Rapid Cooling For Lagers

[kook]

I have a couple lagers planned at the moment, and would like to get them down to pitching temp (8-9C) as quickly as possible.

At the moment, my CFWC only gets the temp down to around 26. This is fine with Ales as I stick it straight in the fridge, and by early evening its down to 20 for pitching. By the next morning its at my set temp (usually about 18). I've tried using a pre-chiller (old immersion chiller), but this only drops it another 4-6 degrees which isn't a big help.

Do you have any other techniques that you can recommend? I'd prefer to avoid using a post chiller (i.e put wort through old immersion chiller) as the less stuff that touches my wort the better.

My next idea is to stick the fermenter in a 57L bin filled with ice, salt and a little water. I'm hoping that this will bring the temp down to 8-9 faster than the fridge. Anyone tried this? I'm happy to buy a few bags of ice, but would prefer to know if this actually works beforehand.

Any other ideas as well?

 

[neonmeate]

if only we had magic temperature wands we could all be brewer gods.


my latest bright idea is to sanitise heaps of freezer bricks and gel cooler things (you know the blue ones) and then put them actually inside the wort after the immersion chiller. then take em out with sanistised tongs. i was a bit alarmed when one of them actually started leaking the strange blue fluid out though!!!! luckily none got in the beer.

 

[kook]

I wonder if "food grade" dry ice would work?

That said, I have no idea where I'd actually find "food grade" dry ice in Perth anyway.

 

[neonmeate]

now yer thinking... freeze gases not liquids. turn your brew into an 80s video clip.
you're the one that lives in perth... how would we know where to get it?

 

[Ross]

Kook,

I use a cheap boat bilge pump sat in a 60L pot. I run the 1st 50L with normal tap (dam) water & then add a couple of 25L cubes of chilled water from the fridge. This brings the temp down to ale or lager pitching rates without any problem.
the water is run back into the 2 cubes & rechilled for the next brew.

cheers Ross

 

[kook]

That would be fine for immersion chilling, but how about with a CFWC?

Maybe I should just use my old immersion chiller for lagers....

 

[TidalPete]

Kook,

I use a cheap boat bilge pump sat in a 60L pot. I run the 1st 50L with normal tap (dam) water & then add a couple of 25L cubes of chilled water from the fridge. This brings the temp down to ale or lager pitching rates without any problem.
the water is run back into the 2 cubes & rechilled for the next brew.

cheers Ross

Similar to Ross I bring the temp down to around 30 deg c with bore water (spear pump) then use a $20 pond pump combined with two or three ice cream containers of frozen water in an old esky to bring the wort temp down to ale or lager temps without any problems.

TP :beer:

 

[Screwtop]

I use a plate chiller which should be about the same as a CFWC, I find for best results run the water fast (recirculated swimming pool water here, naturally in the opposite direction to the wort flow) and the wort slow. After 10 min or so the wort returning to the kettle is less than 30 so I divert to the Fermenter. Fermenter goes into a fridge set at 3C, only takes a matter of hours to get ales down, overnight for Lagers.

Screwy

 

[Doogiechap]

That would be fine for immersion chilling, but how about with a CFWC?

Maybe I should just use my old immersion chiller for lagers....

Bloke, you could set your old immersion chiller in series with the CFWC (with the wort running through the coils) and have it submerged in an ice bath. I vaguely recall that Nev has a commercial Glycol chiller that he runs through a plate chiller for serious chilling. Do you use carboys ? If not, a scary option would be to dunk your immersion chiller into your fermenter with the iced water being pumped through it. I also recall someone using an old compressor driven drinking fountain to chill.
Keep us posted on how you go .
Cheers
Doug

 

[James L]

With the warmer weather starting up again for the year, i too have found it hard to get my wort down to pitching temps only using the tap water (on sunday i used abnout 300L of tap water to get my brew down to 30C, which is terrible)....

I dont have access to a pool, but i really do like the idea of using a bilge/aquarium pump to pump icy water through my plate chiller. I have no trouble getting access to ice, but the pump i was using before didnt have the flow rate i needed (it was a peristaltic pump). and if i were to use one of these 1300L/hr pumps (20L/min), i think i'd be ok....

I will only really have the ability to run it through the chiller once, but i think if i use a large enough volume of ice and water, it should be able to do it...

