Why wort chillers?

Hey all;

I've just started homebrewing again after about 10 years, so am basically a newbie. Back in the day we didn't have(or was not aware of) the induction coil wort chiller things I've seen people use on this forum. I have been freezing a gallon of water and using that to cool down the wort quicker to upper 70's before pitching the yeast.

The advent of the wort chiller makes me think I should be cooling the wort more before pitching.

So, why the wort chiller? and what is a good temp to pitch at?

thanks!

how do you cool it with a frozen jug of water???

yeah, chillers are pretty much a necessity, especially if you do all-grain/full boils. The lower the temp, the better. I like to get it south of 80f before I pitch, then finish the march to 65f via a cold bath for the fermenter. The longer the yeast sit on too-hot wort, the more fruity ester production you'll get. Not good.

Evan

some people freeze water in a jug, sanitize the jug and then float it in the wort. that way the ice doesn't dilute anything or open a source of contamination.

but its no where near the surface area of 25' of copper tubing.

I can get 5.5gallons of freshly boiled wort to under 80F in 30 minutes with just tap water and gentle stirring.
you want to be under 80F for pitching (general rule of thumb...some yeasts suggest over 70F to pitch, then cool to 66F for primary...just depends)

yeah, I'm doing the block of ice thing. However, it doesn't get the wort down to under 70 for a looooong time. Example: I just brewed up some beer last Friday and by Saturday AM it was still 77. I'm not sure the beer gets down to 60 for a week or so. Should I wait until the wort gets 60 ish before pitching? My LHBS told me as long as I'm under 80 I'm fine.

I guess I need a wort chiller. Any recommendations? I am brewing 5 gallon batches and going to a plastic first stage fermenter, then the carboy after a week or so.

thanks!

blacklab said:

yeah, I'm doing the block of ice thing. However, it doesn't get the wort down to under 70 for a looooong time. Example: I just brewed up some beer last Friday and by Saturday AM it was still 77. I'm not sure the beer gets down to 60 for a week or so. Should I wait until the wort gets 60 ish before pitching? My LHBS told me as long as I'm under 80 I'm fine.

I guess I need a wort chiller. Any recommendations? I am brewing 5 gallon batches and going to a plastic first stage fermenter, then the carboy after a week or so.

thanks!

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Pitching temps vary by strain, but I thought the general rule was 68 for Ale Yeast. I wouldn't wait 3 days for the temp to drop before pitching. Give's all those nasties too much of a head start. I saw Alton Brown (Good Eats Guy) use a bag of ice as his top off water. I think it was a pound of ice for a gallon of beer?

Warped04 said:

Pitching temps vary by strain, but I thought the general rule was 68 for Ale Yeast. I wouldn't wait 3 days for the temp to drop before pitching. Give's all those nasties too much of a head start. I saw Alton Brown (Good Eats Guy) use a bag of ice as his top off water. I think it was a pound of ice for a gallon of beer?

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Don't get HBT'er started on how many things Alton did wrong in that episode. I wouldn't trust a bag of ice to be free of nasties.

Evan! said:

Don't get HBT'er started on how many things Alton did wrong in that episode. I wouldn't trust a bag of ice to be free of nasties.

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Tru Dat...

...I don't know what those bags of ice contain, I was just concerned about the 3+ days it was taking him to cool the wort.

hey, leave alton alone. he's the man. plus he's helping bring home brewing to the masses.

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, I'll bring it up:

Rapidly reducing the temperature of the wort also encourages a good 'cold break', consisting of coagulated proteins that precipitate out of the wort as it chills. This effect is more pronounced with rapid cooling.

Without a cold break, these proteins stay in the wort, and eventually end up as haze in your cold, delicious beer.

Rapidly cooling your wort also decreases the time during which it is most succeptible to infection. Immersion chillers are especially handy for full-boil 5+ gallon batches; my homemade chiller gets the wort from boiling to 75 degrees F in about 20 minutes.

I usually just take my brew pot into my bath tub full of cold tap water, some times a couple bags of ice. I carefully swish i around every 5-10 minutes and do some stirring inside the pot and can get down to mid 70s in about 30 minutes. i've only got a 4 gallon pot, so i do my batches 2 stage like with 2 gallons brew water set to cool while i make the 3 gallons of wort to chill and top off.

I follow Palmer pretty close so far

I used an immersion chiller for the first time on my last batch. It did cool the wort fairly quickly, which was nice since it was also the first full boil I'd done and the larger kettle wouldn't fit in my sink, so I couldn't chill it with an ice bath. What I didn't count on was the amount of cold break that dropped out. I left behind a ton of Kettle Krud that settled out during the cooling process. The wort going into the fermenter was beautiful and clear, not cloudy as it had been on my previous batches.

I racked that batch of beer into the 2ndary today, though I'm not sure why. It looks like it has been in the bright tank for a couple of weeks already -- crystal clear.

I'm a convert.

These are also pretty cool.

