Wort Chilling Methods

It's in the title. I have a sink that I fill with ice and cool water. I throw my brew pot in there for a while after my finished boil.

Looking for some ideas and suggestions...

Can you make a wort chiler? Do you do partial or full boils? If you do partial boils you can pre-boil some water, cool it overnight and use it to top off and cool down the wort

You can wait for answers to slowly trickle in here, but if you'd rather a more speedy response, there are probably hundreds of threads on here asking this exact question if you search, you'll probably have many many more options, must faster than they will fill in here.

There are three main wort chillers out there. Immersion Chiller (or IC) that you put into the hot wort, running cold water through it to chill. A CFC or Counter Flow Chiller, where you run water through it, around a copper coil that the wort runs through to chill. A plate chiller, where you send the wort through it in one direction and the chill water in the other. All of these will chill the wort form boiling temps to pitching temps fast. Some are faster than others, though, depending on your batch size, chiller size, chill water temp, etc.

I started with using IC's for my batches. Then I got a plate chiller, which did a much better/faster job. I now have a larger plate chiller that I use. Less work, faster chill times, is a big win in my book. Plus, you don't need to carry a pot of boiling hot wort anywhere.

I use a trashcan full of ice water right now, i just throw my while brew kettle in it, then whirlpool the wort to get better heat transfer. It's not really ideal, but i can drop it below 130 (the point where dms still forms) in under 10 mins), then like an hour to get down to 85, and another hour to get down to 70 and pitch. I have very cold well water typically, and an unlimited supply of ice.

Instead of buying an immersion chiller, I'm just waiting until i have time to build a better kettle, with a valve and a plate chiller.

If you do partial boils though, chill your top off water beforehand, then drop the wort temp with a ice bath first. there's a simple equation you can use to know how low the ice bath has to get it before adding the cold top off water to it which chills it the rest of the way to pitching temps.

I went from boil to pitch temps (~64F) in under 12 minutes last weekend. That's for about 7.5 gallons of wort at the start of the chill (I put about 7 gallons into fermenter). Using my long, 40 plate, chiller from Duda Diesel. :rockin:

I also have a plate chiller from Duda Diesel and it works great. As long as I can keep trub out of it...I'm still working on that, but I'd like to not have to leave my plate chiller since it works so well, and so fast. I started with the IC from Brewers Best. $70. Then I talked to a buddy of mine who said he made the same thing for about $30. He told me he just bought a 25 ft. coil of 3/8'' soft copper from the hardware store and bent it the way he wanted. A couple hose clamps and pieces of tubing and you're good to go. Whichever way you choose, anything is better than carrying a kettle to an ice bath.

To keep the hop matter out of my plate chiller, I just use the hop spider I made.


Does a damned good job of it. I've since shifted to shorter 'legs' on it, so that it rests lower on the keggle. Keeps the majority of the hop matter in the nylon bag, and out of my plate chiller. Anything that makes it through, won't plug the chiller at all. I then back-flush the chiller before putting it away. Zero issues.

BTW, everything there (except the bag) is stainless steel. :rockin: