Whirlpool Chilling

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mew

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I was just reading up on a technique called "whirlpool chilling" and I'm intrigued. It claims to get temps down in less than five minutes. A whirlpool chiller is just an immersion chiller with some sort of whirlpool device to mix the wort up constantly. It would seem to be an easy addition to add a mix/stir attachment to a drill to get a whirlpool going during the chill. Do any of you use a whirlpool chilling system?
 
I use this setup but can tell you it will take longer than 5 minutes to cool your wort. It usually takes me about half an hour to chill 11 gallons down to pitching temp. I usually let it go a good 45 minutes to and hour so I can pitch the yeast into a cooler wort and let the temp gradually rise once it is all in the fermenter.
 
I have an IC and usually just manually stir the wort. I used my march pump to simply recirc (no whirlpool) the wort out the valve and back over the top into the kettle. My wort was down to 80 so fast I thought my thermometer was broken! It couldn't have been more than 10 mins, TOPS. Stirring worked pretty well too, but I highly recommend the pump. Also, if you use an IC, it helps to remove it when cooling is complete and do a strong whirlpool with nothing in the kettle. Let it sit for 15 mins, and you should have a nice cone of trub/break.
 
The short chill times are from pumping icewater into the IC and the fact that the recirculation creates wort movement in the pot to push it past the IC coils. You can pump icewater and manually stir the kettle. It should still chill quickly.
 
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