Chad

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=9395

immersion chillers (ic) seem to be the popular choice, but i went with a counter flow chiller (cfc) mainly because the theory behind it is much stronger and it effectively cools the wort faster. i've only used mine once so far and i actually had to turn the cooling water off because it was working so well and the wort had already dropped to 70 and i hadn't tranfered all of it from the pot to the fermenter yet. it cost a little bit more than an ic, but to me the time saved outweighs the cost, especially since i plan on using it often.

blacklab said:

yeah, I'm doing the block of ice thing.

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I don't think you will regret an immersion chiller. Until you get one, try breaking up that block of ice and you'll see significantly faster chill times.

Brewer#19 said:

i went with a counter flow chiller (cfc) mainly because the theory behind it is much stronger and it effectively cools the wort faster.

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Faster: AFAIK, yes. Stronger theory: I don't understand what you mean by that.

Brewer#19 said:

i've only used mine once so far and i actually had to turn the cooling water off because it was working so well and the wort had already dropped to 70 and i hadn't tranfered all of it from the pot to the fermenter yet.

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Just a note. The output will never fall lower than the tap water temp. For many of us you needn't worry about getting too cold to pitch even in winter time. I suspect that would include all of us in the summertime.

Brewer#19 said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=9395

immersion chillers (ic) seem to be the popular choice, but i went with a counter flow chiller (cfc) mainly because the theory behind it is much stronger and it effectively cools the wort faster. i've only used mine once so far and i actually had to turn the cooling water off because it was working so well and the wort had already dropped to 70 and i hadn't tranfered all of it from the pot to the fermenter yet. it cost a little bit more than an ic, but to me the time saved outweighs the cost, especially since i plan on using it often.

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How had the wort already dropped to 70° if it hadn't transferred to the fermenter yet?

Hot wort goes through the CFC, is cooled, and deposited into the fermenter. The wort that HASN'T yet gone through the CFC (and therefore been deposited in the fermenter) hasn't been cooled by anything other than air......

The theoretical problem with a CFC is that you are effectively cooling a small amount of wort very quickly, but have a large amount of wort that stays hot. In theory, the hot wort still in the brewpot may still be forming DMS precursors. An immersion chiller is great at getting a big mass of wort ALL cooled down to below 140°, where DMS production is minimal. Practically speaking, I think most people are talking about 10-15 minutes cooling with either a CFC or an IC, which is fast enough where DMS really isn't an issue.

With an IC, is bigger always better? To cool a 5 gal full boil, would a 50' IC be any better, or is a 25' sufficient? How much time are you talking?

timely thread....i'm considering a full boil on my next batch and gather these to be main problems w/ not using a wort chiller (or some form of rapid cooling)

1. increases risk of contamination
2. introduces off flavors and protein haze

is there a rule of thumb to use (no matter the method of chilling) to avoid side effects between removing from boil and pitching the yeast.....say, never longer than 45 minutes?

Does the IC have to be made of copper?

What if I wanted to be a total cheapskate and use the same tubing I use to siphon with? Would that impart a flavor, maybe?

I just thought I'd make my first post on this forum the most ignorant of the day.

bob

bobjenkins79 said:

Does the IC have to be made of copper?

What if I wanted to be a total cheapskate and use the same tubing I use to siphon with? Would that impart a flavor, maybe?

I just thought I'd make my first post on this forum the most ignorant of the day.

bob

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It doesn't HAVE to be copper but copper is very good at conducting heat. That is the main reason that it is the material of choice. Your vinyl tubing is NOT a good heat conductor and would probably cool your wort only slightly faster than just letting it sit there at room temp.

wait.....were you joking?

I have a large plastic tote (~10 gallon) that I fill with ice and submerge the 2-3 gallon partial boil wort into to cool it off, as my sink is way too small. This gets it down to about 90 degrees in about a half hour. I then pour it into the primary and top off to 5 gallons with 1-gal jugs of store-bought spring water that have been sitting in my freezer. Much cheaper than a wort chiller, and considering my tapwater is around 75 degrees, it will get it cooler than a wort chiller as well!

bobjenkins79 said:

Does the IC have to be made of copper?

What if I wanted to be a total cheapskate and use the same tubing I use to siphon with? Would that impart a flavor, maybe?

I just thought I'd make my first post on this forum the most ignorant of the day.

bob

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That wouldn't do much of anything. Vinyl is a ****ty conductor. Copper is an excellent conductor of heat. It effectively draws heat out of the wort into the passing water inside, and then down the drain (or back into your chiller basin, or wherever.)

My last 4 batches I have been boiling just a hair under 4 gallons of wort and my homemade wort chiller (25' of 3/8" copper refrigeration tubing) supplied with tap water brings it down to pitching temperature in under 15 minutes. Well, it's not JUST the chiller doing all that--I also set the bottom of the brewpot in a bed of ice since it's very thick and would retain a ton of heat otherwise. By the time I have the fermenter and tools sanitized, I check the temp in the wort and it's in the 70s. Can't ask for much more than that... especially for about $20 worth of materials and maybe 15 minutes of labor to make the chiller.

pldoolittle said:

Faster: AFAIK, yes. Stronger theory: I don't understand what you mean by that.

