do I or dont I?

OK I have a CFC, built it myself but Im thinking I want to cool ALL my wort faster and not just cooling the stuff fast as it comes out of the kettle. So answer the poll and let me know why

I said tear apart, but only if you do it with wirlpooling by recirculating the wort.

Well, for me the immersion works like crap 6 months out of the year cuz of tap temp so I had to pick CFC. I'd think it safer to take the 200+ stuff out and cool that small bit to 70 or so as opposed to the 15-30 minutes to bring it all down to 70.

It sounds like you don't like your CFC? Mines been a PITA to get the flow going but tomorrow my wort wizard arrives. It better be my savior to suck it thru the CFC faster.

olllllo said:

I said tear apart, but only if you do it with wirlpooling by recirculating the wort.

Click to expand...

I'm very interested in Jamil's recirculating immersion chiller. Seems to be the best of all worlds.

Are you having problems with DMS or something in your brew from not cooling the wort quickly enough?

the_bird said:

I'm very interested in Jamil's recirculating immersion chiller. Seems to be the best of all worlds.

Are you having problems with DMS or something in your brew from not cooling the wort quickly enough?

Click to expand...

I dunno, just bored and been thinking about it for a while. I wont be recirculating the wort but I will be whirlpooling it IF i get rid of the CFC. I dont have issues with water temp here. Milwaukee water temp is about 50-55 degrees and a bit cooler in the winter (45-50)

I dont mind my CFC it just that it adds to the footprint of my step up and I'm trying to make everything more compact and user friendly and with the CFC on it takes about 20 minnutes to drain my kettle, so I'm looking at 20 minutes for that last bit of wort to be cooled from about 200ish to 70 in a few seconds

For me the biggest pain in the ass about the hole A G deal is the chilling of the wort, and as such my CFC. It works like a charm, but it would be easier to clean as IC, but adding the whirlpool effect jamil has talked about would require more equipment and thus more cleaning right?

I have an immersion chiller, but now that I'm going with a keggle, it'll be too small. I recently fell into a deal on a plate chiller, so that's the route I'm taking.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd go immersion with wort circulation.

Down the road I can see going mad scientist and using the plate chiller and a simple immersion chiller.

I've had great success with my butt ugly, cheap homebuilt wort chiller. Two coils of 1/4 fridge line copper. Last batch, chilled from boiling to ~72 in about twelve minutes (gently stirring).

The submersion chiller is way simple to operate ,easy to clean and is very fast(10-15min).Keeping it simple works best for me .
Cheers

PS-mine is also a butt-ugly cheap homebuilt model

Pumbaa. Read my wort wizard post. $25 online or cheaper if you build it yourself. If your goal is to have your bottom tier low which is my objective as well (haven't started the build yet) this IS the way to go. Keep the CFC (or go plater chiller if you choose) but get a wort wizard. Hell of a lot cheaper than a pump but does the same thing.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20672

I put my IC into a Bucket of Ice and water and run the cool tap through that into the CFC..

budbo said:

I put my IC into a Bucket of Ice and water and run the cool tap through that into the CFC..

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If you have both you can do a lot (pre-chill, or crash with IC and finish with CFC).

However I think Pumbaa has a single coil of copper and is trying to best decide what to do with it; IC or CFC. (Is that right, Pumbaa?)

I'm voting Nader, because I think you should keep the CFC and also build an IC. Use them both.

-walker

well I decided just to make an IC and keep the CFC as a back up. What I was thinking about was dismantling the CFC and making it a IC. I dont think I'll ever need to pre-chill. All my tap water comes from a pipe about 5 miles into Lake Michigan so is always around 50ish (bit warmer in the summer, bit cooler in the winter)