The best wort Chiller

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Sea

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I'm interested to hear all of your opinions on immersion vs counterflow wort chillers. Asside from the obvious better performance, is the counterflow worth the added expense, and extra hassle of cleaning and sanitizing? My free time is very limited and I'm interested in making great beer, not having the trickest system. Also, I wouldn't be using a pump, so it would be a gravity fed counterflow.\

Uh oh,.. Glass is empty.
 
If you are concerned about time, then I think that you may be more happy with an immersion chiller. Both will give you good results, but all the IM needs is to be put into the boil for the last 15 minutes to sanitize. After the boil, a quick rinse to get off the hop particles is all that is necessary. The counter flow will require a lot more attention than that.
 
I've used both. Here's what I can say...

The CFC gets the job done faster - period. It takes the wort from boiling to almost ground water temp in just a few seconds, and 5 gals only takes 15-20 mins. I noticed more cold break when I made the switch and I think the beers have been clearer without the chill haze problems I had before. All of the cold break goes into the fermenter, but I haven't seen any ill effects.

The CFC is definately more work to sanitize and maintain. I bought one that has vinyl tubing on the outside and it's really been a pain. The tubing has slipped off when it was cold and it constricted. One of the solder points has also broken that I had to fix.

The other thing is a CFC takes more attention to get the temp right in the fermenter. This assumes you're not recirculating the output back into the kettle. If you are, then most of the points I made are moot. ;)

One of my next purchases will be a plate chiller. A shirron is only a little more than a cheap CFC and cheaper than some of the all copper CFCs like the Chillzilla. Plus, you can throw a plate chiller in the oven to sanitize - way easier than having to drain sanitizer through a CFC and then trying to drain it all out!
 
I just recently purchased a Therminator and March pump. After doing just one batch with them, I'm sold!
 
I'd say get youself one of these:

PreChiller.JPG

Seriously though. I like the immersion because I also use it to filter by beer out of the keggle and end up with very clear wort.
 
I use a bastard CFC.. Take an old cooler, fill it with ice water, and just put your looped copper tubing into it. Gravity is a B10TCH though. I use CO2 and a corny to move mine through, about 2 psi takes 10 min to get to 70 f
 
BierMuncher said:
I'd say get youself one of these:

View attachment 1985

Seriously though. I like the immersion because I also use it to filter by beer out of the keggle and end up with very clear wort.

I may be a bit daft, but how exactly do you use the immersion chiller to filter the wort out of the keggle?
 
Lil' Sparky said:
I've used both. Here's what I can say...

The CFC gets the job done faster - period. It takes the wort from boiling to almost ground water temp in just a few seconds, and 5 gals only takes 15-20 mins. I noticed more cold break when I made the switch and I think the beers have been clearer without the chill haze problems I had before. All of the cold break goes into the fermenter, but I haven't seen any ill effects.

The CFC is definately more work to sanitize and maintain. I bought one that has vinyl tubing on the outside and it's really been a pain. The tubing has slipped off when it was cold and it constricted. One of the solder points has also broken that I had to fix.

The other thing is a CFC takes more attention to get the temp right in the fermenter. This assumes you're not recirculating the output back into the kettle. If you are, then most of the points I made are moot. ;)

One of my next purchases will be a plate chiller. A shirron is only a little more than a cheap CFC and cheaper than some of the all copper CFCs like the Chillzilla. Plus, you can throw a plate chiller in the oven to sanitize - way easier than having to drain sanitizer through a CFC and then trying to drain it all out!

I couldn't have said this any better, and I agree 1000%.

Sea, your beers will be better with a CFC, and the amount of time you spend waiting for your IC to chill your wort, you would be long done chilling and cleaning your CFC. I've used a CFC using strictly gravity, so I know it can work. A wort wizard will make it even easier.
 
I like the immersion better, remember it is very important to go from boil to below 140f as fast as possible so DMS does not form. With the CFC you still have hot wort waiting to be run through and sitting above 140
 
This is a reasonable arguement which is why I personally suggest that any CFC or plate chiller is fully exploited only with a March pump and recirculation. You can chill a 5 gallon batch pretty quickly with an IC as long as you get the wort whirlpooling.

You can see how equipment upgrades is a slippery slope. One may argue that one chiller is better than another, but then you're buying a pump too. Oh the pump is great, but now you want a hopstopper to filter out hops so it doesn't clog up the works. You like the CFC but it's too big and now you want a plate chiller. Ground water too warm? Oh, just another pump and a bucket of icewater.
 
