Why boil the wort chiller?

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At this point I'm pretty sure there's someone out there who starsans their grain mill. And I'm equally sure there's a LHBS employee who advises it--as they try to sell you a tertiary fermenter, and a duplicate kettle and mash tun (for brett beers).

I cringe every time I hear one sell a kit and say, "Just give it one week in primary and two in secondary." Christ, sell them a hydrometer, not a second carboy! Yeast doesn't have a calendar.
 
Geez, why did I never think of this? From now on it's flame out, chiller in, pump on, wait 30+ seconds, then start chiller. Perfect time for the whirlpool hops too. It's always annoyed me to have to bring it back up to a boil. Just use the thermal mass of the cold chiller to bring it down those first couple of degrees...
 
broncosaurs said:
I don't think anyone boils their fermenter for 10-15 minutes to sterilize it, do they?
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Actually, I have always put my chiller in 15 minutes prior to flameout to sanitize it. When I made my chiller, some 18 years ago, that was standard procedure. I always make sure it is clean before I put it into the wort. After reading this, I think I will toss it in at flame-out.
 
Used a wort chiller finally. It was easy as hell to make and worked amazingly. Screw ice baths.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Home Brew mobile app
 
cgunnyon said:
Used a wort chiller finally. It was easy as hell to make and worked amazingly. Screw ice baths.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Home Brew mobile app
Click to expand...

Yeah, ice baths don't do much more than wishing. My thermoplastic rig works well for the $13 I spent on it, gets me in range within 20-30 min. I say copper's conductivity is overstated as an asset, given its cost.
 
nutty_gnome said:
Something to think about - When you pop it in at flameout, your wort will instantly loose temp as the copper and whatever is in your chiller (air or water or both) heats up. Depending upon the physical volume of your chiller, you may have a severe temp drop and I don't know where you would end up. It could be that dropping your chiller in at flameout brings the wort instantly down to the perfect whirlpool-hop-addition temperature. That might be an interesting side-benefit to the technique. N_G
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I do it with about 5.5 gallons in the kettle and have a 50ft copper chiller. it maybe loses 4-6 degrees and that's being liberal
 
fearwig said:
Yeah, ice baths don't do much more than wishing. My thermoplastic rig works well for the $13 I spent on it, gets me in range within 20-30 min. I say copper's conductivity is overstated as an asset, given its cost.
Click to expand...


Agree about coppers initial cost. I spent about $55 for my 50ft of tubing.

However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.

I'm done in 6-10 minutes, which in my mind minimizes waste.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I really like this idea, but I do have one concern. If you drop it in at flameout, the parts of the chiller not submersed in the hot water will be very unlikely to reach pasteurization temperature. My IC forms a decent amount of condensation, and a few drips invariably make it into the wort during the cooling process. I'd guess the chance of infection due to this is pretty low, but it's still a possible source of infection.

For this reason, maybe it's a good idea to recommend soaking the IC in starsan, or at least spraying down the part that won't be submerged, prior to dropping it in, if done at flameout. It requires very little effort, and may prevent an infection.


Either way though, I'm glad this was brought up. I had never given this a second thought. The books I read said to do it this way, so I've always done it. I'll probably dip it in starsan and then drop it in at flameout from now on.
 
Safa said:
However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.
Click to expand...

I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.
 
Safa said:
Agree about coppers initial cost. I spent about $55 for my 50ft of tubing.

However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.

I'm done in 6-10 minutes, which in my mind minimizes waste.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

I get you there, but I'm on well water and a septic system, so I think all I'm wasting is a few watt hours of pump electricity. And the water's nice and cold this time of year (when it isn't freezing up in my pipes). I suspect I'm using less this way than I would running a bathtub full of water, like I used to.

Copper is rigid, though, and my thermoplastic isn't, which sucks on a practical level, especially indoors. I'd take the copper if I could get it cheap, or use SS or something else if it were cheaply available and I could bend it correctly.
 
bondra76 said:
I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I like to collect my chiller water in buckets then use it for cleaning my kettle, the hot water loosens the protein goo from the top and bottom of the kettle and it wipes off with a paper towel.

The water collected that isn't as hot as the first bucket's worth is usually poured into the washing machine for laundry or used for watering my hops during the summer when its dry.
 
fearwig said:
I get you there, but I'm on well water and a septic system, so I think all I'm wasting is a few watt hours of pump electricity. And the water's nice and cold this time of year (when it isn't freezing up in my pipes). I suspect I'm using less this way than I would running a bathtub full of water, like I used to.

Copper is rigid, though, and my thermoplastic isn't, which sucks on a practical level, especially indoors. I'd take the copper if I could get it cheap, or use SS or something else if it were cheaply available and I could bend it correctly.
Click to expand...

