best chilling solution

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slim chillingsworth

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texas summer is approaching. i need to get a more efficient chilling method in place to conserve water and save time. i'm currently using a 50' copper immersion chiller with a pond pump and ice water.

if i go with a whirlpool setup, i need to buy a pump. that's more than the cost of a shirron chiller but it's multi-use (and easier to clean). however, that's the only use i really need it for. i'm using a grant for draining my MLT, and manually pouring that into my brew kettle, so i'm pretty close to a one tier setup with gravity only (my mlt is a fairly shallow cooler, so the only height gain is from about two feet from the grant to the HLT).

i could build a counterflow chiller and run ice water through it, but i haven't read much on such a setup. would this be a significant gain?
 
another option i've been considering is something that will create a strong whirlpool without relying on recirculation, and therefore not needing a pump. i sometimes use a wine degasser mix-stir on my drill to aerate and get a small whirlpool going, but i would need to build a holster for the drill to make it efficient enough to see a significant temperature drop.
 
You could check out no-chill brewing....there's actually a lot of benefit for someone in your situation!
 
texas summer is approaching. i need to get a more efficient chilling method in place to conserve water and save time. i'm currently using a 50' copper immersion chiller with a pond pump and ice water.

if i go with a whirlpool setup, i need to buy a pump. that's more than the cost of a shirron chiller but it's multi-use (and easier to clean). however, that's the only use i really need it for. i'm using a grant for draining my MLT, and manually pouring that into my brew kettle, so i'm pretty close to a one tier setup with gravity only (my mlt is a fairly shallow cooler, so the only height gain is from about two feet from the grant to the HLT).

i could build a counterflow chiller and run ice water through it, but i haven't read much on such a setup. would this be a significant gain?

An immersion chiller gets the entire wort below 150ish faster than a CFC or plate chiller; that's about the point where DMS production stops being a factor. That's why a lot of people think an IC produces better results than the alternatives, despite taking longer to get the wort down to pitching temps.

OTOH, a lot of people have been using no-chill successfully without DMS issues.
 
It depends though... If you use warm source water, say 70F tap water, on a plate or CFC, you'll have to run the wort really slow to get it down to ~72ish. In that case, sure, the wort sits in the kettle for a while. However, if you're going with cold chill water, wintertime tap or pumped icewater, then you blaze the wort through. I've filled two better bottles in less than 7 minutes through my old plate chiller in February and they were at 66F.

It's ALWAYS about the coolant water temp first, then chiller design second. Stirring the wort with a drill paddle and using an IC works better than a pumped whirlpool in terms of chilling speed but the disadvantage is having to stand there holding the drill and *potentially* contaminating the wort though it's not that likely.

Note, nothing says you can't recirculate externally chilled wort to reach the magic sub 150F mark in a hurry.

IMHO, there is no "best" chilling method. They all have their pros and cons.
 
slim, i'm no expert but i'll give you my results. i live in south mississippi, so the temps here pretty similar to what you get. i built a 25ft CFC with rubber garden hose and copper tubing. i just used it on another batch yesterday (ambient temp ~80f). using my pump, the boiling wort reaches the fermenter in less than 10 seconds. yesterday, with the garden hose about 3/4 open, it chilled it to 75f (which was my goal/pitching temp). the last time i used it, i got it well below 70f. i play with the water hose rate to get my desired temp, but it will get the wort about as cold as you would want it (no real need for ice water or pre-chiller). plus, the CFC is cheap and easy to build and it works great. i think i spent around $75 to make two of them.
 
I would wonder what it would take to get your initial setup rigged to run the hot wort through the coils and through the ice water, then back into the kettle. Honestly, recirculating the wort back in, drops the overall temps faster than anything. And that is the goal of any chilling process. Once you've dropped it below, say 150, the rest is just for your personal time benefit.

I love my CFC, and if (or maybe when) I get a pump, I may build a recirc chiller for just this reason. But I have been getting great results just using my tap water and draining my wort once through. I just don't KNOW that there would be a noticeable difference if I went whirlpool. Some say no-chill works well and my own personal attempt (in winter with a stout) seemed to cause no issues.

But major opinion says to drop the whole volume of wort as fast as possible, and with your current equipment, I think that converting to a CFC recirc system would be cheapest and give the best results. Use tap water for chill water.
 
I recently used my IC to make a diy CFC. So glad i did, it is so much easier now. I run the garden hose off the outflow to my garden, so the water never runs into the street, and it gives the yard a good soak.

as far as the time the hot wort sits in the kettle, i put the lid on it to help keep it hot and keep any bugs from flying in as soon as i flame out. I also use an air-stone/pump to aerate so i usually put that in the fermenter first. So by the time i'm done filling it, its ready to pitch the yeast.

So far i have had great success with this setup.
 
Stirring the wort with a drill paddle and using an IC works better than a pumped whirlpool in terms of chilling speed but the disadvantage is having to stand there holding the drill and *potentially* contaminating the wort though it's not that likely.

can you explain why it would work better? as mentioned, i would build a stand for the drill (and probably just use a zip tie to keep it running) if i went with that option.

