The most efficient way to cool wort

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Jcoz

Jcoz

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I have a immersion chiller, and I will be adding the pieces to whirlpool as well, however my problem is with ice. The three batches I've done so far have taken me $15+ in ice and upwards of an hour to chill the wort,and even then I still can't get it into the 60's. Ideally I don't want to spend ANY money on buying ice... As it is it nearly doubles the cost of a batch of beer!

I thought the whirlpool would take care of this, but from what I'm reading, that still doesn't completely take care of the issue. What is the min temp I would need to get my wort to if I just wanted to use my fermentation fridge to cool it the rest of the way overnight?

What types of setups and or additional equipment can I get/install to completely relieve my reliance on purchasing ice? I have searched around but don't see a whole lot of great solutions for this. I don't have the room to stock up on homemade ice, at least not 5 gallons worth.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
I have only brewed one batch of beer, but I was able to get my wort down to about 78F in around 30min. I put in about three trays of ice in my sink and filled about half way with water and put my brew pot in. Once the ice melted I put in about half a bag and when that melted put in the rest of the bag. I then took the spray and sprayed cold water around the pot, rotating the pot every min. or so, for about 10min. until I got the wort down to about 120F. I then moved the wort to my frementer bucket. Once in the bucket I stated to poor in bottled water I placed in the freezer. Once I just about topped off the wort to 5gals. it was down to 78F and I pitched the yeast.

That said, if this is a poor way to go about getting the temp down please let me know so I don't make the same mistake again.
 
Sounds like you DON'T have an immersion chiller. An immersion chiller is a copper or stainless coil that you put IN your brew kettle to chill the wort. You run cold tap water through the coil to chill the beer. No ice needed.
 
CrystallineEntity said:
Sounds like you DON'T have an immersion chiller. An immersion chiller is a copper or stainless coil that you put IN your brew kettle to chill the wort. You run cold tap water through the coil to chill the beer. No ice needed.
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Assuming you do have an immersion chiller how are you using the ice? There are different scenarios I can think of when using ice. What is yours?
 
Jcoz said:
I have a immersion chiller, and I will be adding the pieces to whirlpool as well, however my problem is with ice. The three batches I've done so far have taken me $15+ in ice and upwards of an hour to chill the wort,and even then I still can't get it into the 60's. Ideally I don't want to spend ANY money on buying ice... As it is it nearly doubles the cost of a batch of beer!
Click to expand...

$15 on ice? for 5 gallons? Good gravy!

I have an immersion chiller, i run hose water through it until the wort is down to about 110-120, and then swap to using a small fountain pump to run ice water through the chiller. Usually takes a 20 lb bag of ice, which is <$4.
 
I just run an immersion chiller from ground water. Even in the Summer I can get down below 90 within 20-30 minutes and then put it in the fridge for a little bit to get to pitching temps.

i've seen pre-chillers that are miniature immersion chillers that you put inline between the faucet and the actual chiller. The pre-chiller sits in a bucket of icewater and helps get the ground water to a lower temp before it hits the wort.
 
jaycount said:
i've seen pre-chillers that are miniature immersion chillers that you put inline between the faucet and the actual chiller. The pre-chiller sits in a bucket of icewater and helps get the ground water to a lower temp before it hits the wort.
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much what I do here in the summer time when ground water is 80 degrees. Cool off till about 90-100, it won't get any cooler than that, and then use the prechiller. I think next summer once the wort cools to 90-100 degrees I'm just going to transfer to the fermenter and put in the ferm chamber until the next day.

I love winter brewing. Cold ground water and quick chilling time.
 
Love2BrewCrew said:
Your wort chiller will bring the batch down to your desired temperature without ice. Are you having an issue with it?
Click to expand...

Yes I had a big problem with mine. I have 50' 1/2" copper immersion chiller and a sump type pump. I can drop 70-80 degrees in 15min and then it takes me 45 min and several bags of ice to get to 70-75, and even then I need another 10 degrees to get to pitching temps.

I am in md, so when I did these batches it was pretty hot outside but I'd think I could overcome that.
 
Jcoz said:
Yes I had a big problem with mine. I have 50' 1/2" copper immersion chiller and a sump type pump. I can drop 70-80 degrees in 15min and then it takes me 45 min and several bags of ice to get to 70-75, and even then I need another 10 degrees to get to pitching temps.

I am in md, so when I did these batches it was pretty hot outside but I'd think I could overcome that.
Click to expand...

I don't use a pond pump. I just use tap water. If your tap water is under 70 degrees (probable at this time of year), you could run tap water. Many people will use the pond pump at first, or in the summer when the tap water is warm, to bring the temp down to 100 degrees or so, then just use tap water to bring it down to 65 degrees.
 
