Cooling the Wort

I have been reading over old threads and haven't found the answer I'm looking for. So far i have done two ten gallon brews. Both have been extract California IPA. Purchased them as kits from the local brew store.

Here is my question. Once the cooking is done and it time to cool it down what is more critical to cool it down as soon as its done cooking or cool it down from boiling to below 70? The reason why I ask and hopefully to make my question less confusing. It takes about 30 minutes to run all the wort through my counter flow chiller. The time it takes a small amount to leave the pot and run through the chiller is probably less then a minute.

I'm saving up to buy a march pump to speed up the flow, but I'm still wondering what is the critical part of cooling.

I'll ask a follow-on beginner question:

Are you running the beer through the wort chiller or are you running cold water through the wort chiller, while it is sitting (pre-sanitized) in the wort?

Should my goal be to buy a second wort chillder, put one in a bucket/cooler of icewater, and run water from the tap to the icewater, to the wort, to a drain? Thats what I have in mind but haven't gotten around to ordering a second wort chiler.

Run cold water through the wort chiller not beer. I drop my wort chiller in the brew pot ten minutes before killing the flame to insure sanitation.

No need for a second chiller.

It is important to cool the wort down as quickly as possible once your boil time is complete.

I struggled to cool one of my beers for about a half an hour this summer and saw no ill affects to the final product.

To answer your question, Yes.

A counter flow wort chiller has hot wort flowing in one direction through a center 3/8" copper pipe while cold water flows in the oposit direction around the outside of the copper pipe which is contained by a garden hose. Look in the DIY section for better explanation and pics. heres a good one

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/counterflow-chiller-tutorial-51793/

Typically one type of wort chiller will work.

oops. I was referring to an immersion chiller.

Cool it down as quickly as you can, I still gravity feed through my plate chiller. I'm not so concerned with infection as I am with more hop utilization.

Question on using a Counterflow chiller:

1). To me it looks like the wort is gravity fed through the counter flow, then to the primary.

2). Water is sent through the hose in the opposite direction from a garden hose faucet and after going through the counter flow, the (little bit warmer) water is out putted to the lawn or a drain (sink)? It's a mini Geothermal heat pump. :cross:

So I will need to be close to a garden faucet, and drain (or lawn) and set up the wort to be able to gravity feed through the Counterflow. The problem that I see is, up here in the northern part of the country, we don't want to use our outside faucets to prevent them from freezing up.

I realize there are ways to connect to inside faucets, is that what I would do?

Don't get me wrong here. I love DIY projects like these. Even if it might cost more than buying one, it's the satisfaction of making it that matters to me.

Anyone have a video of one of these in use? I do much better when I can see something working compared to reading how it works.