cold break

can anyone give some insight into the pros or cons of non-immersion wort chillers like therminator or counterflows etc in regards to cold break in the primary - should this dictate chiller preference etc?

I've be interested in discussions around this as well...

Here's how I see it:

Cold break happens wherever you chill the wort, so for immersion chillers (IC) it'll always happen in the brew kettle. Really no way around that.

For plate chilllers like the Therminator or Shirron, or counterflow chillers (CFC) it can happen in either the fermenting vessel (if you simply cool and dump the wort in the fermenter) or in the brew kettle if you recirculate the wort until it's cooled off.

The choice is up to you.

For what I've read, cold break in the fermenter does absolutely nothing bad to the beer. It settles right out within a few days and doesn't cause any off tastes or problems with clearer. Some people simply like to have less 'gunk' in their primary fermenter it seems.

(My 2 cents)

Kal

I use a CFC and I've done a good bit of thinking about this.

In order to get the cold break to stay in the kettle I'd need to recirculate until the whole volume was down to 70ish, then give it a whirlpool and a rest. Well that actually takes a long time. When hot wort goes through the chiller it gets rid of a lot of heat, but when 90 degree wort goes in and comes out at 70, that's not getting rid of that much heat. The fastest way to get the entire volume down to pitching temps is to just run it through the CFC straight into the fermenter, but all the wort that hasn't been through the chiller yet just sits there making DMS. I recirculate until the entire volume is below 140, and once it is I just put the output into the fermenter. This ends up with cold break in the fermenter but I like the speed so I live with it.

I've used several sizes of IC, and I currently use a CFC. I've had zero problems with the cold break, in fact, I think my beers have gotten better. I just make sure I cold crash at the end of primary fermentation, and that settles everything into a nice cake on the bottom; it really clears the beer up!

I brewed a winter warmer yesterday, and a spiced ale today, and was contemplating this earlier. I've always used my IC more so to bring it down to ferment temps then get a cold break. I filter going from primary to secondary, and the little bit of trub never seems to hurt.