Jockey box to cool wort

If I were to get a jockey box and fill it with ice
Water, would I be able to pump hot wort through
The stainless coil and cool my wort?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is it might not be as efficient as you think, and factoring in trub you'll need to be able to easily disassemble everything to clean your system. Finally, you'll need to be able to easily switch from taps to whatever outputs you want for your wort.

I've looked at my pre-chiller in a cooler and imagined it would be pretty easy to convert it to a Jockey box, but my entire set up is copper- which you don't want for beer. So I've got the body for what your thinking, but I would need to replace the 'bones' with SS and I'm just not ready to do that yet.

So in thereoy if I get a stainless steel coil
Submerse it in bucket of ice water and pump
My hot wort through it, it should cool my wort
To pitching temp.

I have 2 immersion chillers, i put one in the kettle and one in a cooler filled with ice. The water runs through the cooler chilling the water and then through the wort. I dont have to do this now because it is cool out but i use it in the summer.

rocknwoo said:

So in thereoy if I get a stainless steel coil
Submerse it in bucket of ice water and pump
My hot wort through it, it should cool my wort
To pitching temp.

Click to expand...

In theory, yes. I think this is an excellent idea too. It’s always great to be able multi-purpose equipment, saves money for moar beer!

Couple questions/thoughts:
1. How long is the coil and what diameter?
2. You said pump. It might be a good idea to circulate the wort through the coil during the last 15 minutes of the boil in order to sanitize the inside. When the boil is done, add the ice/water and then do one of two things (or combine them):
a. Throttle the output down so that the wort temperature can get to pitching temp with one pass into the fermenter (this might not be possible if your coil is short, say 25 feet).
b. Keep recirculating back into the kettle at full bore until the entire volume is down to pitching temp (this may take a while and possibly a lot of ice. One idea is to chill with tap water until the wort is down to about 120-130 or so then add the ice to get it the rest of the way. Replace the tap water as it is heating up).
3. Depending on your coil’s diameter, you may need to be careful with the hops in your brew. You don’t want them clogging up your tubing. A hop spider or hopscreen could help.
4. It will be most efficient if you somehow stir or agitate the ice water to avoid stratification of heat immediately away from the coil surface.

You might want to look into a counterflow chiller. You could circulate ice water through it from a bucket via a cheap subermisible pump from harbor freight. I've been toying with the idea of trying to make my own recently.