Just a note. The output will never fall lower than the tap water temp. For many of us you needn't worry about getting too cold to pitch even in winter time. I suspect that would include all of us in the summertime.

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to answer the question, by theory i meant thermodynamics, i don't have a book in front of me so i'm not going to start quoting formulas and such. and i'm aware that the wort can't drop below the tap water temp and it would be damn hard (time consuming) to even get it to the tap water temp. but my tap water is colder than 70 degree so dropping the wort to 70 isn't difficult.

the_bird said:

:
How had the wort already dropped to 70° if it hadn't transferred to the fermenter yet?

Hot wort goes through the CFC, is cooled, and deposited into the fermenter. The wort that HASN'T yet gone through the CFC (and therefore been deposited in the fermenter) hasn't been cooled by anything other than air......

Click to expand...

the wort in the fermenter had dropped to 70 is what i meant, not the wort in the pot. by shutting off the tap water i was feeding the still hot wort into the fermenter but it was a small quantity compared to the majority already in the fermenter at 70 so the adding the last bit uncooled brought the overall temp back up to about 73.

i'm not brewing ag at this time mainly because i don't quite understand all of how it works yet so my cfc isn't being used for that, it's only being used to drop my extract with grain brews to pitchable temps after the boil is done faster than waiting for the pot to cool in an ice bath.

Disclaimer: I'm buying a 50 foot immersion wort chiller this weekend.

That said, I'm not sure that you need either a CFC or an Immersion Chiller.

Since I began brewing (not too long ago) I have made the "ice bath" method more and more effecient, perhaps even creating a new form of wort chiller or a retarded form of a CFC.

I have a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer (aluminum) pot that I place in one of them big ol' rubbermaid trash cans (Bought new for this purpose). I drilled holes in the side of the can and attached a garden hose to one and a little chunk of hose on the other. I can then turn the outside water on have the can fill up and keep a constant exchange of cool tap water coming in while hot water is pouring out. By the time I've had it upstairs (less than 20 minutes) it's been pitchable (every yeast strain I've used says to hold at 75 until fermentation begins, so 75 is my target pitching temp.)

There are a ton of drawbacks to this method, like the fact that it can't be used indoors (leaks that I have no motivation to fix) and the fact that it's not MUCH cheaper than a 25' IC if you buy all the parts.

Once I get my IC I'll compare side-by-side how efficient they are, and if they're comparable, post instructions.

I still say that my IC was one of the best investments that I've made in my brewery. Getting chilled quickly in the summer was a bit of a challenge, but I'm going to get a 25' IC to serve as a pre-chiller before next summer rolls around.

I have to say that my plate chiller is one of my favorite buys so far. There is nothing like firing up the pump and pushing 5 gallons through in minutes to pitching temp. Granted, there was some $ involved, but I'm not in this to save cash

ohiobrewtus said:

I still say that my IC was one of the best investments that I've made in my brewery. Getting chilled quickly in the summer was a bit of a challenge, but I'm going to get a 25' IC to serve as a pre-chiller before next summer rolls around.

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I tell you what--I made two 25' ICs and tried using one as a pre-chiller a couple of times. It didn't seem to make too much of an improvement, even with my warmer-than-ideal tap water in the summertime. In the end, it wasn't worth the hassle of having that extra tubing, cooler, etc. to trip over. YMMV.

I'm at the point now where my wort is cooled properly within the time it takes me to gather up and sanitize everything else, so I wouldn't be speeding up the overall process at all.

Any instructions on how to build a chiller on this site? Thanks for the help.

i built an immersion chiller today.....

(1) - 50' coil 3/8 copper tubing ~ $60 (!!!) from local metal supplier
(2) - 10' vinyl tubing ~ $7 from home depot
(2) - pipe clamps ~ $1 from home depot
(1) - splicer ~ $2 from home depot
(1) - 200 GPH fountain pump - $35 from home depot

pretty easy to make as you can shape the copper tubing easily into tighter coils to fit you kettle.....mine became a little wobbly, so i brought the two open ends to the bottom and then up through the middle for stability and support for moving/picking up....i used basic vinyl tubing instead of a garden type hose as i wasn't planning on connecting to my faucet...the pump made the project a little pricey, but i liked the idea of recycling the water and using a bucket filled with ice water rather than connected to my kitchen tap....a little soldering for support and more careful shaping could make it much more solid

here's a few photos....as you can see, my shaping was far from perfect




end result......cooled my 5 gallons from boil to 75 degrees in 33 mins....can definitely improve on that as it turned out i didn't have enough ice to keep the water very cold the whole time

first time using a chiller and first time doing a full boil....so a good learning day all around