Describe your process a bit more - something isn't adding up here. Do you move your wort chiller around in the wort? I cut my cooling time in half simply by moving the thing around in the wort - maximizing surface area of cold copper on hot wort.

I do the same thing as Discnjh - hose water until 110ish (and I collect it all, usually ~5g, which I use for cleaning). Then switch to 5g bucket filled with ice water and a small fountain pump. This takes longer since my pump isn't strong enough, but still only 10-20 mins more. Again, I collect the outflow in a different container, otherwise I'm just melting ice.
 
Dan said:
Assuming you do have an immersion chiller how are you using the ice? There are different scenarios I can think of when using ice. What is yours?
Click to expand...

The first batching used only tap water running it through the chiller. Second time I used tap water for a while, then switched to recirculating ice water from a six gallon bucket, draining water and adding ice as needed.
 
If I may offer what I've done on my first two batches and have been incredibly pleased with:

I fill my laundry tub with 1/3 cold tap water, place my 20qt brew pot (with lid) in, then drop in every single reusable frozen cold lunch and ice pack I have in my house (about 12 of them). Both times I've used this method the wort has cooled in under 25 minutes and the ice packs go right back into the freezer to be used for the next patch.

Best feeling is that I don't feel like I've wasted $45 on a wort chiller or have to buy packs of ice! My wife is happy that I'm using the ice packs not just for camping too!
 
I have a 15 gallon pot, so putting it in anything to cool it is a no go, unfortunately it's also very wide, which ,means 1/4 of my chiller is above the wort, and I have moved it, but not very much, so that's something I can do more, and I can collect the water separately, instead of recirculating. That's a start, maybe that will take care of my issues.
 
When I use my immersion chiller, I don't turn the tap water on to full blast. Just about halfway or less. My reasoning is that the water needs to absorb the heat to chill the wort. Also, will the wort cover your chiller if you lay it sideways in the pot? Just a thought.
 
Butter said:
When I use my immersion chiller, I don't turn the tap water on to full blast. Just about halfway or less. My reasoning is that the water needs to absorb the heat to chill the wort. Also, will the wort cover your chiller if you lay it sideways in the pot? Just a thought.
Click to expand...

First of all, somebody up above asked for a more complete description of your process. Please post it if you have not already.

1) Somebody else suggested that you move your chiller around and around within your boil kettle. Good advice.]

2) Butter here suggests you look at the water flow. Maybe even slowing it down may be the kicker.

It appears you have the equipment, now to dial in the procedure and, IMHO you will be happy. Good Luck
 
Butter said:
When I use my immersion chiller, I don't turn the tap water on to full blast. Just about halfway or less. My reasoning is that the water needs to absorb the heat to chill the wort. Also, will the wort cover your chiller if you lay it sideways in the pot? Just a thought.
Click to expand...

slowing the flow of the tap water will not increase the cooling. your chiller is absorbing heat and the water should carry it away ASAP not let it linger in the chiller. a fast flow through the chiller and whirlpooling is the key but if your groundwater is warm then there is not much you can do besides using ice in some way. if you were using a CFC then slowing the flow of the incoming wort could increase cooling.
 
Eastoak, you're correct about water flow, I'm just saying what works for me. Not trying to start a big blown argument here, cause we're both trying to help. Maybe increasing the flow is what the op needs?
 
Butter said:
Eastoak, you're correct about water flow, I'm just saying what works for me. Not trying to start a big blown argument here, cause we're both trying to help. Maybe increasing the flow is what the op needs?
Click to expand...


correct, he needs to increase the flow of water through the chiller. he does not say what size chiller he has but i started with a 25 foot 1/4 inch chiller that was a joke compared to the 1/2 inch 50 footer i replaced it with.
 
Moving the chiller around definitely will increase the cooling effect. You could also do what we winemakers do to cool a hot fermentation...put a frozen 1 gallon plastic milk/water bottle in the wort to help...make sure it's food grade...and it can be re-frozen.

My immersion chiller cools my wort to pitching temps in about 10-15 min using tap water. I always use a starter and once temps are within 15F of each other I add small amounts of wort to temper the starter until they are almost equal.
 
I don't have a chiller, but I have found a very quick way to cool down. I've only brewed 4 batches, so I don't know if what I'm doing is a bad idea. It seems to be working for me though..

