Cold break with CF chiller?

Question #12

I just brewed my 4th all-grain batch last night. A 21 pound grain bill Imperial Oatmeal Stout I brew will all electric in my basement and I have a counter flow chiller (3/8) i.d. As I watch for 34 minutes, my wort slowly drain from my keggle I thought: quickly chilling the wort results is a cold break that brings protiens to the bottom of the kettle but is that occuring with a counter flow? And if so is the cold break ending up in my fermenter? Do I even know what cold break means/is? Should I go back to an immersion chiller in the kettle and us the copper coil from the c/f as a pre chiller in a bucket of ice? That would help a lot, I would think.

Thanks ahead of time.

Yes, your cfc creates a cold break, and it does end up in your fermenter. The cold break contains some beneficial junk for your yeast, so it's good to have it in your fermenter as long as you don't leave your beer in the primary too long.

Cold break in the fermenter is a normal result of using a counter flow chiller. It's just more proteins. The pros use a whirlpool to remove some of it, but as kk says, it really isn't a problem, what the yeast don't eat ends up in the trub.

Thanks for the help guys.

I was using a counterflow chiller, doing fine and then I went to 10 gallon batches. The wort must be chilled to below 140F within 20 mins or you get DMS. With 10 gals it took to long, so I made a whirpool immersion chiller out of 60' of 1/2" copper. The wort is below 140 in 2 mins. to 65 in about 10.

Musthavbeer said:

I was using a counterflow chiller, doing fine and then I went to 10 gallon batches. The wort must be chilled to below 140F within 20 mins or you get DMS. With 10 gals it took to long, so I made a whirpool immersion chiller out of 60' of 1/2" copper. The wort is below 140 in 2 mins. to 65 in about 10.

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If that's true, then how does a brewery solve this problem with much larger volumes they have to cool? They don't have big immersion chillers to cool everything at once. Don't they usually run their beer through a plate chiller (same concept as a CFC)?

Yes, breweries use plate chillers and it takes time to cool it down. I brew 25 gallon batches and I use a CFC because an IC isn't efficient enough for large volumes.

Why would you get DMS from using a CFC?

What is DMS?

And what is a whiirlpoool immersion chiller?


Thanks,
D*Bo

Dimethyl Sulfide
Description: Tastes and smells of cooked vegetables/corn/cabbage or shellfish/seafood. Is acceptable in light lagers to a degree.

Cause: Bacterial infection can cause DMS, as well as covering up your brewpot during the boil. DMS is removed from the wort during the boil, so covering it up is obviously going to cause the DMS-laced condensation to fall back into your brewpot.

Remedy: Keep good sanitation procedures, and make sure to keep a rolling, uncovered boil when brewing. Do not cover your brewpot during the boil!


DMS production. When the boil is turned off the DMS is not being blown off and is still being produced. Using a IC the entire volume of beer is being cooled. With an CFC the wort is staying neer boiling temps until it has passed through the chilling coil. If you whirlpool and wait 10. 15, 20 or even 30 minutes for the hot break to drop then you are building up DMS in your wort that entire time

Whirlpool Immersion chiller: http://www.mrmalty.com

Yeah, I've read that same post on the whirlpool IC, but seriously, that's just one guy's opinion, and I'm not sure what would qualify him as an expert - even if he does try to talk like one.

I still haven't got a good answer on how the breweries do it without generating all this bad DMS... From what I've seen on even the small to mid-sized breweries, it takes a while to run their beer through the plate chillers, and they don't seem worried about it, and they end up w/ good beer in the end.

I just purchased a CFC and plan to use my IC as a pre-chiller to get the water running through the CFC very cold. I think I'll be able to have a pretty good flow rate from the brew kettle that way. I'm going this route because I'll be doing 10 gal batches now and I wanted a way to cool the wort more efficiently.