I had a problem with my tap water not being cool enough in the hot months to be effecient at cooling my wort. So I made this:

8240-100_0752.JPG



The coil on the right is hooked to my faucet and then submerged in ice water. The left coil is the actual wort chiller. This puppy works like a dream and is real easy to make/sanitize. Parts cost me around $35.
 
I have both an immersion chiller and a therminator. After buying the therminator my beer also increased in clarity. I still use my immersion for a pre-chiller to the therminator. I will say one thing bad about my new chiller, make sure you filter someway before going into the chiller. If you don't, you will never get all the hop pieces out. My dumb ass didn't do this and the next time I brewed and did a quick sanitize I still had more hop pellet pieces coming out. I use a fine hop sack in my grant and pump it through now and haven't had a sigle problem, but that second brew I wanted to use it on had to be immersion chilled. I have learned many many things by screwing up :). I vote for plate chiller, either the sherron or the therminator. Knowing what I know now and my latest technique (chilling and recirculating back into the kettle until cold) I would recommend the sherron for the price. I do love my therminator though, and it is put together nicely.
 
Brew-boy said:
I like the immersion better, remember it is very important to go from boil to below 140f as fast as possible so DMS does not form. With the CFC you still have hot wort waiting to be run through and sitting above 140
I'm not going to say this isn't true - chemically speaking it probably is. What I can say is, it hasn't negatively affected my beer - AT ALL. Take a look at some microbreweries. They use big plate chillers, take longer to chill their entire volume, and don't have a DMS problem.

That said, a march pump is on my short list, and I'll be experimenting with recirculating through the CFC back to the kettle. I have an idea that you should be able to recirculate unrestricted until the wort is down below 140' and then just move the output to the carboy. I'm guessing the overall time is about the same as what I do now since I have to throttle the flow. An added benefit from this is you can start the recirculation at the end of the boil to sanitize the CFC just like an IC. When the boil is done, turn on the cooling water to begin chilling.
 
Thanks for all your responses. I can see that, as with many things, there is no easy answer to this question. I guess for me, simplicity is paramount as long as I don't jeopordize the quality of my beer.

Off the my LHBS!.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
The CFC is definately more work to sanitize and maintain. I bought one that has vinyl tubing on the outside and it's really been a pain. The tubing has slipped off when it was cold and it constricted. One of the solder points has also broken that I had to fix.

The other thing is a CFC takes more attention to get the temp right in the fermenter. This assumes you're not recirculating the output back into the kettle. If you are, then most of the points I made are moot.

My experience with the CF Chiller is a bit different.

We purchased a conversion kit that contained the ends of the chiiler with compression fittings. Had to get the copper tubing and the outside hose. Assembled the kit and there's been no problems with slippage, coming apart, etc.

Sanitizing: this is pretty simple. Just fill the mash tun or the hot liquor tank with 5 gallons of bleach water. During the last 15 minutes of the boil, run the bleach water through the CF chiller to sanitize, then run through some rinse water.

Temp. of cooled wort: Like any other piece of brewing equipment, it takes some time to develop the technique. After a couple of batches, it's really easy to adjust the chiller water flow to obtain proper wort temp. We measure the temp of the chiller output water. Adjust until the output water is just tepid, and the wort is cooled perfectly.
 
I think the price difference between a CFC and immersion chiller is a wash, when making one yourself, simply because the CFC requires perhaps half the copper to get equivalent results. A 20 foot CFC at 3/8" works very well, and that keeps you from having to purchase an entire 50 ft. coil. If you need to chill the water a little bit, just immerse the CFC itself in cold ice water rather than making a pre-chiller. It's not as effective as a copper pre-chiller, but it will give you though precious few degrees to get you to pitching temps.
 
drayman86 said:
My experience with the CF Chiller is a bit different.

We purchased a conversion kit that contained the ends of the chiiler with compression fittings. Had to get the copper tubing and the outside hose. Assembled the kit and there's been no problems with slippage, coming apart, etc.

Sanitizing: this is pretty simple. Just fill the mash tun or the hot liquor tank with 5 gallons of bleach water. During the last 15 minutes of the boil, run the bleach water through the CF chiller to sanitize, then run through some rinse water.

Temp. of cooled wort: Like any other piece of brewing equipment, it takes some time to develop the technique. After a couple of batches, it's really easy to adjust the chiller water flow to obtain proper wort temp. We measure the temp of the chiller output water. Adjust until the output water is just tepid, and the wort is cooled perfectly.

