Ivan Lendl
Well-Known Member
Im curious what most people do...
Jester said:I jsut built my chiller today... I'll be using it later tonight.... seems like it going to a lot easier than the cold bath...
that doesn't seem much faster than what most people quote for the immersion chiller alone....Brew_Meister said:I use an immersion chiller and an ice bath. I fill a 10 gallon Rubbermaid tub with cold water and 2 bags of ice and put the brew kettle in that with the immersion chiller. Cools off pretty quickly... roughly 15 or 20 minutes to 65F.
Counterflow chillers may be more efficient, but they are harder to clean. You have to worry about cleaning the inside of them, AND sanitzing them. With an immersion chiller, you just drop it into the boiling pot the last 15-20 minutes of the boil, and when done remove it and rinse it down.Bjorn Borg said:wow, i thought there would be more counterflowers out there...isnt counterflow more efficient?
whats the deal with plate?
I have a Shirron plate chiller, and use gravity to feed it. Put it this way...the plate cools the wort instantly. It only takes the time it takes to siphon 5 gallons of wort into a carboy.
Industrial plate type chillers are used by large brewerys, and are the most effecient methods of wort cooling. The debated issue with plate chillers is that the industrial chillers are able to be disassembled for perfect cleaning, and the small homebrew plates are not. So, you have to make sure its backflushed IMMEDIATELY, and then flushed with acid based cleaners to try to stop any and all build up of any beerstone or anything else.
So, to be as effecient as possible, you need to set up your carboy with yeast first, and have your airlock ready to install so that you can immediatley begin cleaning the chiller. To me thats no problem. Besides cleaning my mash tun and other equipment during the boil, this is just another simple thing to do for me.
Im hoping on day that someone makes a wort chiller that can be disassembled for cleaning, as it would be the best chiller on the market bar none.
Counterflow chillers may be more efficient, but they are harder to clean. You have to worry about cleaning the inside of them, AND sanitzing them. With an immersion chiller, you just drop it into the boiling pot the last 15-20 minutes of the boil, and when done remove it and rinse it down.
Counterflow chillers may be more efficient, but they are harder to clean. You have to worry about cleaning the inside of them, AND sanitzing them. With an immersion chiller, you just drop it into the boiling pot the last 15-20 minutes of the boil, and when done remove it and rinse it down.
I think that "Ice in the wort" is far more effective and legitimate than widely thought (and certainly deserves more respect than being lumped in with "snow bank")
It chills as fast and effectively (or faster) than anything else.
Can I have an Amen?
There is no better method IMHO.
AMEN
(to ice in the wort)
No question. On Ice cubes, my wort goes from 200F to 61F in 3.6 seconds.
Granted I am chilling 3.4 gallons (to end up with 5), not 5, but I think the time works the same assuming proportions are maintained.
same here 4 gallons in two shakes of a lambs tail
I got it figured out just how much ice to put in the FV then DUMP the wort right on it.
Hrm...
Maybe I'll have to try a slightly different method this time.
As mentioned, I've been doing 2-3 water baths, changing the water when it gets warm, and sometimes adding ice to the latter baths. For my last batch, I got the final dose of cooling by adding near freezing top-up water.
I've been avoiding adding ice directly to the wort as I can't keep larger blocks of ice from splashing a bit, losing a small amount of wort, and making a little bit of a mess.
What I am pondering for next time is freezing gallon jugs of water into solid blocks of ice, spraying some StarSan on the outside of the bottle, and just placing the bottle in the kettle. No splash, no risk of putting in too much ice as I can pull the bottle out of the kettle at any time....
Anyone try this? What have your results been?
Put the proper amount of ice in the fermenter (USE BUCKETS) and then no splashing.
I even put my yeast and ice in the fermenter and pitch HOT wort on that.
Putting PLASTIC jugs in hot wort is a BAD idea.