Rapid Chilling method

Hey all,

I'm brewing an Oktoberfest next weekend. This will be a 10gal batch. It is supposed to be near 100F outside on brew day. I want to pitch cold.

This is my plan to chill my wort down as quick as possible.

1) I have a 7 gallon pail of salt water in a mini fridge holding a temp of about 32F. (Its my old Keg fridge...just ordered a new freezer will be here on Thursday)
2) at least 2 (Probably three) Corny Kegs of water in my new freezer (hopefully by brew day they will be in the 30's.
3) I will run ice cold water through immersion chiller via pond pump!

I think with 15 (Maybe 20) gallons of 30ish degree water I should be able to cool it down in no time.


What do you think?

Thanks,

Cranny

Sounds like a plan to me.

I normally just buy a couple of bags of ice. I add the ice to a cooler with some water and then use a sump pump to send it through the chiller. I dont use the ice water until I am below ~90F though. Its a waste of ice. Even if you dont wait until below 90 to use your cooled water I would still wait until you are below 120. Your heat transfer rates are still really high at that point. When you get below 100F is when the cooling rate starts to significantly slow.

To get down to 90 I use my immersion chiller and set the boil kettle in a big tub of water. I empty out the tub twice before I get down to 90. For ales I'm pitching within 15 minutes and Lagers about 25 minutes.

Ed4 said:

Sounds like a plan to me.

I normally just buy a couple of bags of ice. I add the ice to a cooler with some water and then use a sump pump to send it through the chiller. I dont use the ice water until I am below ~90F though. Its a waste of ice. Even if you dont wait until below 90 to use your cooled water I would still wait until you are below 120. Your heat transfer rates are still really high at that point. When you get below 100F is when the cooling rate starts to significantly slow.

To get down to 90 I use my immersion chiller and set the boil kettle in a big tub of water. I empty out the tub twice before I get down to 90. For ales I'm pitching within 15 minutes and Lagers about 25 minutes.

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I usually use bags of ice also.. But my ground water is in the mid 70's. This way my ice will not be used to cool my tap water... And I have the room right now so I figure "why not"

Ed4 said:

I dont use the ice water until I am below ~90F though. Its a waste of ice. Even if you dont wait until below 90 to use your cooled water I would still wait until you are below 120.

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I would follow this advice. You're just going to burn through ice and ice water unnecessarily otherwise.