Building a wort chiller. Opinions sought.

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emissary

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OK, so here's the short version. I have about 50' of 1/4"od copper tubing at my disposal and would like to build a wort chiller. I have seen the immersion-style, and recognize that this would be fairly easy to pull off.

I have also seen some that drain the wort from the boil kettle through the copper tubing that is coiled (just like an immersion chiller) in an ice bath, then drained to the primary.

So essentially the difference as I see it is that you either run hot wort through the tubing with an ice bath cooling it from the outside of the tubing, or you run cool water through the tubing and it pulls heat from the hot wort.

Keep in mind that if I am to build a standard immersion style chiller, I will be relegated to using tap water only (no recirculating pumps out of ice baths), and so will have only cool/lukewarm water.

So, which one is better, and why? Opinions? Bring 'em on.
 
1/4 is a bit small to make an immersion chiller although it can and has been done. check out Bobby M you tube video for how to instructions.

i think the most effective way to use the 50' of 1/4 is to run the wort through it while immersed in a icebath. if your boil kettle has a valve you can probably regulate the flow to where it comes out the other end pretty close to pitching temp but you would probably have to flow it pretty slow.
 
i just bought a standard wort chiller, but it wasn't cooling fast enough with just tap water, especially in the summer months. i went bought some thinner walled copper, and wound it into a flat coil, held in place by zip ties. my sink is divided into two halves, so i would put the flat coil on one half covered in ice so the water would get chilled here first, then roll through the chiller, and i would put the exit hose down the drain as to not melt the ice.

works pretty good, for a 5 gallon batch i can usually cool to under 70* in less than 10 minutes. only thing is making sure to have enough ice, but that is a fairly easy problem to take care of.

2010-03-27_140102.jpg
 
I recently built an immersion (running tap water through) and it was the easiest thing I've ever built. Nothing fancy, just took a coil of 50' of 3/8" copper, wound it around a bucket, bent both ends up to a curve, got some vinyl tubing, pipe clamps, and a garden hose to barb fitting. Cooled 5gal from boiling to 70* in 15 min.
 
How big are the batches you brew and what is the temp of your tap water?

I think 1/4 inch tubing will work just fine for an IC chiller if your tap water is cold enough.
 
One advantage of an IC rather than chillers than run in-line between the kettle and fermenter is that you can leave the cold break behind if you use an IC.

I dump everything in the fermenter anyway, but some folks like to leave some of that behind. :D
 
Mongo64 said:
How big are the batches you brew and what is the temp of your tap water?

I think 1/4 inch tubing will work just fine for an IC chiller if your tap water is cold enough.
Click to expand...

the main reason i said 1/4 would be small is because he is in texas so i'm assuming his tapwater is gonna be a bit warm . prechiller posted above will help alot

 
Last edited by a moderator:
If pumping icewater into the IC is out of the question, split it into two coils. 25' for inside the pot and the other 25' in an icebath to prechill the warm tap water. While you're chilling, jostle both coils up and down to keep the liquids mixing.
 
*to mods: Sorry, new to the boards, and I didn't see the DIY forum.

The prechiller looks great, but is not an option for me.

Batch size: have been doing 5g partial mash, upgrading equipment to be able to do 10g AG.

I had forgotten about the cold break elimination advantage to the IC, thanks for that!

But I will have a water temperature issue. Not only do I live in Texas, but all of the running water I'll have access to where I brew is pumped straight from the lake, and so in summer months will be around 65-70 degrees. Maybe I'll just have to suck it up and find a way to prechill before running to IC? Any thoughts on ways around this?

