What I just learned about my wort chiller...

So i did my first full boil (5 gal) today which i was totally stoked about cause i built my own wort chiller...however...after 1 hour i only got it to around 78 degrees.


I think in the future, best practice is 4 gal boil, have 1 gal of water in the fridge, then top off at the end?


my only minor concern is the cold break. I got it down from 212F to 100F in 20 minutes, but the last 30F to get it to 70F was just not happening....at what point does the cold break happen?


Thanks

I would be willing to bet that the reason it took so long is because your tap water at your house is about 70 degrees this time of year. There are systems you can use to cool the water that runs through the chiller. You may want to look into those before abandoning the full boil....

Cheers

Wow, over an hour huh, what type of chiller and what is your water temp going in? I can cool wort to 70 degrees in less than 15 min. Try this, once you are at 100 degrees, start moving the chiller around a little bit, let all of the wort touch the chiller. (I am assuming it is an immersion chiller). Hope this helps

Check the temp of the water coming out of the faucet. Second, make sure you're regularly stirring/swirling the wort (with a sanitized device) as the movement really helps speed things up. You can also lift the chiller up and down every couple of minutes to make sure it's moving around good. Also, how big is your chiller? 25'? 50'? That's also going to make a difference.

But you're right, an hour to get it down to 78 isn't very good. Even if your tap water is coming out at near 70 you should be able to get it under 80 inside of a half hour.

For reference, my tap water is 61 and with my 50' 1/2" chiller I can get 4 gallons from boiling to about 65 in about 20 minutes.

Yes its an immerstion....i made mine from 25" maybe it wasnt enough....


i did stir it up a bunch throughout the cooling, but oh well....

FlySpargeVorlauf said:

I would be willing to bet that the reason it took so long is because your tap water at your house is about 70 degrees this time of year. There are systems you can use to cool the water that runs through the chiller. You may want to look into those before abandoning the full boil....

Cheers

Click to expand...

My first thought as well, I'm suffering from the same problem as well. My cold water comes out of the tap at luke-warm temperatures. I ended up springing for the pre-chiller when I bought my wort-chiller.

Thanks fro the tip about stirring during chilling. I will do that next time.

After running water from the tap through it for the first 10-15 minutes, use a pond pump and recirculate ice water.

I have Midwest's entry level 25' copper chiller (it's made from 3/8" copper), and it will chill a full 5 gallons of wort in around 20 minutes. Two things: I have well water for cooling, which means 55F, and I stir a LOT. I agree that you may need to consider some sort of prechiller contraption for your water. Well, when it comes to "contraptions," probably the easiest thing is just another chiller sitting in an ice bath, rigged in series with the one in the wort.

Summer sucks. In winter, I was getting my wort under 70*F in no time. Of course my water was coming out around 60-65*F. Now that its summer I'm lucky to get 75*F water.

Cold break is going to happen somewhere just below boiling temps. I'm not too sure of the exact temp, but I'm pretty sure its not below 100*F. Please correct me if I'm wrong. There has been some proof that you don't even need to chill to get a good cold break or clear beer. If you are interested in this, search out the topics pertaining to "no chill" brewing. I don't want to turn this to a no chill thread, but it is a method that has been proven to work.

Your biggest concern in chilling is getting it below 170 to stop DMS production. I get my wort as far as I can without wasting too much water. Thats usually around 85 in the summer. I whirlpool and let it sit for ~30min to make a trub cone. I then rack to the fermenter and stick it in the fermentation chamber for a few hours, or until its at pitching temperatures.

Down here in AZ the water's so warm coming from tap that my chiller wasn't even worth it. So I went to a local hydroponics shop and bought a small submersible water pump. I fill my sink with ice water, put my exit hose into the sink and just recirculate the water. Made my last batch too cold. Hope this helps you out. If anybody can see any flaws with this please let me know, I am a noob.

BeerBudha said:

Down here in AZ the water's so warm coming from tap that my chiller wasn't even worth it. So I went to a local hydroponics shop and bought a small submersible water pump. I fill my sink with ice water, put my exit hose into the sink and just recirculate the water. Made my last batch too cold. Hope this helps you out. If anybody can see any flaws with this please let me know, I am a noob.

Click to expand...

hell, I'd rather my wort get too cold than not being able to get it below pitching temps!

We have a big flower pot that we roll the hose up in that goes to our chiller. As we roll it up in the flower pot we add ice to it. I'd guess we get 15 feel to hose in the pot with 10# of ice. We brewed two weeks ago here in GA and got down to 72 in about 35 minutes. It is a lot cheaper than having two chillers and putting one in an ice bath.

