# Chilling the wort.



## hooper80 (13/3/17)

Hi, it takes me over a hour to get wort down to pitching temp. I have an immersion chiller in the kettle, also have one in an igloo with is my ice bath that chills the water before it heads into the kettle. The time and water waste is huge. I'm thinking of getting a counter flow heat exchange?



Are these a better way than a plate heat exchange?
And do I have to recirculate the wort through the pump into the heat exchange and back into my kettle? Or... does it work fast enough to go straight from kettle-pump-exchange-fermenter?
Thanks


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## Danscraftbeer (13/3/17)

2c.
I use my rain water tank (1000lt IBC) pumped and returned to the tank. It takes me 40min, maybe an hour with an immersion chiller. If I want to get lower and the tank water isn't cold enough (~20c) the tap water is at around 10c so I finish off the chill that way and the water is returned to the tank so there is no waste.
For lagers I've had a 50lt tub with Ice water and pumped that to finish the chill. If you've got temp control for the ferment then you can get away with pitching at say 5c higher than your temp target and by 12 to 24 hours it will drop to your temp target.


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## Gigantorus (13/3/17)

I use the old laundry tub and pack heaps of ice (4 x 2L ice cream container size blocks and 3 x 2L bottles) and tap water around my large 38L pot, which I transfer the wort into. Pic attached.

I strain the wort as I transfer to the pot as well. And then strain again as I transfer to the fermenter. Nice clean brew - particularly as I cold crash at 1C as well.

The ice bath takes the 23L of wort from 100C down to 25C in 45 mins at the moment. I create the ice blocks in the freezer of my brew fridge - so making the most of the fridge.

I too just can't bring myself to using the chiller that came with the Robobrew. 

Cheers,

Pete


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## JDW81 (13/3/17)

If you're worried about wasting water (which is a fair concern in Australia), have a think about the no chill option.

Means you won't be pitching your yeast on the same day, but at least you won't be wasting hundreds of litres of water each time you chill your wort.

Counterflow chillers and plate chillers are pretty much the same (with respect to speed), however plate chillers (and to a lesser extend counterflow) can be a bugger to keep clean, and have been a source on infection for some brewers.

The one you've attached a picture of should get the wort down to pitching temp fairly quickly (probable about 20-30% faster than an immersion chiller) and if well built should serve you well for many years to come.

JD


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## hooper80 (13/3/17)

JDW81 said:


> If you're worried about wasting water (which is a fair concern in Australia), have a think about the no chill option.
> 
> Means you won't be pitching your yeast on the same day, but at least you won't be wasting hundreds of litres of water each time you chill your wort.
> 
> ...


Yeah that's my only concern is another area for infections and something more to clean.


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## Bonenose (13/3/17)

Still new to brewing so trying to sort things out, I have struggled on my first brews using robobrew and the immersion chiller. Have hooked up the chiller to garden hose and simply run out onto a bit of dead ground until temp drops then run into the garden or put a sprinkler on. Problem is water out of my tap is 32 degrees so have really struggled to get below this. This is my latest idea doing a brew now so will test shortly. Plan on dropping to 40 or so then run ice water through the cooler with the pump.


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## earle (13/3/17)

What size batch are you chilling?


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## Bonenose (13/3/17)

23 litres


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## earle (13/3/17)

earle said:


> What size batch are you chilling?


Sorry, question was aimed at OP. Like the idea of you pump though.


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## Bonenose (13/3/17)

Cool, thanks I am hoping it speeds things up somewhat


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## 2cranky (13/3/17)

Hey Hooper80,
I have similar setup. I get mine down to 25-28c in about 20 minutes.
i probably only use 80 litres of water
18 meters copper immersed in kettle and about 9 meters in a water cooler. i run the hose through the 9m then from that to the 18m in the kettle. the hose is only going quite slow.
for the first 7-10 min i just cool the wort. i use the mash paddle to circulate the wort in the kettle. its probably around 45c after 7-10min. then i fill the water cooler with ice slurry (water and ice blocks). I have a helper jiggle the chiller in the ice constantly while i keep the wort circulating in the kettle with the mash paddle.

Water is a really bad conductor so if you don't circulate both the wort and ice, the temp of both will tend to stall.


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## hooper80 (13/3/17)

earle said:


> Sorry, question was aimed at OP. Like the idea of you pump though.


44lts, I put all cooler water on garden and do get it down eventually to 23 degrees. Just want a faster way


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## hooper80 (13/3/17)

2cranky said:


> Hey Hooper80,
> I have similar setup. I get mine down to 25-28c in about 20 minutes.
> i probably only use 80 litres of water
> 18 meters copper immersed in kettle and about 9 meters in a water cooler. i run the hose through the 9m then from that to the 18m in the kettle. the hose is only going quite slow.
> ...


