alternative to wort chiller

I am on a tight budget, and right now an ice bath cools my 5 gal batches decently quickly. but id like to ramp it up a little bit. what about getting a smaller pot and placing it inside my brew pot (during boil so it kills the germs) then filling the inner bucket with ice and water, so there is more surface area of ice water the wort touches. Any reason not to do this until i save for a wort chiller? (not the next on my list of expenses)

also, when i did my extract batches in the past i brewed a few gallons of wort then added a few gallons of water to bring it up to the 5 gallon batch according to instructions. The recipe im about to try, and my first all grain, (cream of 3 corn in a 5 gal batch size) has no mention of this. Is adding water only for extract batches? im asking because ive heard people add frozen water from zip lock bags but that adds water so im confused if I should

For all grain batches, you typically do not add water unless you over boil and wind up with too little wort or if your gravity is too high.

As for your cooling question, that would work I suppose, but I'd worry about getting any of that ice water in the small pot into your wort. I'd honestly just chill in the ice bath that you're using and get the chiller when you can.

I'd make a wort chiller the next thing on your list. It's integral to all grain brewing. You could do the small pot inside the big one thing if you have enough room to displace the volume of the small pot. It's pretty unwieldy, a pot of liquid floating inside of another one. I can tell you from experience.

You had to top up your extract batches to reach five gallons because you weren't doing full volume boils. In all grain, when you sparge you are collecting all the necessary liquid to account for boil off, trub loss, transfer and all that.

Ps, what is cream of 3 corn?

whoops meant cream of three crops*** looking at flaked maize online and i guess it got stuck in my head haha
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

Gotcha. He doesn't use rice hulls in the batch. Must be more lucky than me. I like to throw some in when I do a batch with corn, I've had more than one stuck sparge because of the corn.

I have a radiator from back when I watercooled my computer, which basically has the hot water from the blocks running throw it and the radiator transfers the heat from the water to the air, cooling the water. This would work in reverse right? pump cold water through it and stick it in the wort, effectively being a wort chiller.
The one i have is similar to this: Newegg.com - Swiftech MCR220-QP Liquid Cooler Radiator

I don't see why that wouldn't work, but I don't know how quick it would be. There is far more thermal mass in a pot of boiling wort than in a CPU/GPU. I'd be interested to see how it works though. First I'd try it in a pot of boiling water to be sure it maintains its integrity. If that seems sketchy, I'd leave it outside the wort and fan cool it as intended. I have a hunch the ice water bath still works faster.

That heat exchanger would work in reverse but personally I'd be careful. There is a lot of bacteria friendly non-food grade surface area on the outside of that thing.

taintedplay said:

I am on a tight budget, and right now an ice bath cools my 5 gal batches decently quickly. but id like to ramp it up a little bit. what about getting a smaller pot and placing it inside my brew pot (during boil so it kills the germs) then filling the inner bucket with ice and water, so there is more surface area of ice water the wort touches. Any reason not to do this until i save for a wort chiller? (not the next on my list of expenses)

also, when i did my extract batches in the past i brewed a few gallons of wort then added a few gallons of water to bring it up to the 5 gallon batch according to instructions. The recipe im about to try, and my first all grain, (cream of 3 corn in a 5 gal batch size) has no mention of this. Is adding water only for extract batches? im asking because ive heard people add frozen water from zip lock bags but that adds water so im confused if I should

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I have added ice directly to my wort to cool, but that presents several problems:

1. You don't have a full-wort boil. You would need to adjust hops and grain rates, but this can be done with a computer program.

2. Potential of contamination. Greatly reduced if I freeze my own purified water. Limit the addition of ice. 1 lb=8 gallons apprx. I have to tell you that any more than 1lb may cool the wort off too much. However, the water does cool quite rapidly.

3. The ice does work when added directly. I wouldn't recommend this for a
all-grain beer because I would want a full wort boil.

I would normally just keep using a large tub or container and fill it with ice. I did this for a number of years. Then, when I realized a good plate chiller or immersion cooler could be had for under $100, I just saved as much as I could.