Thanks for the idea guys... you've saved me alot of stress. Now all i have to do is make decent beer.

Cheers...

 

[SJW]

I just use my imersion chiller to get the wort down to around 30 deg C, and then put the fermenter (unairated) in the fermentation fridge and 8 - 12 hours later its down at those temps. I found that once I added a computer fan to the fermentation fridge it brought the temp down hours faster.


Steve

 

[Yorg]

Similar. But a bit different.
1 With water off, 5 min before end of boil, pump boiling wort through your cfwc and back into kettle, directed tangentially to wall, to start a whirlpool.
2 Turn the tap water on at flame out and put your lid on your kettle. ( I use a sealing lid and a sterile filter mounted on it so as to suck in sterile air as wort cools - but this may be a little fastidious.)
3 As temperature drop flattens, turn water off and connect pond pump, which is in a bucket with 2 bags equiv of ice and recirculate water back over the ice until 8-9 C is reached.
4 Turn on big mother of an aquarium air pump that is connected to an inline airstone (on the outlet side of your wort pump), and divert wort to fermenter.
Result, cooled aerated wort ready for pitching.
Cheers.

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

A timely post Kook, I was about the ask the same thing.
Yesterday brewed a lager, recirculated the wort through a plate chiller back to the kettle, whirlpooling in the opposite direction to the water running through an immersion chiller, this dropped 45l from flameout to 27c in 20 mins, then I ran the 2m silicone hose outlet in a bucket of iced and salted water, which only brought it down to 24c. Its now in the fridge cooling to lager temp.
If I get serious about lager then I think a dedicated post-chiller would be the answer.

 

[Tony M]

I made a box that holds 4 litres of crushed ice and about the same vol. of water. It has a coil of 6metres X 1/2" copper and I couple it to the end of my chiller. At this time of the year the wort comes out of the CFC at 24C and out of the ice chiller at anywhere between 10C and 20C depending on how dedicated I am at stirring the ice slurry.

 

[PostModern]

When I brew lagers (seldom) and want to pitch at lager temps, I just no-chill as usual then, when it's at room temp, drop the cube into my chest freezer fermentation chamber and set the fridgemate. In a day or so, it's ready and can be transferred into a fermenter with the yeast.

 

[AndrewQLD]

I just recieved delivery of a new plate chiller and have been pondering the best way to chill as low as possible.


I've decided to use my herms vessel filled with an ice slurry as a pre-chiller and run the tap water through the coils before it enters the plate chiller. I won't be brewing for another week but I'm looking forward to seeing how cool I can get the wort this way.

Andrew

 

[Brewmeister70]

I just recieved delivery of a new plate chiller and have been pondering the best way to chill as low as possible.


I've decided to use my herms vessel filled with an ice slurry as a pre-chiller and run the tap water through the coils before it enters the plate chiller. I won't be brewing for another week but I'm looking forward to seeing how cool I can get the wort this way.

Andrew

Would be good to hear back on how cool you get it, Andrew.

I want to do something simular - At the moment, I use a plate chiller immersed in ice water. It gets the wort to ale temperatures but needs to go in the fridge overnight if I'm making a lager and want to pitch colder than about 16 degrees.

Once upon a time, I used to ferment in 23L kegs and tied the handles down in a bin of ice water. This worked fantastically but is too hard with carboys

 

[Katherine]

I just recieved delivery of a new plate chiller and have been pondering the best way to chill as low as possible.


I've decided to use my herms vessel filled with an ice slurry as a pre-chiller and run the tap water through the coils before it enters the plate chiller. I won't be brewing for another week but I'm looking forward to seeing how cool I can get the wort this way.

Andrew

I also just picked up a plate chiller and doing pretty much what you have suggested... trying it out on Saturday...

 

[James L]

Does anyone know whether these submersible aquarium pumps are capable of pumping liquids below 0C? I was thinking about running glycol (-20C) through the plate chiller instead of icy water (1-2C). Might be able to bring the temp down a little better if i can only do the one run of wort through the chiller.

 

[enoch]

You can run your plate/cfwc Jamil style where you recirc through the chiller and back into the boiler for a bit of a whirlpool.

When you get as low as tap/tank/pool water will take you you then use a pond pump to pump some iced water though the othrside of the chiller. Handy to have a thermo in the boiler for this. If you have an immersion chiller you are laughing with this.