Cooling Wort?

I'm fairly new to home brewing and I currently don't do much of anything to cool my wort down. Should I? I know there is potential for bacteria to start to grow, but is the taste going to change if I start cooling it down quicker?

I'm currently thinking of making or buying a copper immersion cooler. Does anyone have any experience making their own immersion cooler and mind telling me if they thought it was worth the effort and time to make one?

Also, anyone have any other solutions to cooling down wort?

Thanks

Vista04 said:

I'm fairly new to home brewing and I currently don't do much of anything to cool my wort down. Should I? I know there is potential for bacteria to start to grow, but is the taste going to change if I start cooling it down quicker?

I'm currently thinking of making or buying a copper immersion cooler. Does anyone have any experience making their own immersion cooler and mind telling me if they thought it was worth the effort and time to make one?

Also, anyone have any other solutions to cooling down wort?

Thanks

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Throw an 8 pound bag of ice in your primary. It will cause a nice, quick break which will make for a clearer beer. Otherwise, get creative and make a wort chiller.

Personally, I like the ice method. Far less extra equipment to clean.

Cheesefood said:

Throw an 8 pound bag of ice in your primary. It will cause a nice, quick break which will make for a clearer beer. Otherwise, get creative and make a wort chiller.

Personally, I like the ice method. Far less extra equipment to clean.

Click to expand...

How hard is it to clean a copper immersion chiller? There's no need to sanitize it prior to the boil, since to sanitize it you drop it into the boiling pot 15 to 20 minutes prior to the end of the boil.

Once you are done with the chilling process, just take it out of the pot and rinse it down really well. This takes maybe a couple of minutes.

Not hard to clean the thing at all.

bikebryan said:

How hard is it to clean a copper immersion chiller? There's no need to sanitize it prior to the boil, since to sanitize it you drop it into the boiling pot 15 to 20 minutes prior to the end of the boil.

Once you are done with the chilling process, just take it out of the pot and rinse it down really well. This takes maybe a couple of minutes.

Not hard to clean the thing at all.

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IT's a lot easier to clean nothing. By the time I'm done brewing, I've generally gotten wort over every surface in the kitchen. A few less minutes cleaning it a good thing.

Making an imersion chiller is pretty easy. Just go down to the hardware store and pick up some soft copper tubing. It comes in standard lengths, 25, 50 ft. Plus it is already coiled. I bought 50 ft. of 3/8 in. tubing and bent it around a small pot that I had, leaving abou 2 ft on each end for the in and out. Attatch compression fittings on the ends with barbs for some tubing. Viola, an imersion chiller. You could probably do it for around 30-40 bucks.

Dumb question, but then what do you immerse the immersion chiller in?

I use the ice method too. I drop two half gallon ice cubes into my 4 gallons of boiling wort, it cools mighty quick.

mmditter said:

Dumb question, but then what do you immerse the immersion chiller in?

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The wort.

As TSN says, the wort. What you are doing is placing a coil of copper tubing in the wort and running cold water through the tubing, thus chilling the wort. This is my preferred method, but the ice approach works well. Another way is to boil three gallons of water the day before and chill it. Make 3 gallons of wort and combine.

Once in a while an immersion chiller gets grungy. Then you have to boil it in 5% vinegar, followed by a scrape down with a copper cleaner. I've only had to do this once in five years.

mmditter said:

Dumb question, but then what do you immerse the immersion chiller in?

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An immersion chiller is generally a copper coil in which you can run cold water through, thus cooling your wort. You attach a hose to one end to attach to a water source (sink, spiggot) then run a hose from the other end out of the wort. Immerse contraption, turn water on, cools the wort.

I prefer the 7 lb bag of ice trick. Boil 4 gallon batch, add 7 lb bag of ice when done, top off to 5 gallons. I can go from boil to pitching temperature in about 1 minute.

hth, loop

brewsmith said:

Attatch compression fittings on the ends with barbs for some tubing. Viola, an imersion chiller. You could probably do it for around 30-40 bucks.

Click to expand...

Another way to do it without the compression fittings is to just slide 3/8" ID hose over the copper tubing and secure it with a small hose clamp.

As far as sanitation I just hose mine off after I remove it and again before I drop it in the next wort...seems to work fine.

Dumping ice into the wort is only an option if you're not doing a full-wort boil or if you know you're going to need to top up.

I use the ice water bath method. Cover my brew pot and set into an ice water bath in the kitchen sink. I can drop the wort to ~90 in about 7min.

-Todd

bikebryan said:

How hard is it to clean a copper immersion chiller? There's no need to sanitize it prior to the boil, since to sanitize it you drop it into the boiling pot 15 to 20 minutes prior to the end of the boil.

Once you are done with the chilling process, just take it out of the pot and rinse it down really well. This takes maybe a couple of minutes.

Not hard to clean the thing at all.

Click to expand...

That is a great idea. Just throw the wort chiller in the pot during the end of the boil to sanitize.

Personally, I prefer to put the pot in the sink (flies come from miles around when you do it outside). Fill the sink up with Ice and cold water, then hook my wort chiller up to it.

I do all-grain. It's much cheaper, but you can't cool it down by adding ice or water directly to the wort because you start out with a pretty substantial wort volume from the mash.

I do it in the sink with ice water. Putting ice cubes in the wort sounds kind of sketchy though... I would imagine ice from your ice cube tray has bacteria in it and ice from a store, who knows where they got it. I only add spring water to my wort.

I use ice, but my ice is made by sticking a couple full, unopened gallons of bottled water into the freezer early on brew day. I cut off the plastic and drop it in. Clean stuff.

-walker

HomerT said:

I use the ice water bath method. Cover my brew pot and set into an ice water bath in the kitchen sink. I can drop the wort to ~90 in about 7min.

-Todd

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Are you doing full (5 gallon) or partial boils? Full boils take a lot longer than 7 minutes to cool down in an ice-water bath - at least in my experience. When you do full boils, you almost have to graduate to some sort of wort chiller.

Fudd said:

I do it in the sink with ice water. Putting ice cubes in the wort sounds kind of sketchy though... I would imagine ice from your ice cube tray has bacteria in it and ice from a store, who knows where they got it. I only add spring water to my wort.

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"Apu? there's a head in this one."

I boil some water and pour it (fresh off the boil) into metal bowls, cover with saran wrap. Let those sit over night, throw them in the freezer and next morning, clean ice.

bikebryan said:

Are you doing full (5 gallon) or partial boils? Full boils take a lot longer than 7 minutes to cool down in an ice-water bath - at least in my experience. When you do full boils, you almost have to graduate to some sort of wort chiller.

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Nope, 2-gallon boils.

Are bags of ice clean? The ice (and the water when it melts) tastes good, but I just wonder with the way it's thrown around in the store that sells it whether it is just asking for an infection to dump the ice right in the wort?

Source water and handling are such that it is fair to be skeptical about the sanitary state of store-bought ice. I use a chunk (about 1/2 gallon) of ice I make out of boiled, store-bought drinking water, plus 2 1/2 gallons of boiled, pre-chilled jugs of the same water. It also helps if you can put the refrigerated water into the freezer about 45 minutes or so before you need it, for the extra chill this makes.

Know that bacteria do not die in ice, they simply become dormant, and reawaken as ice thaws. (Sounds like a horror movie

Here is a link to a website with instructions on making a wort chiller. I plan to make one myself pretty soon. Hope the link works. I'm new to this whole forum stuff.