Wort chillers are tremendously easy to make. I bought 50ft of 3/8" copper tubing from lowes for like 58 bucks, then wrapped it around a corny keg as a guide.
 
max384 said:
I really like this idea, but I do have one concern. If you drop it in at flameout, the parts of the chiller not submersed in the hot water will be very unlikely to reach pasteurization temperature. My IC forms a decent amount of condensation, and a few drips invariably make it into the wort during the cooling process. I'd guess the chance of infection due to this is pretty low, but it's still a possible source of infection.

For this reason, maybe it's a good idea to recommend soaking the IC in starsan, or at least spraying down the part that won't be submerged, prior to dropping it in, if done at flameout. It requires very little effort, and may prevent an infection.


Either way though, I'm glad this was brought up. I had never given this a second thought. The books I read said to do it this way, so I've always done it. I'll probably dip it in starsan and then drop it in at flameout from now on.
Click to expand...

I had reached the same conclusion about the exposed parts of the chiller. Instead of dunking, I'll use my spray bottle of starsan.




bondra76 said:
I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.
Click to expand...
I've been putting the "first runnings" out of my chiller into my plastic wash tubs for cleanup, then the less warmer water into my mash tun to clean it, then dumping off the rest.




CrystalShip said:
Agreed. I like to collect my chiller water in buckets then use it for cleaning my kettle, the hot water loosens the protein goo from the top and bottom of the kettle and it wipes off with a paper towel.

The water collected that isn't as hot as the first bucket's worth is usually poured into the washing machine for laundry or used for watering my hops during the summer when its dry.
Click to expand...

I've got some rain barrels that are empty most of the summer, I think I'll fill them with the cold chiller water.
 
CrystalShip said:
Wort chillers are tremendously easy to make. I bought 50ft of 3/8" copper tubing from lowes for like 58 bucks, then wrapped it around a corny keg as a guide.
Click to expand...

Nah, I meant it sucks that my plastic isn't rigid because I have to recoil it to get it in the pot, and copper holds shape. My only opposition to copper is cost, I'll probably upgrade someday but kegs, ingredients, etc. come first.
 
Safa said:
No, an IC will not drop your wort to pitching temps by just dropping it in at flameout.
Click to expand...

Who said it would? Are you talking about this?

nutty_gnome said:
When you pop it in at flameout, your wort will instantly loose temp as the copper and whatever is in your chiller (air or water or both) heats up. It could be that dropping your chiller in at flameout brings the wort instantly down to the perfect whirlpool-hop-addition temperature.
Click to expand...

Whirlpool temperature != yeast pitching temperature.

Safa said:
Sometimes it's like people dont even read before posting.... Haha
Click to expand...

Yeah, don't you just hate that?
 
kombat said:
Who said it would? Are you talking about this?







Whirlpool temperature != yeast pitching temperature.







Yeah, don't you just hate that?
Click to expand...


Whoops! My brain said pitching = yeast! My bad!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Hmm. Never thought about this. But I've had a recipe or two calling for hops at 5 min. And that's a kinda PITA to do with the stupid chiller in there.

Might do this at flameout too. Would help cool ever so slightly, probably
 
I always add the chiller @ flameout. I spray it down with starsan and have it sitting in the sink before I drop it in anyway.....
 
Just to be on the safe side I soak my ic in my sanitation bucket which acts as my primary, but then feel very comfortable then dropping it in at flameout instead of during the boil.
 
b-boy said:
:off:

You can fix that. Get some more tubing and sweat a couple of couplings to each side. That should allow you to extend the arms of the chiller to hang over the sides of the pot. It'd proably cost you about $5 in materials. I did it with mine and was able to add an extra 20ft of coil.

I'd be nervous with that setup. If you ever develop a small water leak it's going to drip right into your nice sterile wort. You might not even notice it.
Click to expand...

That actually happened to us the first time my friends and I brewed outside. We ran hose water through the chiller, and the pressure was higher than usual as a result. The vinyl tubes were only connected to the copper with hose clamps. We noticed water leaking into the wort from the vinyl tubes half way through chilling. :smack:

We were lucky, and noticed no ill effects. It was one of our better batches, actually.
 
fearwig said:
And that is how homebrewing misconceptions survive for a decade until someone shoots them down. The homebrewing community has some magical thinking to overcome when it comes to pasteurization and sanitation in particular.

One infection due to totally unrelated causes and someone will convince themselves to boil their wort chiller for an hour, or spray their boil kettle with starsan, or something else nonsensical. Meanwhile the culprit yeast or bacterium would have been killed by a minute or two at 145-150F, and the person in question is racking to a (perhaps not even necessary) secondary right next to their kitchen trash...
Click to expand...

I'm an Occam's Razor kinda guy. I think the much simpler answer is that people confuse sanitization with sterilization.
 
Used a chiller for the first time this past weekend. Big fan of the quick chill. Less so of the 15 minutes of boiling it. Think I will try the soak in Starsan and add at flame out path next time.
 

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