what is the best way to rapidly cool wort?

I was wondering what the best way was to rapidly cool the wort..? I used a bucket of ice. I hear things about a wort chiller but i'm new to brewing and was just curious how everyone else does it..

I just looked at some previous posts and got some pretty good information. I probably should've looked first before I wrote a post.. Sorry..

I've used an immersion chiller (copper tubing coils submerged in the hot wort, connected to a water source, running cold water through the inside of the copper tubing) and I currently use a counterflow chiller. This type of chiller has a coil of copper tubing inside of another large tube (like 3/8" tubing inside 3/4" copper tubing or heater hose). Hot wort flows through the inner coil in one direction, cold water flows in the other direction, and the two never meet. Both chillers have their advantages and disadvantages. I am, however, very happy with the performance of my counterflow chiller. I go from boiling to pitching temps in about 5 minutes.

When using the counterflow, does it take a lot of fiddling to keep the outlet temperature in the zone? I assume the wort goes in hot and hopefully comes out at 75*, right?

i just made a copper chiller out of 3/8 x 30' tubeing last weekend. wrapped it around a corney keg to form the coils. not pretty, but was amazed how quickly it worked. went from boiling to 80 dg in less than 15 minutes.

I am very fond of my whirlpool chiller. That being said a plain immersion chiller works great.

Depends on your faucet water going in to cool the wort. You can probably get within 5 degrees of that. If you have hot water in the summer, i.e. mine is 86f, you have to run an immersion chiller in an ice bath in order to get the cooling water down to a reasonable temperature.

I make an ice bath in my sink, and very very slowly stir in a circular motion the Wort every couple of minutes. I also usually have to refill the sink water and ice at least 1 time because it gets too warm. It usually takes about 25 minutes total, which I know is long, but it seems to work for me so far. I will be making a chiller soon though.

Here's a simple tip. Use a steel spoon to stir the wort. If you do not, you are overlooking the effect of heat transfer. You know when you stir hot coffee or tea, the spoon comes out hot? Take advantage of that. Stir, set the spoon aside to cool. Repeat.

edit: of course if you transfer to a plastic fermenter, switch to your sanitized plastic spoon at that point so as not to scratch the fermenter.

Anthony,

Are you doing full boils or partial boils? If you are doing a partial boil you may be able to use an ice bath in your sink. If you are doing full boils the ice bath will work but will take an extremely long time to cool. The longer it takes to cool the greater the risk you have of infecting your batch.

I believe the best way for you to cool is to use an immersion chiller or a counter flow chiller to get the temperature down as low as your ground water will allow. Then use a submersible pump and a recirculating ice water bath to get the wort temperature down to pitching temps. It takes me about 10 minutes to get down to 70 when I chill this way. Our ground water temperature is approximately 85.