I now have three pumps and two plate chillers!

a wort chiller can be made for about $15 of pipe and stuff you probably already have (a couple hose clamps, tygon tubing and a hose adapter)

Forget Home Depot and Lowes. Go your your local plumbing supply shops...the places that plumbers actually get their supplies at. (If contractors really bought from Home Depot and Lowes, home improvement projects would be twice as high).

I picked up 50 feet of 3/8" copper pipe for $15 (HD by me was $1 a foot and I have vowed never to set foot in lowes again). Get your brew bucket (because that diameter is usually smaller than most brew pots) or anything that is cylindrical that is about 2/3 the diameter of your brew pot.

wrap that around in any design you want. i went with a rib cage design found on youtube to increase surface area but most are just standard stacks of rows of pipe.

Add your tygon tubing with hose clamps and hose adapter and viola! Any faucet adapter or hose adapter will be less than a $1 at a plumbing supply store and hose clamps are like 10cents a piece

FYI...for my first brew, I did add ice directly to the fermenter and introduced my hot wort to it. It did the job, but you have to make sure that your ice is clean. I wouldn't trust my fridge for this. I have a standalone ice maker that I sanitize then I use the same bottled water i brew with to make ice.

I really don't see the issue of a full wort boil. During steeping and sparging, volume will matter because that is where the sugars and flavors go into solution. Once the wort has boiled down after its boil, just don't top it off...let the ice make up the volume to get back to 5gal. I mean, is it me or doesn't everyone lose about a gallon of liquid during a 60 min boil?

kurtism said:

I really don't see the issue of a full wort boil. During steeping and sparging, volume will matter because that is where the sugars and flavors go into solution. Once the wort has boiled down after its boil, just don't top it off...let the ice make up the volume to get back to 5gal. I mean, is it me or doesn't everyone lose about a gallon of liquid during a 60 min boil?

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You don't top off a full wort boil. That's the whole point. Your mash and sparge total far more water than you want in your fermenter. This is to maximize extraction efficiency, knowing that you will lose a particular amount of volume to the boil, chill, etc. A full boil also maximizes hop utilization and helps to arrive at very high gravity beers. It takes far more water to rinse the sugars out of a LOT of grain, which means a longer boil to reduce the wort down to the final needed amount to hit a number. Adding ice at this point undoes that.

sheeshomatic said:

You don't top off a full wort boil. That's the whole point. Your mash and sparge total far more water than you want in your fermenter. This is to maximize extraction efficiency, knowing that you will lose a particular amount of volume to the boil, chill, etc. A full boil also maximizes hop utilization and helps to arrive at very high gravity beers. It takes far more water to rinse the sugars out of a LOT of grain, which means a longer boil to reduce the wort down to the final needed amount to hit a number. Adding ice at this point undoes that.

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Excellent post. That is what I was trying **CLUMSY** to get at. A full boil is for efficiency and hop utilization. I usually boil 6.5 gallons to yield 5 and I constantly check water volume and gravity during the boil.

"I picked up 50 feet of 3/8" copper pipe for $15 (HD by me was $1 a foot and I have vowed never to set foot in lowes again). Get your brew bucket (because that diameter is usually smaller than most brew pots) or anything that is cylindrical that is about 2/3 the diameter of your brew pot."

Kurtism, if you picked up 50' of 3/8 copper for 15 bucks it was probably stolen.

okie123 said:

Kurtism, if you picked up 50' of 3/8 copper for 15 bucks it was probably stolen.

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I agree. That is really really cheap.

I used a 20' 3/8 chiller made from Lowes copper for a long time and it worked fine. It's usually about $25 bucks but it could probably be found cheaper. Cool thing too is when you want to upgrade, buy another 20', coil it smaller and make yourself a dual coil chiller. :rockin:

okie123 said:

"I picked up 50 feet of 3/8" copper pipe for $15 (HD by me was $1 a foot and I have vowed never to set foot in lowes again). Get your brew bucket (because that diameter is usually smaller than most brew pots) or anything that is cylindrical that is about 2/3 the diameter of your brew pot."

