Wort Cooling Thought

Ok, I made a batch of wine and I guess I ended up with 6.5 gallons of pure poison which needs to be dumped so I'm back to beer.

Working on building an all grain system. Really just dont like the idea of work chillers. Thinking of building a wooden box big enough for the 5 gallon kettle and attaching a small A/C unit to it. Anyone want to save me from this folly?

Here's my fermentator, I can get the temps down to 50's easy so I'm thinking this would work, also allow me to create a cold crash box as well.

BAD idea. Even in an icewater bath, the wort doesn't cool very quickly. You would have to freeze up your unit to get cold enough.

Would a freezer cool the wort fast enough?

Excuse the noob questions, but with extract I can give an icebath and pour in gallon of chilled water and get it in the 80's in a very quick time.

Either go no-chill or build a proper cooler, imho. Search for no-chill on here. Basically you put the wort into a sealed container and let it cool overnight.

With all grain you will want to be boiling your full volume so you have more to sparge with to get all the sugars produced when mashing. You won't want to be adding a gallon of cool water to help it chill. As mentioned above, you could do no chill where you basically drain your wort into your primary, close it off, wait 12 hours or so for the temp to drop, then pitch your yeast. If you throw it in your fermentation chamber, you might get going in 8 hours.

I personally haven't bothered with no chill, because an IC is cheap (I did mine for about $38, would have been less if my sink didn't have an obscure fitting). I know it is one more brew item to store, but other than that it isn't much hassle. Soak it in some water before hand, throw it in the boil to sanitize, chill, then soak it for an hour or so in clean water before storing.

guess I need to go do some reading but isn't it important to chill as quickly as possible to knock proteins out of suspension?

OneHoppyGuy said:

guess I need to go do some reading but isn't it important to chill as quickly as possible to knock proteins out of suspension?

Click to expand...

Yes...

7.4 Cooling the Wort

At the end of the boil, it is important to cool the wort quickly. While it is still hot, (above 140°F) bacteria and wild yeasts are inhibited. But it is very susceptible to oxidation damage as it cools. There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer. The following are a few preferred methods for cooling the wort.

I have to wonder why the OP "Really just dont like the idea of work chillers." IME/IMO, wort chillers are a great thing. The faster the chiller the better your cold break, the clearer your brew will be, etc... I went from IC chillers (that I made, so they weren't as expensive (each) as buying them) to a plate chiller and will never go back to using an IC. If I change the plate chiller I have now it will be to go to a larger model (like the longer one from Duda Diesel) to chill even faster. Although chilling ~7 gallons of boiling wort to ~60F (or lower) in about 10 minutes is pretty damned good. Considering I just stand there and watch the thermometers go down.

I was attempting to sound innocent and not cocky... thank you for providing an elegant response.
Some of you have probably seen my dual plate chiller design. The idea being to get that wort cooled as fast as you can pump it.

If you don't like chillers, look up no-chill many people use it. Or, you can buy a chiller. Just DO NOT put 5 gallons of 150+F wort in your fridge or freezer you will probably break the unit with how hard it would have to try.

OneHoppyGuy said:

I was attempting to sound innocent and not cocky... thank you for providing an elegant response.
Some of you have probably seen my dual plate chiller design. The idea being to get that wort cooled as fast as you can pump it.

Click to expand...

You, innocent??? LMAO!!! j/k

What size are each of your chillers?? Got any links you could send me showing it (don't recall seeing it)??

You'd be better off with a cold water bath or ice bath. Air is a very inefficient way to cool things, it's why we use water baths and ice-wands to cool food product before we place it into refrigerated storage areas. Not sure what your aversion to wort chillers is, but most of us use them because it's the quickest way to chill. You could easily get a stainless immersion chiller, or a plate chiller, if the copper thing is what is bothering you. Both will likely pay for themselves compared to the cost of replacing wrecked A/C units and the electricity required to run them in the way you intend to.

The alternative is to look into the whole No-Chill thing the australian guys are big proponents of. The idea of hot wort into plastic gives me the creeps however.


I've left a 23L (6gal) batch in an Aluminum kettle on my balcony (5th floor, 20mph winds, 10*F) took over a day to cool to even 60*F. You will never match this kind of cooling ability with an A/C unit or a chest freezer, so you can assume it will take significantly longer.