Wort Cooling

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

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_

 

[manticle]

I'm pretty sure no.

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

 

[warra48]

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.

 

[praxis178]

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:

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

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!

 

[Nick JD]

Plastic is a good insulator.

 

[Gout]

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

 

[manticle]

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.

 

[BoilerBoy]

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

 

[manticle]

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

 

[A3k]

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.

 

[BoilerBoy]

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

 

[manticle]

OK. Cheers

 

[Nick JD]

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.

 

[manticle]

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.

 

[Yeastie Beastie]

View attachment 37107

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

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.

 

[haysie]

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 *******!
Chilling is such a great topic! I have nothing more to add.

 

[Bandito]

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.

 

[jiesu]

What about adding a **** 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.

 

[jakub76]

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.