or so they say. And what little snow we had has melted. Highly unusual.
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