# Wort Cooling



## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (11/4/10)

Hey guys, playing around with a couple of wort cooling ideas today. but before i go into too much detail, is is possible to cool the wort TOO quickly? If so what will it do to the beer?

_W_


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## manticle (11/4/10)

I'm pretty sure no.

Do you have a giant snap freezer or Liquid nitrogen chamber?


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## warra48 (11/4/10)

Cooling quickly is beneficial in precipitating the cold break, so you can't cool it too quickly.

If you discover the secret to cooling your wort too quickly, I'd love to know about it.


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## praxis178 (11/4/10)

warra48 said:


> Cooling quickly is beneficial in precipitating the cold break, so you can't cool it too quickly.
> 
> If you discover the secret to cooling your wort too quickly, I'd love to know about it.



Hmmm, sounds like an excuse for me to finally hook up my helium compressor unit -270C here I come! :super:


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## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (11/4/10)

manticle said:


> I'm pretty sure no.
> 
> Do you have a giant snap freezer or Liquid nitrogen chamber?




LOL! not yet man! but i have a 40l plastic pail (cant use it as fermenter though), thinking if i can fill it with ice/water with about 30++M of PVC tube by the time the wort comes out the other side of the chiller its gotta BE cool right? i have grain/hops here for a double lager would love to chill my wort down to (or bloody close to) pitching temps 10-11C, even if needing to use sh*t loads of 3/8" tube and restricting the flow so it cools down enough. i would rather pitch my yeast after doing the brew, drop the fermenter in the fridge and forget about it for 4 weeks, instead of no-chill cube and playing "sterilising all the gear" the next day (most likely when hungover) and concentrate on drinking the final product. having said that the last couple of KNK lagers and AG's i did, i mixed/poured the wort and put it in the fridge, a few hours later i pitched a couple of packets of yeast. kind of a pointless reply i think now, but if it will work y not? 

EDIT: I'm typing toooo slow!


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## Nick JD (11/4/10)

Plastic is a good insulator.


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## Gout (11/4/10)

the PVC tube will make your life hard when it comes to cooling. can you get your hands on some copper tube? - you will get FAR better results. Need less length and should chill your wort better.

that said the cost of freezing all that ice, you should be better off in the long run getting something like a plate chiller (if you have a rain water tank like myself - you wont use(waste) any water)

i get mine to under 20 deg easy and i am sure with a "pre chiller/ post chiller" or even a few hours in the fridge should get you down to about 10deg.

Infact i would try a chiller (plate/CFC etc) then your ice/tube chiller to get it to drop the final 10deg - this will mean the water does most of the work and you wont need so much ice etc


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## manticle (11/4/10)

As suggested, I'm not sure PVC will make the best cooling material. Maybe do a test in a small bucket of boiling water with length of the stuff and extrapolate but you'd be best going with some kind of metal. Copper is most often used in heating systems as well as chillers for this reason.


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## BoilerBoy (11/4/10)

This is what I have used ever since starting AG brewing 5-6 years ago.

25 1L blocks of ice will get 25L of wort down to 18-20C.

9m of copper tube works well, I will be making another one when I upgrade the brewery down the track with at least 12m of copper tube which I'm assuming will increase cooilng efficiency.

This current one was made on the hope it would work as I was advised it probably wouldn't, but has served me well for all this time.


Also 1L size blocks I think are a minimum size, crushed ice would melt far to quickly at a guess.

Cheers,
BB


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## manticle (11/4/10)

How does that work? hard to tell from the photo. Does the kettle just sit inside the coil or does the coil come away from its fixing and sit inside the wort but draw water from the ice bath?

Hopefully constructing a copper coil immersion wort chiller in the next month or so so different ideas welcome


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## A3k (11/4/10)

Hi Manticle,
I'm pretty sure that the wort flows through that copper pipe. As the copper pipe is submerged in ice water, it will cool the wort flowing through it.
Well at least that's how i see it.


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## BoilerBoy (11/4/10)

manticle said:


> How does that work? hard to tell from the photo. Does the kettle just sit inside the coil or does the coil come away from its fixing and sit inside the wort but draw water from the ice bath?
> 
> Hopefully constructing a copper coil immersion wort chiller in the next month or so so different ideas welcome



The top of the copper tube fits directly onto the kettle tap, the hot wort leaves the kettle enters the copper tube and then leaves the coil at the base of the blue crate.
The crate is full of water, with ice added as you need it, the water and ice inside the crate is constantly stirred as the wort passses through.