Yeah thanks. I don't like to take the lid off the kettle once boil is over. Had a few issues in the past. It seems stirring it really sure does speed things up. 
I go from the garden hose through a micro sprinkler that sprays the kettle, then through 18mts in my igloo water cooler filled with big 5lt ice blocks, then through my 18 MTs in the kettle then into the sprinkler on the lawn. 
It's not so much a water waste issue as it's a time issue. Takes over a hour min to get down 25-23 degrees.


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## Droopy Brew (13/3/17)

Plate chiller FTW. 50L batch in the fermenter in 20 minutes at ambient. The fermentation fridge does the rest of the job to get to pitching temp in an hour or 2.

I dont know how some people have issues with Plate chillers- as long as you blast a good amount of water through it straight after using, give it a bath in your preferred cleaner overnight and give it another blast out and proper drain I have never had an issue. Some do but perhaps their cleaning process is amiss or they drain too much shit though it- I dont know but I've found them great.


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## Dr_Rocks (13/3/17)

I used to use a copper immersion chiller running from an ice bath and recirculated, generally this took about 45 minutes for a single batch of 23L

Now I use a cheap 20 plate wort chiller which I got online and this takes about 15 minutes for the same batch size. I do a single recirculation of the wort and I water the lawn with the warm water runoff. I won't go back to the immersion chiller alone but may use it in conjunction with the plate chiller.


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## 2cranky (14/3/17)

hooper80 said:


> Yeah thanks. I don't like to take the lid off the kettle once boil is over. Had a few issues in the past. It seems stirring it really sure does speed things up.
> I go from the garden hose through a micro sprinkler that sprays the kettle, then through 18mts in my igloo water cooler filled with big 5lt ice blocks, then through my 18 MTs in the kettle then into the sprinkler on the lawn.
> It's not so much a water waste issue as it's a time issue. Takes over a hour min to get down 25-23 degrees


Hey Hooper80,
I'm not sure if your sprinkler will do much. Too much mass in the kettle too little in the sprinkler.
Has your lid got cutouts for your immersion chiller? you could just jiggle or raise/lower the chiller in your kettle to create some movement.
For the ice do a test. While chilling feel the pipe (water from ice to kettle), jiggle the chiller in your ice while still feeling the pipe. It will go from cool - maybe around 15c or more to <5c very quickly. So it is well worth having the liquid in both vessels constantly moving. You could even just rock your kettle back and forth that would be enough to make some difference. or make a giant stir plate! :lol:
By rights you should be able to get down to low 20s quicker than my 20 minutes, you have double the ice bucket cooling.


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## technobabble66 (14/3/17)

Droopy Brew said:


> Plate chiller FTW. 50L batch in the fermenter in 20 minutes at ambient. The fermentation fridge does the rest of the job to get to pitching temp in an hour or 2.
> 
> I dont know how some people have issues with Plate chillers- as long as you blast a good amount of water through it straight after using, give it a bath in your preferred cleaner overnight and give it another blast out and proper drain I have never had an issue. Some do but perhaps their cleaning process is amiss or they drain too much shit though it- I dont know but I've found them great.


+1 to this. Cleaning isn't that difficult if you're just a little thorough. 

And also +1 to No Chill, or cubing. It's so damn easy and convenient. Stick your wort into a cube after 10-40mins of whirlpool (however long you want), seal the cube and use/pitch it the next day or 6 months later. Whenever you have a brewing window, knock out a batch and put the resulting cube on a shelf to use whenever your FV/fridge/yeast is ready. Just add an imaginary 15-20mins onto your boil time (FWH is a fantastic option for NC, I find) and get stuck into cube hopping [emoji6]


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## Bribie G (14/3/17)

Only ever had three cube infections in nearly 10 years.

If you are worried about having one more bit of gear to clean, then a plate or counterflow chiller would actually be more dicking around (I actually have a coil chiller in the shed, somewhere).


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## TheWiggman (14/3/17)

If using an immersion chiller it's critical that you keep the WORT circulating. If it's not moving you'll lose a hell of a lot of efficiency in cooling. Pretty easy to solve -

Stir the wort using a spoon
Move the chiller around
Recirculate the wort
This applies for all liquid-metal-liquid interfaces, including the one in the ice bath. Do that and you'll knock a lot of time off your chilling.


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## wobbly (14/3/17)

As well as keeping the wort moving another important factor that determines cooling time is the amount/surface area of you chiller. More length on an immersion chiller isn't generally the answer you need to increase the number of paths hence a chiller that has two or even three "shorter coils" connected in parallel will significantly improve/reduce the time to chill and hence the amount of water used. Another advantage of this type of chiller is that you will leave most/all of the cold break in the kettle rather than it going to the fermenter as it will with a plate chiller and a no chill cube unless you are careful when empty it into the fermenter. Now I'm sure all those that " no chill" will be quick to counter this statement.