I have to put top-off water in my wort since I can only boil 3 gal, so I put one gal of water in the fridge the night before. I also have square food storage containers called "Lock & Locks" that I sanitize inside and out with star san. Then I fill the lock & locks with spring water (about 3/4 full) put the lid on, and freeze them the night before brewing. After the boil I put my kettle in an ice bath, and then I get my lock & lock containers out of the freezer. I sanitize them once again along with a pair of tongs. I then open them upside down so the ice block comes out and rests on the lid of the lock & lock. I then pick the block of ice up with the sanitized tongs and plop it into the hot wort. I usually put 2 ice blocks in the wort. This usually cools me down to about 60 - 65f in about 15 mins. If it's not quite cold enough, I get the gal of water out of the fridge and top off with it. If it's too cold I top off with a gal of room temp water instead..

Anyone see any sanitation issues, or other issues with this? I hope not, because it works super fast!!
 
Just stay very anal about your sanitation and you should have no problems. It's more difficult once you start doing full boils since you generally don't add much if any topping water.

Stauffbier said:
I don't have a chiller, but I have found a very quick way to cool down. I've only brewed 4 batches, so I don't know if what I'm doing is a bad idea. It seems to be working for me though..

I have to put top-off water in my wort since I can only boil 3 gal, so I put one gal of water in the fridge the night before. I also have square food storage containers called "Lock & Locks" that I sanitize inside and out with star san. Then I fill the lock & locks with spring water (about 3/4 full) put the lid on, and freeze them the night before brewing. After the boil I put my kettle in an ice bath, and then I get my lock & lock containers out of the freezer. I sanitize them once again along with a pair of tongs. I then open them upside down so the ice block comes out and rests on the lid of the lock & lock. I then pick the block of ice up with the sanitized tongs and plop it into the hot wort. I usually put 2 ice blocks in the wort. This usually cools me down to about 60 - 65f in about 15 mins. If it's not quite cold enough, I get the gal of water out of the fridge and top off with it. If it's too cold I top off with a gal of room temp water instead..

Anyone see any sanitation issues, or other issues with this? I hope not, because it works super fast!!
Click to expand...
 
helibrewer said:
Just stay very anal about your sanitation and you should have no problems. QUOTE]

I have my star san in a spray bottle, and I spray EVERYTHING! The sink, counter, all utencils, water jugs before opening, my hands and arms ,my shirt, my face, and anything else I can think of. I also turn off all AC's and/or fans, and close all windows.. Some things I even keep spraying over and over. I'm hoping that is anal enough..
Click to expand...
 
danielofthedale said:
I have only brewed one batch of beer, but I was able to get my wort down to about 78F in around 30min. I put in about three trays of ice in my sink and filled about half way with water and put my brew pot in. Once the ice melted I put in about half a bag and when that melted put in the rest of the bag. I then took the spray and sprayed cold water around the pot, rotating the pot every min. or so, for about 10min. until I got the wort down to about 120F. I then moved the wort to my frementer bucket. Once in the bucket I stated to poor in bottled water I placed in the freezer. Once I just about topped off the wort to 5gals. it was down to 78F and I pitched the yeast.

That said, if this is a poor way to go about getting the temp down please let me know so I don't make the same mistake again.
Click to expand...

That's how I do mine also ..seems to work pretty well, and pretty quickly ..I've done 3 or 4 batches this way and it seems good ..I guess maybe it would be better the other ways ..??
 
All this talk of moving the chiller around has me confused... I stir my wort continuously while the chiller's running. Does that accomplish the same thing as moving the chiller around? Or should I be moving the chiller INSTEAD of stirring?
 
I stir with my chiller so that I don't need to sanitize my spoon. I think it works either way
 
ShakerD said:
Jcoz were you stirring while it was cooling?
Click to expand...

Negative. Might be a silly sounding question but how would you suggest stirring it? just gently moving the wort around in the kettle or more aggressively say inside the chiller coil?

I was wondering if having the tap water run through a plate chiller in a bucket of ice water before going to the chiller would be a good option. Would the tap have enough pressure to effectively push through a plate chiller and an immersion chiller?

But after reading some comments and thinking about it I see the biggest issue is that I'm recirculating the water instead of just discharging it, effectively only distributing the heat to two 5 gallon bodies of water.

If I stir and run off the water, I should improve drastically (I HOPE), the plate chiller idea is long term idea...
 
Jcoz said:
I was wondering if having the tap water run through a plate chiller in a bucket of ice water before going to the chiller would be a good option. Would the tap have enough pressure to effectively push through a plate chiller and an immersion chiller?

But after reading some comments and thinking about it I see the biggest issue is that I'm recirculating the water instead of just discharging it, effectively only distributing the heat to two 5 gallon bodies of water.