Rowdy, I understand that the diameter of the tubing will restrict the amount of flow, but I was thinking that the better surface area/volume ratio could actually be a benefit to me in allowing a more efficient heat exchange between the wort and the water running through the tube. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for all of the input guys. Like I said, I'm new here, and really appreciate the volume and quality of responses. Have a great Sunday!:mug:
 
emissary said:
Rowdy, I understand that the diameter of the tubing will restrict the amount of flow, but I was thinking that the better surface area/volume ratio could actually be a benefit to me in allowing a more efficient heat exchange between the wort and the water running through the tube. Any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
i'm not much for math or technical lingo plus i have had a few so bear with me but...
the smaller diameter will heatup the cooling water much faster so (especially starting with warm water already) will severely slow the heat transfer much less contact with cold water to hot wort. by the time the tap water makes it through one coil it will have lost most if not all of its cooling ability.

picture this an single icecube will lower the temp of a hot cup of coffee, but throw that same single icecube in a bathtub and temp wouldnt change one bit.
(single icecube being 1/4" frozen gallon water jug being 1/2")


why is a pre chiller completely out?
if you split your coil in half as per bobby m recommendation you wont need more than just a couple more hose clamps. you dont need to pump ice water you can submerge one coil in a bucket of ice water and prechill the tap water before it gets to the actual IC. then the 1/4 should be fine might take a bit longer then 3/8 or 1/2 but it will work fine. so just make 2 25' coils.
 
ChshreCat said:
One advantage of an IC rather than chillers than run in-line between the kettle and fermenter is that you can leave the cold break behind if you use an IC.

I dump everything in the fermenter anyway, but some folks like to leave some of that behind. :D
Click to expand...

Another is that it chills the entire wort at once, while counterflow and plate chillers leav the keg near boiling for quite a while. From what I understand, the most important thing for beer flavor is to get all the wort below 140F quickly (to limit DMS and lock in hop aroma & flavor) rather than to have the fastest way of getting it to pitching temps.

Once the entire wort's below 140ish, DMS and hop degradation leave the equation and it's just a matter of convenience to get it down to pitching temps.

See, for instance, Jamil's notes here:
http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php
With a counter flow or plate chiller, you let the bulk of the wort sit at near boiling temperatures while you chill a small amount. Sitting at near boiling will continue to isomerize the hop acids and drive off the volatile oils that good hop aroma and flavor depend upon. A number of folks have noticed that hop aroma decreases on switching from an immersion chiller to a counter flow This is the reason. By contrast the whirlpool immersion chiller knocks enough heat off of the entire wort in the first minute or two to retain that beautiful hop character. If you're going to use a counter flow or plate chiller, better buy yourself a hopback.

The same thing applies to DMS( Dimethyl Sulfide). DMS is often described as a cooked corn aroma that often plagues lager brewers. The thing is, the lighter pilsner malts contain more SMM (S-Methylmethionine), which gets hydrolyzed to DMS during the boil. Yes, this gets driven off, but unless you're doing 100 minute or longer boils, there is still some SMM left behind. The neat thing is, if you can get the temperature of the wort below 140F (60C), then SMM will not be converted to DMS.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely convinced that it's as severe as this insinuates, but it's something to think about anyway.
 
I think it's more difficult to sanitize the inside of a wort chiller than the outside. My solution was to use two wort chillers. One is attached to the lid of an igloo, which I fill with ice/water to pre-chill the water running from the hose. The second wort chiller is attached to the first with regular tubing/clamps. The only part I have to sanitize is the outside of the second chiller, before I drop it in my wort. Then, I just run another tube out the window of my carport to drain. I cool a 5 gal full boil from 210 to 80 in about 10 mins.

SOOOO much easier than before, and since it is faster, the wort is exposed to the open (unsanitized) air/wind for much less time.
 
Since your source water will be over 70, there's no magic bullet chiller that will get the wort below that temp. You could use 300 feet of copper and it won't make the water any colder.
 
:ban:OK, had an epiphany yesterday. I cut all gas to the house about 4 years ago, and the old gas line is all flexible copper. Dug it up. Now I have about 30' of 1/2"id and about 25' of 1/4"id. Going to use the 1/2" in a prechill bucket, then pipe it to the 1/4" coiled in the brew kettle. Sweetness.

Thanks for all the input guys!
 

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