how do you chill wort to lager temps with plate chiller in Texas

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to brewing and have been doing all grain german lagers. Just did my 3rd batch this past weekend. One thing I am having a really hard time figuring out is a good way to get my wort down to lager temp to pitch my yeast. I'm shooting for ~45F. I live in Austin TX area and its HOT.

I have a plate chiller hooked up to a chugger pump that gets pretty damn good flow with 1/2" tubing. This last brew day I cycled the wort back into the brew kettle. However once the wort gets to aroudn 80F it stalls. I'm using a water hose for the cooling side.

I'm hoping some of you more experienced brewers than I with a plate chiller setup can help advise me on a good way to do this or at least what you use.

Thanks in advance

If you have just the one chiller, you can recirc the boiling wort through it to sanitize it. Leave the lid on so it gets sanitized as well. Then at flameout start the flush water, keeping your recirc running. Once the wort in the pot is cooked, switch the flush water from your garden hose to a bucket of ice water. Use a medium sized fountain pump (from HD or slowed) and about 20 lbs of ice. You can go straight into the fermenter on this pass and adjust the temp by adjusting the wort flow through it.

If you want to do it in one pass, you will need another (secondary) chiller in line. I do this as it allows for one pass but obviously you have the expense and maintenance of a second chiller.

-BD

I always just throw mine in the fermenter and pitch the next morning. I could build a prechiller, but I'm lazy.

I pass my wort from the boil kettle to a large pot against tap water, which gets down to about 80F in one pass in summer. I then put ice water in my HLT with a pump to recirculate it through the plate chiller, and pump my wort through a second time. This normally gets it down to about 55F.

You could also use a pre-chiller for the water on the first pass, or just put the wort in the fridge over night and pitch yeast in the morning.

I use my wort chiller to about 110F. I then use a pond pump to circulate ice water through the chiller, but I only get down to 80F before the ice melts. I then call it a day and let it chill in the fridge before pitching. Has worked well so far.

I use a copper coil chiller and recently got my 6gal of wort down from boil to 50F in about 25mins.

I cool the first 5-10mins or so with tap water (around 70-80F). This brings me down to about 120F pretty quickly. I drain right into the sink post chiller.

I then switch to a $20 pump I got off eBay into a home depot bucket full of large ice blocks I prepared all week. I fill it up all the way with about 8-10 of these "bricks" and top with water. Then I make a closed loop system that draws from the bucket, through the coil and back out into the bucket. This brings me down to 60F really quickly from the 120-130F. I keep replenishing the ice bricks (I make about 10-12 of them all week in preparation). I got down to 50F before I shut it off and pitched my yeast. It would work even faster if I just used the bucket and emptied into the sink, but I am trying to save on water costs while I brew... Perhaps its worth trying, though... I am curious how fast I can chill from boil to about 65F (ale pitch temp) if I just draw right from the ice bath from the start and let the post-chiller water into the sink, topping the ice bucket off as it chills.

Invertalon said:

I use a copper coil chiller and recently got my 6gal of wort down from boil to 50F in about 25mins.

I cool the first 5-10mins or so with tap water (around 70-80F). This brings me down to about 120F pretty quickly. I drain right into the sink post chiller.

I then switch to a $20 pump I got off eBay into a home depot bucket full of large ice blocks I prepared all week. I fill it up all the way with about 8-10 of these "bricks" and top with water. Then I make a closed loop system that draws from the bucket, through the coil and back out into the bucket. This brings me down to 60F really quickly from the 120-130F. I keep replenishing the ice bricks (I make about 10-12 of them all week in preparation). I got down to 50F before I shut it off and pitched my yeast. It would work even faster if I just used the bucket and emptied into the sink, but I am trying to save on water costs while I brew... Perhaps its worth trying, though... I am curious how fast I can chill from boil to about 65F (ale pitch temp) if I just draw right from the ice bath from the start and let the post-chiller water into the sink, topping the ice bucket off as it chills.

Click to expand...

That is a great idea. So basically a cheap pump from an ice bath through my plate chiller once the wort has cooled off from the water hose. Then pump that back into the ice bath to get the temp down.

I'll try that on my next brew day a couple weeks from now.

Couple of questions though.

How do you recommend easily switching from water hose connections over to the cheap pump?

I currently use quick disconnects, at least as of last brew day, and I really like them a lot.

My hoses are screwed into 3/4" brass hose connections from home depot and are not easy to disconnect.

Any suggestions on how to integrate this system with quick disconnects?

estricklin said:

I always just throw mine in the fermenter and pitch the next morning. I could build a prechiller, but I'm lazy.

Click to expand...

I have done this. It works.

I have also used my IC coil to get down to 100 or so, then let the BK sit in an ice bath for a few hours. This can usually get me down to lager pitching temps. Our groundwater is pretty hot here in DFW as well.

MattyIce said:

I have done this. It works.

I have also used my IC coil to get down to 100 or so, then let the BK sit in an ice bath for a few hours. This can usually get me down to lager pitching temps. Our groundwater is pretty hot here in DFW as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah the ice bath is what I've had to do the past couple of brew cycles and I'm wanting to do something quicker that isn't such a pain.

I appreciate the idea of just letting it chill in the fridge to bring it down to temp and pitch the next day but I'd really like to get it all done at once so the next day im free to worry about other things usually work

General_Jah said:

That is a great idea. So basically a cheap pump from an ice bath through my plate chiller once the wort has cooled off from the water hose. Then pump that back into the ice bath to get the temp down.

I'll try that on my next brew day a couple weeks from now.

Couple of questions though.

How do you recommend easily switching from water hose connections over to the cheap pump?

I currently use quick disconnects, at least as of last brew day, and I really like them a lot.

My hoses are screwed into 3/4" brass hose connections from home depot and are not easy to disconnect.

Any suggestions on how to integrate this system with quick disconnects?

Click to expand...

I am not sure how the plate chillers are setup exactly, so I can only try to explain how I do it with my copper coil…

I have a compound adapter for my faucet in my house that converts the faucet thread to a water hose thread (which would be your starting point) into another adapter that converts that into a simple barb fitting to attach the vinyl tubing. Much like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Watts-3-...gorylevel2horizontal1_rr-_-NA-_-100171571-_-N

On the pump, it has a similar connection.. So I just swap the one end from the faucet to the pump in a few seconds using vinyl tubing. I use small hose clamps on the vinyl connection to my copper coil to prevent leaks, but I don’t have to swap that when switching between the two water sources.

But the method works very well for me… I went from strictly city water cooling from boil down to 65F or so in about a half hour originally… This is when my tap water was like 55-60F... But last time I brewed it was over 70, so it even would as good as it did.

Now with the ice water and pump method (The 290GPH one for $20: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012UZYMG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 ) I cooled even more volume of wort (6.5gal instead of 5gal) from boil down to 50F in about 25mins.

I bet I could get it from boil to ale pitching temps if I go straight from the ice batch from the start, dumping the hot water down the sink post-coil, in 10-15mins tops. I may try that next time!

Not sure if this helps… Maybe some good information in here though!