Kurtism, if you picked up 50' of 3/8 copper for 15 bucks it was probably stolen.

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I just looked online and Mueller copper 3/8 OD at 50' is 43.45 at Lowes. Same price at Home Depot. Not quite $15. I would stay away from 1/2" unless it is "L" type. It is a ***** to bend.

I prefer my plate chiller over my coil any day. MUCH faster and easier to manage.

I'd agree that plate chillers are significantly faster. I saw one of my friend's in action recently and nearly crapped my pants because it was instantaneous. The biggest difference I have come across between them and immersion chillers is with an ic you get a chance to filter out some of you're cold break. Usually not a huge deal and some even claim it's good yeast food but for someone on a budget, they may want to consider saving yeast. If you could remove some cold break it'd be easier to wash and save your cake. To each his own though. I spent my upgrade "allowance" on kegs recently. Eventually it will probably go towards a plate chiller.

I think you all are missing what okie123 said - He bought his copper at a plumbing supply store. NOT Home Depot or Lowe's. That was his point. I don't know when he bought it, but I'm sure its still more than $15 now. Copper prices are nuts.

I get that point completely. Problem is even if it was 1/2 the price of what it is at Lowes or HD at the plumbing supply store, he would still have gotten it cheaper. It's too good to be true and it throws people off making a realistic decision about their expenses to hear it.

sheeshomatic said:

I think you all are missing what okie123 said - He bought his copper at a plumbing supply store. NOT Home Depot or Lowe's. That was his point. I don't know when he bought it, but I'm sure its still more than $15 now. Copper prices are nuts.

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I just built mine recently and checked several plumber's supply shops in the area and they were about the same as HD and Lowe's. In some cases they were more. I don't think you're getting it for $15, unless you are really lucky or it is hot.

Just built one last night with 3/8in copper tubing (20' for 19.86 @ HD), 3/8'' ID vinyl tubing and it cost me about $45 when all was said and done. I actually needed two adapters for my sink since my faucet was smaller than the normal size. Each were $5 + $5 for tubing, $20 for copper, $0.80 per clamp x 3 and $7.50 for the garden hose attachment. I only had 5/16'' ID tubing at the house so I had to buy the roll of 3/8 or else it would've been cheaper and the fact that I needed two adapters to hook it up to the kitchen sink. If I had the tubing and didn't need a 2nd adapter it woulda been right around $30- $35, about half of what most HBS's sell them for. And it took me about 15 minutes to make.

I cooled 4 gallons of boiling water to 70° in about 13 minutes.
Now to brew something and put it to work.....

Double_D said:

Gotcha. He doesn't use rice hulls in the batch. Must be more lucky than me. I like to throw some in when I do a batch with corn, I've had more than one stuck sparge because of the corn.

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I'd use some rice hulls. Sounds sticky.
I just made a batch of cream ale with 2#'s of corn and 1 # of rice.
What a mess, even with the rice hulls. Use a pound

pabloj13 said:

I just built mine recently and checked several plumber's supply shops in the area and they were about the same as HD and Lowe's. In some cases they were more. I don't think you're getting it for $15, unless you are really lucky or it is hot.

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umm...we are getting off topic because even if the OP bought pipe at HD or Lowes, it would still be so very much cheaper than buying a premade one. a 3/8 in wort chiller at my LHBS in brooklyn is $60.

now...I think what you are all failing to realize is that CONTRACTORS do not shop at retail stores...they couldn't bid low and profit well if they paid HD or Lowes prices. My wife's family are all plumbing, roofing and painting contractors so I go where they go.

Next you guys are going to tell me that my fermenters are stolen too because I got my food grade buckets from a restaurant supplier for $10 a piece instead of paying $17 at the LHBS. The only thing "stolen" in my whole set up is my tygon tubing because i took that from my lab.