Works for us, hope it works for you.

Nick

definatly trust me I wasn't complaining. the first two batches I made it took forever to get it down to pitching temps.

Here in Alabama the water temperature is around 60deg. in the summer which works reasonably well. However, I get impatient sometimes, so I usually let the faucet bring the wort down to ~120deg (usually 10minutes or so for a 3gal boil with my 25' immersion chiller) then dump whatever ice I have in the freezer into an ice chest with some water. Drop a pond pump in there as several other people have suggested. If I stir the wort I can usually watch the temperature drop steadily on a digital thermometer. In fact, one of the last brews I did I had some help with it and had an extra bag of ice from the store, so the recirculated chiller water didn't melt the ice too quickly. I could put my hands on the side of the pot and actually feel the wort cooling off!

BeerBudha said:

Down here in AZ the water's so warm coming from tap that my chiller wasn't even worth it. So I went to a local hydroponics shop and bought a small submersible water pump. I fill my sink with ice water, put my exit hose into the sink and just recirculate the water. Made my last batch too cold. Hope this helps you out. If anybody can see any flaws with this please let me know, I am a noob.

Click to expand...

I do pretty much this, except I don't recirculate right away since in my experience that melts the ice really fast and then I could be in danger of not having enough ice left to get my wort down around 60-65 degrees. I wait until the temp of the return is below 100 or so before I start recirculating.

BeerBudha said:

Down here in AZ the water's so warm coming from tap that my chiller wasn't even worth it. So I went to a local hydroponics shop and bought a small submersible water pump. I fill my sink with ice water, put my exit hose into the sink and just recirculate the water. Made my last batch too cold. Hope this helps you out. If anybody can see any flaws with this please let me know, I am a noob.

Click to expand...

Amen to that, I live in a new build home, and the water lines run up through the attic, sometimes the "cold" water can scald you if you don't let it run for a couple of minutes.

Water temps here suck balls!

On the up side, I don't have to use hot water for showers, as it is already hot!

BeerBudha said:

Down here in AZ the water's so warm coming from tap that my chiller wasn't even worth it. So I went to a local hydroponics shop and bought a small submersible water pump. I fill my sink with ice water, put my exit hose into the sink and just recirculate the water. Made my last batch too cold. Hope this helps you out. If anybody can see any flaws with this please let me know, I am a noob.

Click to expand...

I use a "Little Giant" submersible pump in the same manner as described above. I have two three way valves set-up on mine though so I use the tap water to get it down in temp initially then switch over to the chilled water to get it where I need it quickly. I use a small tub with ice and water to circulate the chilled water.

Salute!

rico567 said:

Well, when it comes to "contraptions," probably the easiest thing is just another chiller sitting in an ice bath, rigged in series with the one in the wort.

Click to expand...

I have been considering something like this... does anyone have experience with this? How much cooling of the water can one expect when doing this?

If you have a boil kettle that can be connected to a counter flow chiller then I would take the trouble to make one. I can get my wort down to 65F in no time with the tap water barely dribbling out the exit hose, and this water is hot and used directly for cleaning. And there is no stirring invovled (hot side aeration). I don't use any pumps and the process still takes less than 20 minutes and only uses about 10 gallons of cooling water.

ACo said:

So i did my first full boil (5 gal) today which i was totally stoked about cause i built my own wort chiller...however...after 1 hour i only got it to around 78 degrees.


I think in the future, best practice is 4 gal boil, have 1 gal of water in the fridge, then top off at the end?


my only minor concern is the cold break. I got it down from 212F to 100F in 20 minutes, but the last 30F to get it to 70F was just not happening....at what point does the cold break happen?


Thanks

Click to expand...

I think you are meaning that you would pour unsanitize water into your wort at the end of the boil. Although I'd assume the high temperatures would kill any infections, I'm not sure you could guarantee that. Also, you'd risk hot side oxidation with a pour.

pnh2atl said:

We have a big flower pot that we roll the hose up in that goes to our chiller. As we roll it up in the flower pot we add ice to it. I'd guess we get 15 feel to hose in the pot with 10# of ice.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the good idea. I brew outdoors, so this will work well for me.

It's good to see some fellow Tucsonans on the board! I have a few acquaintances that are homebrewers but haven't brewed with any of them or even tasted anyone's but my own homebrew.

I just started brewing (just finished brewing my third batch a few days ago) and am still using an ice bath for my partial boils. The "cold" water from the tap comes out at about 80* F during the summer months. I definitely need to make a wort chiller as my next project. Dealing with ice baths are a pain. I'm already tired of it.