Chilling the wort.

[hooper80]

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

 

[Danscraftbeer]

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.

 

[Gigantorus]

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

 

[JDW81]

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

 

[hooper80]

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

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

 

[Bonenose]

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.

 

[earle]

What size batch are you chilling?

 

[Bonenose]

23 litres

 

[earle]

What size batch are you chilling?

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

 

[Bonenose]

Cool, thanks I am hoping it speeds things up somewhat

 

[2cranky]

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.

 

[hooper80]

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

 

[hooper80]

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.

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.

 

[Droopy Brew]

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.

 

[Dr_Rocks]

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.

 

[2cranky]

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.

 

[technobabble66]

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]

 

[Bribie G]

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).

 

[TheWiggman]

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.

 

[wobbly]

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