I wouldn't say running 5 gallons of bleach water and then rinsing is easy especially when the discussed alternative is an immersion chiller which requires no deliberate sanitizing. I agree with recirculating the boiling wort through it is the easy method, but then it's $130 pump too.
 
Jay52 said:
If you need to chill the water a little bit, just immerse the CFC itself in cold ice water rather than making a pre-chiller. It's not as effective as a copper pre-chiller, but it will give you though precious few degrees to get you to pitching temps.
Sorry, but this simply won't work where I live. Our ground water is way too warm, and submersing the CFC in an ice bath wouldn't do it. Even a pre-chiller is only moderately effective. I've found that running the wort from my CFC through a coil in an ice bath is more effective. That's what I've been doing lately.
 
drayman86 said:
Sanitizing: this is pretty simple. Just fill the mash tun or the hot liquor tank with 5 gallons of bleach water. During the last 15 minutes of the boil, run the bleach water through the CF chiller to sanitize, then run through some rinse water.

Well, I'm glad your DIY CFC has held up better than the one I bought. To be fair morebeer.com has stopped selling them because of customer complaints.

This, too is what I do (no-rinse iodophor, not bleach). I still wouldn't call it simple to other chiller sanitizing procedures like Bobby said. You also didn't say how you purge the rinse water out - or do you? This is the other part of getting the CFC ready that annoys me. ;)
 
I have been using a immersion chiller with a pre-chiller coil. Since I still do all of my brewing in the kitchen, I just fill one end of the sink with ice and salt water. Then run the output to the drain in the other. Works out pretty well being that the circulating tap water is not cold at all here in Phoenix. I go from boiling to 80 degrees in ~15min.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Well, I'm glad your DIY CFC has held up better than the one I bought. To be fair morebeer.com has stopped selling them because of customer complaints.

This, too is what I do (no-rinse iodophor, not bleach). I still wouldn't call it simple to other chiller sanitizing procedures like Bobby said. You also didn't say how you purge the rinse water out - or do you? This is the other part of getting the CFC ready that annoys me. ;)

Yup, you have to drain into a waste bucket until you get beer, then switch to the fermenter. This is a leg up for the plate chillers... the overall liquid volume is very low both on the wort and cooling sides.

I see claims to the speed of CFC cooling here and there and I want to make it clear that I don't think a gravity fed CFC is any faster than an immersion chiller on 5 gallon batches. The only way this would happen is if you compare "still-wort" immersion chilling. It is true, you need to stir the wort while you cool with an IC. If your ground water is over 70, you'll need icewater pumping or prechilling no matter what so there's no advantage to one chiller or another.

In fact, during the winter when my ground water is 55F, I got 5 gallons to pitching in 8 minutes with an IC. It takes just under 15 minutes to gravity drain though a CFC so the IC has the win there.
 
Fair enough. Although I don't have a march pump yet, I do use a wort wizard, so no slow gravity drains for me. I'm completely limited by cooling capacity, and here I do think CFCs/plate chillers have an edge.

It seems like I've been talking a lot about how I don't have a march pump yet. I think this needs to change SOON! ;)
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Fair enough. Although I don't have a march pump yet, I do use a wort wizard, so no slow gravity drains for me. I'm completely limited by cooling capacity, and here I do think CFCs/plate chillers have an edge.

It seems like I've been talking a lot about how I don't have a march pump yet. I think this needs to change SOON! ;)

So I should anticipate you as a competitive bidder on Ebay's next March 809 offering? I'm looking for one now too... I doesn't make sense to get started on a single tier stand when the lack of said pump won't allow brewing. I still have to get all my couplings welded in and find a nice lot of ball valves and quick disconnects.
 
Sea said:
I may be a bit daft, but how exactly do you use the immersion chiller to filter the wort out of the keggle?
No problem.

Simply remove your wort chiller when the wort is cool...rinse and then wrap a 5 gallon paint strainer around it and then resubmerge slowly into the wort. Inside the chiiler/strainer, there wil be perfectly clear wort in which you'll dip your racking cane and siphon.

Chiller_Filter_2.jpg
 
Bobby_M said:
So I should anticipate you as a competitive bidder on Ebay's next March 809 offering? I'm looking for one now too... I doesn't make sense to get started on a single tier stand when the lack of said pump won't allow brewing. I still have to get all my couplings welded in and find a nice lot of ball valves and quick disconnects.
Could be... :D

Actually, I've seen some w/ a Buy It Now price of ~ $90. Not sure if they're always available or not, but that doesn't seem like a bad price. Plus, you don't have to worry about someone else out-bidding you. ;)
 
BierMuncher said:
No problem.