Then at the side outlet at the base of the crate a plastic vinyl hose has a temp probe pushed inside to monitor the exit temp which can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing flow from the kettle tap.

Advantages are you get wort down to pitching temp imediately in about 20-25minutes.
Disadvantages are enough freezer space to make 25 1L blocks of ice.

Cheers,
BB


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## manticle (11/4/10)

OK. Cheers


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## Nick JD (11/4/10)

After trying both rapid cooling and 18hr ambient cooling on the same recipe I'm leaving rapid cooling to those who think it's better  . 

I think breweries do it so they can get the yeast in, days (massive volume/surface area) earlier, rather than any cold break issues.


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## manticle (11/4/10)

I think the main issue with ambient cooling is the time the wort is vulnerable to microbial attack. I've certainly noticed no major differences between my chill in a bath over an hour or two brews and my no-chill brews (that could be attributed to chilling methods anyway).

Sometimes I leave just cooked rice out all night when it isn't a 40 degree day - not been sick from it yet but wouldn't recommend it as optimum practice.


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## Yeastie Beastie (11/4/10)

BoilerBoy said:


> View attachment 37107
> 
> 
> This is what I have used ever since starting AG brewing 5-6 years ago.
> ...



Adding salt to your ice before freezing it will make the ice melt twice as slow - truth. About 2 tablespoons per litre is sufficient.
Your benefit is that you could use more smaller blocks than larger blocks allowing for more surface area of ice therefore a shorter chilling time IMO.
My dad and many other fishermen use this method to allow their ice to last longer on the boat during a good days fishing in the summer.


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## haysie (11/4/10)

manticle said:


> Sometimes I leave just cooked rice out all night when it isn't a 40 degree day - not been sick from it yet but wouldn't recommend it as optimum practice.



Cos your a lazy bastard!  
Chilling is such a great topic! I have nothing more to add.


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## Bandito (11/4/10)

_WALLACE_ said:


> Hey guys, playing around with a couple of wort cooling ideas today. but before i go into too much detail, is is possible to cool the wort TOO quickly? If so what will it do to the beer?
> 
> _W_




I would love to try cooling wort with liquid nitrogen one day! Here is a warm beer being chilled first by pouring liquid nitrogen into it, then putting it in bowl of LN2.





I too am considering using plastic tubing for heat exchange. My tube of choice will be small diameter teflon with very thin wall thickness - about 20 metres of 2/32" ID 1/64" wall thickness. I am aware of the insulative properties, but believe the thinner the wall thickness the better. After the several hundred posts by manticle regarding water conservation  I am considering using a reverse herms style system with a recirculating cooling system where the cooling water is pumped through a radiator like this:








The cooling water would be pumped through a copper pipe which has cooling fins attached to it. A pc fan blows air over the fins to extract the heat. I think this would be usable down to about 30C. The final 10 deg might be able to be sucked out with a seperate refridgated glycol chiller using a normal plate chiller. 

If I can find a suitable sanitary design I will probably do away with the water side and pump the wort through a radiator directly. These have had glycol through them and due to different metals in the liquid loo[, they will be corroded inside.


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## jiesu (11/4/10)

What about adding a shit load of salt to Ice blocks In a tank? Doesn't salt added after freezing cause Ice to melt super quick? as long as the ambient temp is above -10 or something similar. That would in turn make the piping colder and cool the wort faster? Not as much as liquid nitrogen but better then ice water.


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## jakub76 (11/4/10)

I'm a bit concerned about DMS build up in a slowly cooling wort.

Currently I use an ice bath to get my wort down to 25C in about 2 hours. If I'm critical I will admit that there's varying degrees of a particular taste across most of my brews regardless of the recipe and I believe that might be DMS. I had been using a 60 minute boil, I'm now going up to 90 for everythng. I also make sure I never cover my kettle so as to let the DMS pre-cursors escape in the steam. Now I'm also considering some sort of quick cooling device, copper coil/counterflow something to get the temp down quick.


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## BoilerBoy (12/4/10)

Yeastie Beastie said:


> Adding salt to your ice before freezing it will make the ice melt twice as slow - truth. About 2 tablespoons per litre is sufficient.
> Your benefit is that you could use more smaller blocks than larger blocks allowing for more surface area of ice therefore a shorter chilling time IMO.
> My dad and many other fishermen use this method to allow their ice to last longer on the boat during a good days fishing in the summer.