Cheers

Wobbly


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## Bribie G (14/3/17)

I'll bite:
Cold break has no adverse effects in the fermenter.

The reason that commercial breweries dislike it is that it takes up $$$$ space in the fermenter when it sinks to the bottom.
If anything cold break can contribute towards yeast nutrient. At a blind test at my old home brew club, the punters actually preferred the cold break beer as opposed to the one from which the cold break had been removed (from the same batch).


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## Matplat (14/3/17)

Another way to improve cooling performance is with your pre-chiller.

Instead of running your water through a coil in an ice bath, just use the actual water in the ice bath. It removes a boundary that the cooling energy has to cross (the surface of your pre-chiller coil).

I haven't done it yet, (as I've only just got an extra freezer to generate ice) but next brew, I will make an ice bath in a spare FV, connect the outlet to the immersion coil in the kettle, gravity fed, and run water in the top to maintain the level and keep the ice covered. Hoping to significantly reduce chilling time.... with current tap water temps it takes a good 30-40 mins to get to 30deg.


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## huez (14/3/17)

I use a plate chiller and a pond pump in an old fermenter to pump ice water through it. I just buy a couple of bags of ice and dump it in the water as it melts, use the left over water to do a load of washing. Kettle to fermenter at pitching temp in under 10mins. I'd imagine the one you posted would just be less efficient if using the same technique, you wouldn't have to worry about clogging it though.


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## Mics100 (17/4/17)

I've been using the no chill method for a long time and wondering whether an immersion chiller might help to improve IBU accuracy. Does the no chill mean that there is greater contact time with hops, therefore my flameout hops become 20 min hops due to time wasted with whirlpool and no chill?


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## Lionman (18/4/17)

I have recently started all grain brewing and am fast becoming a huge fan of no-chill. 

First two batches were delicious. Just polished off a 20l keg of IPA while camping and it was really nice. Bursting with hop flavour and aroma.

Brew day is long enough without another step that takes ages and creates more cleaning.


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## Paddy Melon (19/11/19)

I was checking this post because I too wanted to get my wort temp down quickly. My question is can you simply put purified ice into the wort itself?


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## dkril (19/11/19)

Paddy Melon said:


> I was checking this post because I too wanted to get my wort temp down quickly. My question is can you simply put purified ice into the wort itself?


Yes, but you have to work out the dilution rate and boil the wort down to a much lower volume.

I've only ever known one person who brewed that way. 8-10 litres of wort at the end of the boil, then add ice to hit pitching temperature.


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## Neil Jansen (20/11/19)

The last entry in this linked thread shows how you can get quite a bit of cooling using a two-stage system. An item that I left out of the photo was a small fish tank pump that circulates the ice-water around the coils in the HLT. It makes a big difference. See it here https://aussiehomebrewer.com/thread...immersion-chiller-coil-from-5-16-inch.100141/


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## Daveykyevad (20/11/19)

I've had good success combining an immersion chiller and a paint stirrer attached to battery powered drill. There's lot of foam, but I'm not too concerned about hot side aeration.

Using water straight from the tap I think I've been able to get from 90 down to about 25 degrees in less than 10 mins. Might use about 50 litres of water which can then be used in clean up.


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## Paddy Melon (20/11/19)

dkril said:


> Yes, but you have to work out the dilution rate and boil the wort down to a much lower volume.
> 
> I've only ever known one person who brewed that way. 8-10 litres of wort at the end of the boil, then add ice to hit pitching temperature.


Thanks dkril, I actually used the ice in my latest batch before posting the question. Then I thought about it, thus the post. Hopefully everything else I did was right. I certainly calculated the ice into the water volume so fingers crossed. I'll know in about a month.


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## Paddy Melon (20/11/19)

While I'm on a roll, with this last batch I had my yeast starter going but the temperature sat at about 26 degrees, this was the ambient temperature because of the high hot spell we'd been having. I was using a lager yeast and pitched it at between 26 and 27 degrees then placed it in the ferment fridge dropping it to 11.5 degrees. would the higher temps in growing the yeast have affected the yeast? After two days there seems to be activity, albeit very slow, and there is a krausen ring around the fermenter. I know lager yeast is slow but just wondering if the initial temperatures would have affected it.


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## dkril (20/11/19)

Paddy Melon said:


> Thanks dkril, I actually used the ice in my latest batch before posting the question. Then I thought about it, thus the post. Hopefully everything else I did was right. I certainly calculated the ice into the water volume so fingers crossed. I'll know in about a month.