Simply remove your wort chiller when the wort is cool...rinse and then wrap a 5 gallon paint strainer around it and then resubmerge slowly into the wort. Inside the chiiler/strainer, there wil be perfectly clear wort in which you'll dip your racking cane and siphon.

View attachment 1994
BierMuncher - that's a great tip for guys using an immersion chiller! I've seen you post it several times but never given you props.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
BierMuncher - that's a great tip for guys using an immersion chiller! I've seen you post it several times but never given you props.
Thanks LS. I've been getting pretty good mileage out of that one pic. It's the one thing about my AG routine than never changes.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Could be... :D

Actually, I've seen some w/ a Buy It Now price of ~ $90. Not sure if they're always available or not, but that doesn't seem like a bad price. Plus, you don't have to worry about someone else out-bidding you. ;)

Yeah, I just got mine - $90 for the pump, and a flat $10 to ship. It arrived well packed and still in the factory sealed box :D (tate1560 was the seller)
 
Lil' Sparky said:
You also didn't say how you purge the rinse water out - or do you? This is the other part of getting the CFC ready that annoys me. ;)

No need to purge. Just attach the CFC to the boil kettle and run the rinse water out with the first bit of wort. Once the discharge runs pure wort, start filling the fermenter.

;)
 
Jester369 said:
Yeah, I just got mine - $90 for the pump, and a flat $10 to ship. It arrived well packed and still in the factory sealed box :D (tate1560 was the seller)
thats who I got mine from too. Needs a cord, but nothing a trip to home despot couldn't fix, and I like the cord housing better as I have certain peoples that like to trip over cords and we wouldn't want the wires pulled out of the housing...:cross:
 
I built my CFC with 30' of copper. It takes 15 to 20 min to gravity drain 10 gal as opposed to 30+ with the immersion, but it goes quickly from boiling to less than 60 very quickly with no exposure to the air. With a lid on the kettle the temp never drops less than 205 even in 20* weather. Plus it uses far less cooling water. Full blast with immersion, barely cracked ball valve with the CFC.
 
I made a DIY IC with 2 coils; 25' of 1/2" cu in an ice bath and 25' of 1/2" cu in the wort. With an input temp of 55 deg F I can cool 5 gal of rolling boil to 76 deg F in 9 min. It helps to stir/agitate the wort while cooling. For the cost ($90 for the cu and all fittings) this is a pretty good compromise between cost, performance and ease of use.
 
D*Bo said:
I built my CFC with 30' of copper. It takes 15 to 20 min to gravity drain 10 gal as opposed to 30+ with the immersion

I'm confused. Why does your IC take longer than the CFC? Once the wort is cool, you can siphon with a garden hose of you like...
 
THREAD RESURRECTION!!!

BierMuncher - in that classic IC in a strainer pic, I'm guessing that you don't do a whirlpool to get a hop/break/trub cone? Could you walk me thru that process, it seems pretty nice.

I'm guessing it goes like this: you put the IC in strainer bag, then add to the boiling wort with 10-15 min left in the boil. At flameout you start the chilling process. (Do you stir the wort while chilling? Seems difficult with that bag in there). Then once chilled you siphon the wort out from inside the strainer bag to your fermenter. So, you skip the whirlpool step to get a trub cone b/c the strainer keeps all that stuff away from the siphon.

I autosiphon my cooled wort into my fermenter like so after using my IC, but I have started doing a whirlpool with mixed results (lately I have gotten NO hop/trub/break cone, just a mass mess of crap for the last 2 gal of wort :(). I am interested in this process.
 
My concern with a counterflow or plate chiller is that unlike an immersion chiller, which chills the whole batch at once, as Brew Boy and others have stated, there is the whole DMS issue, plus something he didn't mention: Excess isomerization of late hop additions. That remaining hot wort will continue to break down your aroma hops. An immersion chiller is pretty efficient at getting the temperature down from 212 degrees at knockout to about 120 degrees, but as the temperature of the wort gets closer to the temperature of the chill water, efficiency drops off. Perhaps someone with both an immersion and plate or counterflow chiller could do a hybrid chill by knocking the first 80-100 degrees with an immersion chiller, then bringing it down the rest of the way with the counterflow or plate chiller.
 

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