Summer heat won't allow me to cool my wort quickly enough. At risk for HSA?

Hi All!

I live in Austin, TX and have had a lot of trouble getting my wort to cool quickly for my last couple of batches. One was an IPA, the other was a Belgian Wit. I use an immersion chiller with a pre-chiller that I put in a small cooler with Ice and some water. The chillers seem to do their job for the first 90 degrees or so and then it seems to take forever to get the temp below 100 degrees. I would try to put the pot in an ice bath too, but it isn't easy to fit a 15 gallon super pot into the sink or anything else for that matter without using a ridiculous amount of ice.

I never got the IPA wort below 85 degrees (cooled for about an hour and ran out of ice. Tap water was too warm to do anything without the pre-chill). I got the Belgian Wit to 80, but it took an hour and I had to keep adding ice to the pre-chiller and carefully moving the wort so it would circulate past the immersion chiller coils.

I have a couple of questions.

1. Any ideas on how I can use my current set up to cool my wort quicker?

2. Is the risk of hot side aeration reduced as the wort gets closer to 80 degrees? The IPA should turn out awesome, but I'm worried about HSA / oxidation since I transferred, aerated the wort and pitched the yeast a little above 80. I was however able to get it down to the appropriate fermentation temp pretty quickly once I pitched.

3. If I carefully move the wort around with a spoon or the immersion chiller above 80 degrees, am I going to cause major oxidation issues?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
DB


My questions are:

1. Any ideas on how I

I'd be much more concerned about pitching at 80+ than HSA. Also you won't see any oxidation issues or anything like that from "stirring" with your chiller. Oxidation (as in, the off flavor) only happens during/post fermentation.

I've seen many recommend that you first chill using your tap water, to bring the temperature down to 100 or so, then switch over to recirculating through the ice. Someone with actual experience doing it can chime in with specifics, but the theory is sound.

As far as HSA, I would not worry about it in the least.

i would shell out for a plate chiller and a pump if I were you, you just have too much wort and too high temps imo

I throw my spoon in with my immersion chiller and let them both sanitize. Use the tap water and stir the wort gently to get the temp down to around 90. Only hook up the prechiller after that. I use a sump pump in a bucket of ice water and recirculate to bring the temp to lager temps. You can throw salt in the bucket of water to bring it down to the 50s in an hour or so. Same idea as the prechiller, but I just had a sump pump handy. No need for a plate chiller and pump.

I have a couple of questions.

1. Any ideas on how I can use my current set up to cool my wort quicker?

Answer: You need to either move the wort around the chiller or move the chiller around in the wort to maximize cooling. I do the latter by "rocking" the chiller constantly while chilling. Use only tap water to get down to close to tap water temperature then add ice to your prechiller. Using ice from the beginning provides minimal benefit and wastes your ice.

2. Is the risk of hot side aeration reduced as the wort gets closer to 80 degrees? The IPA should turn out awesome, but I'm worried about HSA / oxidation since I transferred, aerated the wort and pitched the yeast a little above 80. I was however able to get it down to the appropriate fermentation temp pretty quickly once I pitched.

Answer: Yes. Hot side aeration is a problem at boiling (or close to boiling temps) and requires a lot of vigorous aeration. RDWHAHB.


3. If I carefully move the wort around with a spoon or the immersion chiller above 80 degrees, am I going to cause major oxidation issues?

Answer: No. You want to aerate your wort at this stage as your yeast need it for reproduction.

GT

Tread82 said:

I throw my spoon in with my immersion chiller and let them both sanitize. Use the tap water and stir the wort gently to get the temp down to around 90. Only hook up the prechiller after that. I use a sump pump in a bucket of ice water and recirculate to bring the temp to lager temps. You can throw salt in the bucket of water to bring it down to the 50s in an hour or so. Same idea as the prechiller, but I just had a sump pump handy. No need for a plate chiller and pump.

Click to expand...

I chill mine the same way. Harbor Freight Tools and Northern Tool are great places to buy inexpensive sump pumps.

I dont use a prechiller, I directly pump ice water through the IC, I get down to 60° or lower in very short order, I chill without recirculating down below 90° and then recirc back into the cooler full of ice. this takes 40-50lbs of ice in my cooler and use a smallish pond pump, around 150gph. I just keep the ice chest topped with water. for the 4 dollars I pay for ice, its worth it for the ease of chilling.

last brewday was over 118° in my garage, tap water temp was 93°, chilling with nothing but ice water took under 30 minutes to get to 60°.

What are the specs for your immersion chiller? I noticed a huge difference when I switched from a 25 foot long coil of 3/8 inch copper to a 50 foot coil of 1/2 inch.