Easy an cheap wort cooler....Pics inside

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RIC0

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Here's your basic feed or water tub that works great for cooling down that hot wort.

If you have a tractor supply or any type of farm type store around you can pick one of these up fairly cheap. I think the lady at the register messed up as it rang up for $21 but a sticker on the side said $60.

So this tub, 4 frozen gallons of water and within 45 - 1 hour of pulling the wort off the stove it's cooled an ready for the primary...:rockin:

wertcooler.jpg
 
Ideally,the hot wort should be cooled down in 20 minutes or less to prevent chill haze later. But that tub would make a great swamp cooler for initial fermentation!:mug:
 
I didn't realize it should be cooled within 20 mins. I have simply put it in the chilled water and walk away for about 40 mins or so. Guess I'll keep a closer eye on the next batch.
 
Well done. If you put it in there and stir the water and stir the contents of your pot, it will cool even faster
 
You toss in the frozen water bottles and cold water to the wort directly after coming off the flame???


I toss in the water bottles right after flameout, once it's down to about 70 degrees, I toss the wort in the bucket, then add more cold water to the 5 gal mark...By then it's within pitching temp........
 
As others have said, 20-30 minutes is ideal to create a good cold break and prevent chill haze. I was able to do the same kind of thing with my kitchen sink when I did ice baths: I'd put the pot in the sink filled with cold water, ice, and I could just fit 4 1 gallon frozen jugs of water in there. I'd change the jugs out twice while chilling, so I have 12 jugs still frozen in our big freezer!

Word of advice I just found out, put something under the pot when you do an ice bath to expose the bottom of the pot to the cold water, such as a cookie cooling rack. I'm not getting that great of a chill with my 25' 3/8" immersion chiller (still 30 minutes down to 70*), so I'm planning on putting it in a similar bucket filled with water and ice in addition to the immersion chiller. 15 minutes would be a dream come true!
 
Yeah,I'm going to build a two stage chiller with water into ice bath into wort kinda rig. I was going to get a metal trivet to put under the BK in the sink so it doesn't block the drain the out side of the chiller will need.
 
Me neither, it was just a piece of advice thrown out there in a podcast I was listening to about a month ago. Now I'm constantly plugged into my earphones if I'm not on here, taking care of the kids, or pretending to listen to SWMBO... *cough*
 
On my last brew, I did something very similar except I put the tub of cold water in my sink with some frozen bottles of water in it, then I dropped in the pot of wort. Instead of continuously stirring to move the hot water away from the sides of the pot, I created a flow of water by turning the faucet on a slow trickle of cold water in one corner of the ice bath and siphoning from the other corner of the bath into the sink. After doing this, the ice water stayed pretty cool.

It still took almost 45 minutes to cool the wort, but it seemed to help to create a current to keep the water moving. Guess a chiller is the only sure way
 
My wort chiller was $40 shipped with hoses and hose attachments. And it is like 1/4 the size of that baby pool (I live in an apartment and can't justify storing something of that size).
 
I use my bath tub and about 12-15 frozen bottles of various sizes so I can appreciate this. I have added salt to most of the bottles to lower the temps even more. I don't know, beyond the fact that salt lowers the freezing temps, if and why I thought this would work, but I did it anyways. It probably doesn't actually make the ice colder. Oh well, haha. It usually takes about 30-40 minutes if I shift the pot from each end of the tub as the water warms. It cools much faster when I stir the wort but that's just work.
 
I was a huge cold break guy. I would cool that sucker down in 15 minutes and pitching yeast. I would still get some with haze. I brewed my last IPA and while it was on the boil I dropped my carboy and tried to catch it but all i got was a cut up hand. I finished the boil and had to goto the ER to get stitched up. I just covered it and left it there for 3 hours outside. Got back and it was at pitching temp. It was the clearest beer I think I have ever had. So now I am perplexed. I am rethinking the importance of this cold break.
 
Chilling down to pitch temp in 20 minutes or less nixes chill haze at fridge time. But after dry hopping my IPA wi .5oz od the tree hops used in the boil,I got some hop haze. I think it's from the hops not being in the boil?...
 
I was a huge cold break guy. I would cool that sucker down in 15 minutes and pitching yeast. I would still get some with haze. I brewed my last IPA and while it was on the boil I dropped my carboy and tried to catch it but all i got was a cut up hand. I finished the boil and had to goto the ER to get stitched up. I just covered it and left it there for 3 hours outside. Got back and it was at pitching temp. It was the clearest beer I think I have ever had. So now I am perplexed. I am rethinking the importance of this cold break.

I think the bigger moral of the story here is to invest in Better Bottles. ;)
 
unionrdr said:
Chilling down to pitch temp in 20 minutes or less nixes chill haze at fridge time. But after dry hopping my IPA wi .5oz od the tree hops used in the boil,I got some hop haze. I think it's from the hops not being in the boil?...

Same here. My beers are usually super clear. I use a wort chiller to get to 90 F and then cold water bath. But the last beer was an IPA with a 2 oz dry hop and its one hazy beer.
 
mdawson9 said:
Same here. My beers are usually super clear. I use a wort chiller to get to 90 F and then cold water bath. But the last beer was an IPA with a 2 oz dry hop and its one hazy beer.

And I used a mesh over the cane when I raked to keg.
 
You can do much cheaper, just keep an eye out at Goodwill or Salvation army.

I went and picked up a Rubbermaid tub big enough to hold 4 Corny kegs for $2 lol...no lid but who cares its now my portable keg cooler for my 4 kegs for a party.
 
Ideally,the hot wort should be cooled down in 20 minutes or less to prevent chill haze later. But that tub would make a great swamp cooler for initial fermentation!:mug:

I don't really believe in that, no-chill beers don't have an issue with chill haze.
 
Some people do a "no-chill" method and have reported good results. Search the forums for no-chill.
 
Idk,that's how it usually goes with mine. Something to do with dissolved proteins Chill down time. But here's an interesting aside. With my 1st partial mash I'm drinking now (not literally!),at two weeks+ I thought at fridge time I was getting chill haze. Here to find at 3 weeks+ the beer was a tiny hair clearer going into the fridge. I had done a fine crush on the 5lbs of grains,& the silty,floury stuff wanted to stay suspended. Took 3 weeks for the last bit of haze to settle out at room temp.
Maybe some yeast & silty stuff?...
 
Well for what it's worth I'm 100% positive my belly doesn't notice the chill haze nor does it care.

From my understanding chill haze is only something our eye's might not like, outside of that it's still beer and good for you.
 
Well for what it's worth I'm 100% positive my belly doesn't notice the chill haze nor does it care.

From my understanding chill haze is only something our eye's might not like, outside of that it's still beer and good for you.

My old axiom from my "splitting pitchers days" was always "we buy it to drink, not look at". Nobody would split with me because "you drink too fast...."

Carries over to brewing. I brew it to drink it, not look at it.
 
true enough. But we are also visual. It has to look good to be inviting,& many folks might think it's just home brewed hooch if it doesn't look as good as we can make it. It's part of the art to me.
 
And I do agree that having a good presentable beer reflects on our hard work don't get me wrong I"m just not going to spend more money or kill myself to get to that 20 minute mark.

Most stuff I've been brewing is dark and could have a dog turd floatin in it and most would not know.

I have a red ale aging on s shelf and I can say the clarity of it is outstanding. It was the normal 45 cooling process as well as cold crashed.
 
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