That's a good start. Hopefully you got your hopping times and rates correct too. I don't know what (if any) effect the increased gravity of the concentrated wort would have on hop utilisation.


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## Coalminer (20/11/19)

Paddy Melon said:


> While I'm on a roll, with this last batch I had my yeast starter going but the temperature sat at about 26 degrees, this was the ambient temperature because of the high hot spell we'd been having. I was using a lager yeast and pitched it at between 26 and 27 degrees then placed it in the ferment fridge dropping it to 11.5 degrees. would the higher temps in growing the yeast have affected the yeast? After two days there seems to be activity, albeit very slow, and there is a krausen ring around the fermenter. I know lager yeast is slow but just wondering if the initial temperatures would have affected it.


I do all my ale starters at 26C. 
Does not have any adverse effects as you are making yeast not beer.
You should decant the the crap off the starter and only pitch the yeast


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## thehomebrewchef (21/11/19)

I can get my 40lt batches down to pitching temps within ten minutes. I have a cooper immersion chiller and use a cordless power drill with a paddle attached to whirlpool the wort. 
I start slowly (the jury is still out on hot side aeration ‍) once it’s below 50c (about 5 mins) I’ll speed it up to aerate the wort. Once at pitching temp, I’ll remove the chiller, and slow the paddle down to whirlpool again. By the time I’ve cleaned the chiller and paddle, all the crud is gathered in the centre and the wort is ready to transfer. 
Chilling water is diverted to soaker hoses in the garden.


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## Paddy Melon (21/11/19)

thanks for the replies guys, my anxiety has now been abated.


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## Engibeer (21/11/19)

Neil Jansen said:


> The last entry in this linked thread shows how you can get quite a bit of cooling using a two-stage system. An item that I left out of the photo was a small fish tank pump that circulates the ice-water around the coils in the HLT. It makes a big difference. See it here https://aussiehomebrewer.com/thread...immersion-chiller-coil-from-5-16-inch.100141/



I'm planning to set up something similar but use a submersible pump to circulate ice water through the CFC, after the tap water has gotten it down as far as possible.

I recirculate back into the kettle using a pump though. 

It's less cleaning/removes the second coil. And I always recirculate back into the kettle prior to turning the chilling water on to ensure the CFC is sterilised by boiling wort.


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## Trippinonprozac (23/12/19)

I’m concerned with the amount of water require to chill down to near pitching temperatures 25c. Is there any adverse effect to chilling into a no chill cube, simply to speed up the no chill process and keep IBU accuracy?


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## MHB (23/12/19)

Yes - you lose the sterilisation that you get by cubing hot. Bit of a clue in the name "no-chill".
I suspect the IBU accuracy is most illusory, it probably has more to do with hop taste than bitterness.
Mark


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## OATY1KENOBE (24/12/19)

Mics100 said:


> I've been using the no chill method for a long time and wondering whether an immersion chiller might help to improve IBU accuracy. Does the no chill mean that there is greater contact time with hops, therefore my flameout hops become 20 min hops due to time wasted with whirlpool and no chill?


60 becomes 40, 30 becomes 10 etc etc...
I use Bittering at 40, sometimes a bit at flameout, the rest into the cube. Add wort at 85C. Always good, never a problem  I don't bother with a whirlpool as the false bottom takes care of most of the gunk. Also I pressure ferment with a silicon dip tube, so I'm only ever picking up clean fluid when doing a closed transfer to my kegs..... Highly recommend this process


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## OATY1KENOBE (24/12/19)

Trippinonprozac said:


> I’m concerned with the amount of water require to chill down to near pitching temperatures 25c. Is there any adverse effect to chilling into a no chill cube, simply to speed up the no chill process and keep IBU accuracy?


Tramsfer your Wort at 85C. Below that isomerisation stops, i.e- no more bitterness.


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## MHB (24/12/19)

Untrue, isomerisation is temperature dependant, there is even an equation that describes the rate, yes it happens faster hotter but there isn't an off switch at 85oC.

Given that you get more iso-alpha from no chill (bases on experiment, I'm not convinced that it is all that much) wouldn't you get the same effect from just using less bittering hops? Less hops would mean you get all the advantages of a longer boil and save money on hops.

If you want to understand what's happening to alpha acids in the boil Isomerisation.pdf
Mark


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## megs8888 (6/1/20)

What about Glycol chillers are they any good?


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## Tomo (6/1/20)

If worried about wasting water with a immersion chiller. Most people wash there clothes in a washing machine right and if they have a top loader machine they can divert the clean water from the chiller to the top loader and wash there clothes As a top loader can take at least 60 litres for just a normal load. I use lmmersion chiller to chill my wort to ground water temp and store water for washing and bring the rest of temp down in a fridge.


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