Immersion chiller question

Please don't berate me if the answer in in the "search" I looked and watched the videos, but I can't tell which end of an IC you sould attach the "water in" line to. Does cold water feed top down, or bottom up?

Thanks

I always thought the water starts at the top and travels down. At least that is the way I attach mine.

You can do either. One way gives you slightly better heat exchange - I forget which. I think I feed mine from the top.

My midwest SS one feeds the bottom.

Dunno if thats right though? Seems to work ok.

Mine goes from the bottom up, but thats a great question. It seems to me that since heat rises, the hottest part of the wort will be on top of the kettle. The temperature of the water will be coldest also at the point it starts to touch the wort - also at the top. Seems to me that the best place to make the heat exchange would be at the top...where to wort is the hottest and the water is at the coldest. I don't have interchangable connections on my IC, but if I did it would be an interesting experiment to make with just some hot water...anyone want to be a guinea pig?

You want to be stirring around the chiller anyways so the difference is probably negligible.

Technically the water should travel from the top of the coils to the bottom. Heat rises so the hottest wort will be at the top of the kettle...where the coldest water should be.

You should definitely stir the wort as well....in the opposite direction that the cooling water is flowing.

I would say top to bottom as well. Hot air rises at a noticeably higher rate than cold air, however I don't know the difference in the mass of water molecules.

The main reason to fill your IC top to bottom is that it will be colder starting at the top of your coil, instead of feeding it down your straight pipe and into the coil all the while heating the water that isn't really effectively cooling your wort yet. I would agree that the difference is probably negligible at best.

bigben said:

Technically the water should travel from the top of the coils to the bottom. Heat rises so the hottest wort will be at the top of the kettle...where the coldest water should be.

You should definitely stir the wort as well....in the opposite direction that the cooling water is flowing.

Click to expand...

+1 This is how I do it

Just stir the wort while it's cooling and all will be good.

sigmund said:

Just stir the wort while it's cooling and all will be good.

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True, you want to continually keep the hotter wort flowing against the cooling coil.

But be careful not to aerate the wort until the temp has dropped to below 100.

BierMuncher said:

True, you want to continually keep the hotter wort flowing against the cooling coil.

But be careful not to aerate the wort until the temp has dropped to below 100.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have clarified. I just stir enough to create a slight whirlpool, all I want to do is keep wort moving across the chiller tubes.

Thanks for the replies. I'm flying solo tomorrow (too bad on Natl HomeBrew Day), doing my first PM, First Full Boil, and First use of my new IC.