Ultimate Wort Cooling: 5 Gallons from 212 to 70 Degrees In 7 Minutes

I love it.



The white bucket is full of spiraled copper tubing in water with ice.

7 minutes? That's fukkin incredible! What's your tap water temp, outta curiosity?

Tap water temp's around 75-80.

The counterflow chiller cools the wort to feeling warm, then the spiraled copper pipe in the bucket of ice and water finishes the job.

Awesome Great idea. :rockin:

Is your CFC in the cooler just to keep it contained, or is there a higher purpose? And, are you basically using an IC inside out (beer in, cold water out) in the bucket of ice water?
I don't have a CFC and have been thinking of ways to improve my chill times. I have an immersion pump I use for draining the kiddie pool and am considering using it in a big batch of ice water to push very cold water through the IC when the tap water seems done. Any thoughts?

The CFC sits on the ice chest because where the dark green hose meets the metal, it drips a bit. It's only water though, from my sink.

The beer flows inside 10ft of spiraled copper pipe in the bucket of ice and water.

Brew kettle>>>>counterflow chiller>>>>copper pipe in ice water>>>>primary



Counterflow chillers are nice, I must say. I like having the beer not be exposed to the air like it would be with an immersion chiller. I know people do it all the time with no contamination, but that's just my research carrying over into my brewing (I work with tuberculosis bacteria). Plus it gets better efficiency than an immersion chiller.

Only problem with both immersion and CFC's is that unless it's the dead of winter or you live far up north, your tap water's not going to be cold enough to get the beer to temp by itself. Hence why I have the copper pipe and ice bucket.

Pumping ice water through your IC would solve that problem too.

I have no idea what I am looking at but it looks SWEET!!! I am guessing a CFC is the way to go to cool your wort down. Looks like McGiveor meets home brewer, wheres the duck tape at?

This is basically a pre-chiller, only you are using it after the CFC.
It certainly works, and that's all that matters.

Same as if he used a pump and was using ice water through the CFC.

Must do more research on this CFC contraption!

Looks cool, but looks complicated. I just bought 25' of 1/2 copper tube, put garden hose ends on each side and run my garden hose to that. My well water is about 55 - 60 so it drops it from boiling to a cool 68 - 72 in about 15 minutes.. Best $30 I ever spent.

Tlylebrew said:

Looks cool, but looks complicated. I just bought 25' of 1/2 copper tube, put garden hose ends on each side and run my garden hose to that. My well water is about 55 - 60 so it drops it from boiling to a cool 68 - 72 in about 15 minutes.. Best $30 I ever spent.

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Believe me, if the tap water in Texas wasn't so damn hot, I'd do something like that too.

As far as complicated, it's just pipe connected to tube. Fits together like legos.

putting 5 gal of boiling wort/plus the pot up on that cabnet looks fun.

buzzkill said:

putting 5 gal of boiling wort/plus the pot up on that cabnet looks fun.

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It's not nearly as tough as it sounds. Although I'm sure being 24, male, and an avid weight lifter kind of makes me biased.

If I may ask th OP, how do you clean your CFC?

Run boiling water through it?

How do you completely drain it? Blowing into it?

I've thought about going the CFC route, but it seems as though cleaning and sanitation are more difficult than with an IC, however you make an excellent point about less contact with oxygen.

Schnitzengiggle said:

If I may ask th OP, how do you clean your CFC?

Run boiling water through it?

How do you completely drain it? Blowing into it?

I've thought about going the CFC route, but it seems as though cleaning and sanitation are more difficult than with an IC, however you make an excellent point about less contact with oxygen.

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The CFC I have is pretty simple. When I am brewing, I hook up the pump about 15 minutes before the end of the boil and I start recirculating wort to sterilize the inside of the chiller. When I am done, I pump water through to flush it along with some sanitizer just to be extra cautious and I set it so it will properly drain. So far, it hasn't been a problem.

Schnitzengiggle said:

If I may ask th OP, how do you clean your CFC?

Run boiling water through it?

How do you completely drain it? Blowing into it?

I've thought about going the CFC route, but it seems as though cleaning and sanitation are more difficult than with an IC, however you make an excellent point about less contact with oxygen.

Click to expand...

-Schnitzengiggle

I run star-san sanitizer through it, drain it, and then put it back in its home. I drain it just by turning it rightside up. To sanitize, I just run star-san through it with an auto-siphon. The system's worked fantastically so far and it's as complicated as connecting a few pieces of tubing together.