If I stir and run off the water, I should improve drastically (I HOPE), the plate chiller idea is long term idea...
Click to expand...

Using a plate chiller to pre-chill your tap water will certainly help cool faster. The recirculating is the real problem. That's why it's taking so much ice. You have to let the heat run off with the water.

I use a 25', 3/8" chiller that I chill 5.5 - 6 gallons to pitching temp (~65*) with in about 20 - 30 minutes depending on what time of year it is. I am in the process of stepping up to 10 gallon batches, and plan to use a pre-chiller to cool.
 
Jcoz said:
...Might be a silly sounding question but how would you suggest stirring it? ...
Click to expand...

I just move the chilller around throughout the wort. No need for anything vigorous. The point is to ensure the cold copper touches all the hot wort.

EDIT: Your chiller will be hot. I wear a leather work glove.

Jcoz said:
...
...If I stir and run off the water...
Click to expand...

Be sure to collect the runoff - you'll have 5 gallons of warm water for cleaning.
 
JuanKenobi said:
Using a plate chiller to pre-chill your tap water will certainly help cool faster. The recirculating is the real problem. That's why it's taking so much ice. You have to let the heat run off with the water.

I use a 25', 3/8" chiller that I chill 5.5 - 6 gallons to pitching temp (~65*) with in about 20 - 30 minutes depending on what time of year it is. I am in the process of stepping up to 10 gallon batches, and plan to use a pre-chiller to cool.
Click to expand...

Yah that is really a facepalm type realization. Simple logic should have kicked in telling me recirculating was couterproductive. Although I will say I used only tap water the first time running the water off and that certainly wasn't good enough to get to where I needed.

If I picked up a 30-plate chiller do you think I'd have a problem getting enough flow from my tap (outside hose) to run through the plater chiller and through the immersion chiller? I'm just not familiar with how restrictive the plater chiller is.

Ultimately I'd rather do this than build the attachment to make it a whirlpool chiller, if for no other reason but to have less to clean and keep sanitation simpler as I'm a newbie taking on alot as it is with my setup.
 
TyTanium said:
I just move the chilller around throughout the wort. No need for anything vigorous. The point is to ensure the cold copper touches all the hot wort.

EDIT: Your chiller will be hot. I wear a leather work glove.



Be sure to collect the runoff - you'll have 5 gallons of warm water for cleaning.
Click to expand...

See, this tells me that I've got my flow set far too fast if you are suggesting only 5 gallons or even 15!

What flow rate is correct for this?
 
That's just a hypothetical number, I've never actually measured it.

I have 50' of 3/8 OD tubing, so I should get far less runoff than someone with 1/2 ID tubing.

I wouldn't worry about the flow rate. More flow = cooling faster.
Feel the water as it comes out - is it warm? Then you're cooling wort. If it's hot coming out, increase your flow. If it's cold, you could decrease your flow to keep from wasting water.
 
TyTanium said:
That's just a hypothetical number, I've never actually measured it.

I have 50' of 3/8 OD tubing, so I should get far less runoff than someone with 1/2 ID tubing.

I wouldn't worry about the flow rate. More flow = cooling faster.
Feel the water as it comes out - is it warm? Then you're cooling wort. If it's hot coming out, increase your flow. If it's cold, you could decrease your flow to keep from wasting water.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Yah my last last time brewing the hose popped out for a second and burned the **** out of my foot at a fairly high flow rate, yet another reason I feel ridiculous for not having understood my problem was not running the water off. Seemed like so much wasted water that first time just using tap water that I thought this couln't be the way it was supposed to work....
 
Haha...no need to feel ridiculous. I had a similar experience when I first built mine. It was just an expensive way to melt ice. Then I hooked it up to the hose & moved it around and watched my temp needle drop like a rock.
 
surprised no one has mentioned a counterflow chiller, my brew partner made one and we tested it the other day and went in boiling came out 85 deg F !
 
Jcoz said:
Negative. Might be a silly sounding question but how would you suggest stirring it? just gently moving the wort around in the kettle or more aggressively say inside the chiller coil?

I was wondering if having the tap water run through a plate chiller in a bucket of ice water before going to the chiller would be a good option. Would the tap have enough pressure to effectively push through a plate chiller and an immersion chiller?

But after reading some comments and thinking about it I see the biggest issue is that I'm recirculating the water instead of just discharging it, effectively only distributing the heat to two 5 gallon bodies of water.

If I stir and run off the water, I should improve drastically (I HOPE), the plate chiller idea is long term idea...
Click to expand...

Stirring the wort around gently will make a huge difference. I just swirl around the spoon inside the chiller.
 

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