That maybe, but all water used is collected and then used in the garden or pot plants which I dont think would appreciate salty water particularly at 2 tablespoons per/L.

Cheers,
BB


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## kevin_smevin (12/4/10)

jakub76 said:


> I'm a bit concerned about DMS build up in a slowly cooling wort.
> 
> Currently I use an ice bath to get my wort down to 25C in about 2 hours. If I'm critical I will admit that there's varying degrees of a particular taste across most of my brews regardless of the recipe and I believe that might be DMS. I had been using a 60 minute boil, I'm now going up to 90 for everythng. I also make sure I never cover my kettle so as to let the DMS pre-cursors escape in the steam. Now I'm also considering some sort of quick cooling device, copper coil/counterflow something to get the temp down quick.



DMS is converted from its precursor SMM at about 80 degrees. In boiling wort the DMS is volatilized so you should definitely never cover your kettle. So in theory, if you can quickly cool your wort to below 80 degrees, no more DMS should be formed. Most malts these days have low levels of SMM/DMS so longer boiling times in theory should not be necessary. DMS is also volatilized when barley is malted in the kilning phase. So malts that have had longer kilning times will have less DMS. Pilsner malt being very lightly kilned contains more DMS then pale ale malts etc.


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## jwsparkes (12/4/10)

I used my 9m CF chiller to cool wort yesterday. I use a 50l esky with water and a 9kg ice block (a 98cent bucket filled with water and put in the freezer for two days), I use a small pond pump ($15 Bunnings job) to provide the cooling water jacket around the inner copper coil. At once stage the work was coming out at about 5 degrees. The chiller is gravity fed from the kettle. Over all I had 25litres cooled to about 12 degrees in the time it took to drain the kettle (about 15minutes maybe).


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## BjornJ (12/4/10)

Bandito,
you are one of my favourite posters!
Not since Graham Sanders have I seen such a ability to make stuff at home. I struggle to get my DIY stir plate to work (or fail to get it to work, but that's another thread) while you have access to cool computer modelling software , LIQUID NITROGEN and other cool gadgets!

Tried to find a link to this other guy making things at home now during lunch but couldn't find it. Had a site about how he captured the CO2 from his fermenter in those helium balloons for kids before forcing the CO2 back into a 5 litre mini-keg using a modified bicycle pump! 

I hope the automated brewery project is going well, have no doubt you will make it work.


thanks
Bjorn



Bandito said:


> I would love to try cooling wort with liquid nitrogen one day! Here is a warm beer being chilled first by pouring liquid nitrogen into it, then putting it in bowl of LN2.


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## Halfbeak (12/4/10)

For those without access to liquid nitrogen, another extreme cooling method is dry ice in alcohol. Smash up dry ice into fairly small (5 cent piece) bits and chuck it into any variety of alcohol (metho, isopropyl, etc.) and it will quickly cool down to nearly -80 degrees.


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## komodo (12/4/10)

BoilerBoy said:


> That maybe, but all water used is collected and then used in the garden or pot plants which I dont think would appreciate salty water particularly at 2 tablespoons per/L.
> 
> Cheers,
> BB



You could refreeze the salted water for your next brew - then none would be used let alone wasted.


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## dent (16/4/10)

Thinking of maybe building a chilling system based on a 140L chest freezer, filled with water at 2 degrees or so. Put a crappy bunnings submersible pump in the bottom, then use that to pump water to the counterflow chiller. Drain the hot water into a separate tank, then pump this back into the freezer after the brew.

Only reason I have against it at the moment is the space taken up by the freezer, and having another electricity expense running. 

Still, would be pretty awesome I think, would probably get the wort down below 8 degrees or so in one hit I reckon.


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## unrealeous (16/4/10)

dent said:


> Thinking of maybe building a chilling system based on a 140L chest freezer, filled with water at 2 degrees or so. Put a crappy bunnings submersible pump in the bottom, then use that to pump water to the counterflow chiller. Drain the hot water into a separate tank, then pump this back into the freezer after the brew.
> 
> Only reason I have against it at the moment is the space taken up by the freezer, and having another electricity expense running.
> 
> Still, would be pretty awesome I think, would probably get the wort down below 8 degrees or so in one hit I reckon.


A much cheaper solution is to use a 2 stage chilling system.

Buy a cheap chiller off Ebay like this one http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...3#ht_500wt_1182

Put that chiller in a bucket and fill it with a bag of ice. Run your tap water through this chiller first to pre-cool and then through your counterflow chilller.