IMHO, there is no "best" chilling method. They all have their pros and cons.

yes. to clarify, i'm looking for the best UPGRADE from my current system. the options are adding a pump/whirlpool or plate chiller, switching to a CFC, or some alternative, e.g. a mounted drill or otherwise motorized stirring device.
 
The amount of whirlpool action you get with a drill motor and paddle is huge compared to a pumped return. You actually get a vortex. There is some point where increasing wort movement yields no more benefit, but I'm sure it's past the point of what a march pump can do. I wouldn't mess with any kind of holder device because you will chill in about 5 minutes if you pump icewater and spin the hell out of the wort. The other benefit is not having to drop $130 on a pump right away. They have plenty of other utility, but if you don't really need it...
 
Here is a pic of a stirring mechanism that AnOldUR built. I'd love to have something like this mounted to the lid of my kettle with an easy to attach/detach coupling between the stir rod and the motor (so you can easily boil/sanitize the stir rod assembly without the lid on).

E-MLT_02.jpg
 
The amount of whirlpool action you get with a drill motor and paddle is huge compared to a pumped return. You actually get a vortex. There is some point where increasing wort movement yields no more benefit, but I'm sure it's past the point of what a march pump can do. I wouldn't mess with any kind of holder device because you will chill in about 5 minutes if you pump icewater and spin the hell out of the wort. The other benefit is not having to drop $130 on a pump right away. They have plenty of other utility, but if you don't really need it...


some good points. i'm definitely throwing out the pump idea. i don't have enough need for one other than chilling. i'm debating between just using a drill setup (even 5 minutes would be easier with a mount) and a dudadiesel 30 plate chiller ($75).
 
texas summer is approaching. i need to get a more efficient chilling method in place to conserve water and save time. i'm currently using a 50' copper immersion chiller with a pond pump and ice water.

IMO the 50 foot chiller should be more than adequate for heat transfer, sorry, but I fail to see how any other method could be more efficient. With texas summer tap water, the question really is "how much ice can you get?"
 
IMO the 50 foot chiller should be more than adequate for heat transfer, sorry, but I fail to see how any other method could be more efficient. With texas summer tap water, the question really is "how much ice can you get?"

i'm just not getting good chilling times, and i'm wasting more water than i'd like. i'm sure that the system could be more efficient, there's really no question of that. a plate chiller or a strong whirlpool will allow more surface area contact between the wort and the cooling water.
 
To me the huge advantage of an IC is that you leave the cold break in the kettle. Both CFC and plate put that into the fermenter. I like to think that leaving trub behind makes yeast harvesting a little easier/cleaner.
 
Collect that hot effluent and put it in your washing machine so it's not wasted.

I've looked into plate chillers and it seems they require some special care/cleaning and they are traps for any sort of hops/gunk that make it in there so I decided to just upgrade to a 50' IC (which you already have) and use my old 25' IC as a prechiller (in a bucket with water and a frozen gallon water jug). After I've run ~20 gallons and put the hot effluent in the washing machine I remove the prechiller, add ice to the water and use a submersible pump for the rest of the chilling (recirculating now). Still prob not quickest way but we're at a disadvantage with our tepid tap water. I just grab the IC and stir with that every few minutes but I'd love to have an automatic stirring mechanism.

Also FWIW, I've read that you really have to chill pretty low and pretty fast to REALLY get most of the cold break and there is some evidence that you don't even WANT to remove all the cold break anyway. Hot break yes but cold break no, the yeast like it (and maybe even NEED it).
 
Collect that hot effluent and put it in your washing machine so it's not wasted.

thanks for the tip on using the water for my washing machine. that eliminates one of my concerns, but still doesn't shorten my cooling times.

currently i pump tap-temperature water through the chiller until i get below 100* and then throw in some ice, usually two bags, one at a time. this does a good job of getting me pretty close to pitching temp on 5 gallons (i can't say that i've actually timed it) in probably about 30-40 minutes. this thread was partially inspired by doing a 10g batch on sunday, which took approximately ****ing forever to chill. i'm a patient person, and fairly low-tech with my brewing, but this is an area where i'd be willing to spend the money if i can get chilling down to about 10 minutes.

I've looked into plate chillers and it seems they require some special care/cleaning and they are traps for any sort of hops/gunk that make it in there.

i've read the same. and then i've read what i feel are pretty good cleaning methods for them. it's certainly a concern.

I spent my first brewing summer dealing with 80* plus ground water. My solution was a CFC with a post chill coil packed in ice. details can be seen here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/hell-earth-wort-chiller-73315/

that is a beautiful, beautiful design and definitely an option.
 
Plates are easy to clean. Just toss it in to your oven on self clean during mash in heat up. By the time you are ready to chill the oven has burned anything in the plate to ash. A quick blow with air or flush with water and you have a clean sanitized plate. I use this method every third brew or if I'm doing a hi grav batch. Since switching from the HOE to a plate I have incorporated a cornie as an ice bank to chill the cooling water before entering the plate. It is still single pass cooling in under 15 minutes but uses less ice. Necessity is the mother of invention.
 
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