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## dent (16/4/10)

unrealeous said:


> A much cheaper solution is to use a 2 stage chilling system.
> 
> Buy a cheap chiller off Ebay like this one http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...3#ht_500wt_1182
> 
> Put that chiller in a bucket and fill it with a bag of ice. Run your tap water through this chiller first to pre-cool and then through your counterflow chilller.



Yeah, kinda already tried that, though I only had 5m of 12mm copper in ice slush. Probably would work a lot better with thinner, longer copper - wasn't real impressed by the temp drop going through the slush. Do you have a setup like you mention? what kind of temperatures in/out with what kind of flow rate? I'm not against giving it another chance, as the fridge idea is also kind of bulky.


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## unrealeous (16/4/10)

dent said:


> Yeah, kinda already tried that, though I only had 5m of 12mm copper in ice slush. Probably would work a lot better with thinner, longer copper - wasn't real impressed by the temp drop going through the slush. Do you have a setup like you mention? what kind of temperatures in/out with what kind of flow rate? I'm not against giving it another chance, as the fridge idea is also kind of bulky.


I can't give you figures just yet - I have 20m of 12mm copper and a counter flow chiller, but haven't given it a full scale run yet.
The plan is on flame out to use the copper as an immersion chilller (in the boiler) to bring the entire wort temp down from 100 to below the DMS point (say 60 degrees), then move the copper into the ice bucket, and then run the wort through my counter flow chiller using pre-chilled water (via the copper from the ice bucket). 

In theory it should like a charm... in theory....

I'll keep you posted.


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## katzke (17/4/10)

unrealeous said:


> The plan is on flame out to use the copper as an immersion chilller (in the boiler) to bring the entire wort temp down from 100 to below the DMS point (say 60 degrees), then move the copper into the ice bucket, and then run the wort through my counter flow chiller using pre-chilled water (via the copper from the ice bucket).




If you have the counter flow why muck about like that?

The counter flow will chill the wort below DMS producing temps way faster then the coil chiller will.

Have never timed it with a stopwatch. I can say that a proper counter flow will chill the wort as fast as gravity will pull it through the hose. I have seen people have to slow the water flow down because the wort was too cold.

If you pre chill your warm source water the counter flow will do the job just fine in a fraction of the time the coil will get you down to safe DMS temps.

Unless you are using funky malts or have a poor boil DMS should not be a problem. The malts that still produce it are required for the style and DMS is desirable in those styles.



jakub76 said:


> I'm a bit concerned about DMS build up in a slowly cooling wort.
> 
> Currently I use an ice bath to get my wort down to 25C in about 2 hours. If I'm critical I will admit that there's varying degrees of a particular taste across most of my brews regardless of the recipe and I believe that might be DMS.



Have you thought it may be an infection? Your wort is setting long enough at a desirable temperature so you may want to look into the possibility of a brew house infection. Look at your brewing practice and make sure nothing is going in the kettle after the boil that has not been sanitized (like your mash paddle for stirring or a thermometer). Buy or borrow some StarSan and give your kettle lid a spray down before putting it on. A wipe down of the inside of the kettle, above the wort line and after the boil, with a StarSan soaked rage may also help eliminate any stray bugs that did not get wiped out by the boil. DMS is one of the off flavors I can pick up and it is quite distinct. You may not be as sensitive to it so get others who know what it is to check out your paler beers to see if they pick it up.


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## Wolfy (17/4/10)

unrealeous said:


> I can't give you figures just yet - I have 20m of 12mm copper and a counter flow chiller, but haven't given it a full scale run yet.


Try it before you feel the need to get more exotic.
With my CFC and current water temps, boiling wort drained as quickly as gravity will allow ends up 23C in the fermenter, so unless you're doing a lager nothing more is needed.


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## dent (17/4/10)

Wolfy said:


> Try it before you feel the need to get more exotic.
> With my CFC and current water temps, boiling wort drained as quickly as gravity will allow ends up 23C in the fermenter, so unless you're doing a lager nothing more is needed.



My result with the counterflow and tapwater is the wort coming out about 3-4 degrees warmer than the incoming tapwater, which is pretty impressive (to me) really. Trouble is, at the moment my tapwater is around 25-27 degrees. And lagers are the majority of my brews. :/


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## Wolfy (17/4/10)

Good excuses ... pre-chill it is then.


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