Questions About Immersion Chillers

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JimE

JimE

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I decided to move to an immersion chiller rather than putting my kettle in an ice bath. I purchased a copper immersion chiller, made with 50 feet of 3/8 copper tubing. It has garden hose fittings that are soldered on the tubing.

I know I need to immerse this with about 15 minutes left in the boil. Should I have the hoses connected when I put it in the kettle, or should I use quick connects and put the hoses on when I'm ready to turn the water on. If I use the quick connects, I suppose they should be brass or would plastic work?

How do you use your chiller?
 
A couple of things I've learned the hard way, to help you decide!

One- if you put the chiller in the boil without any hoses on it, the residual water in the chiller from the last boil or from cleaning will immediately come to boiling temperature and shoot out the openings in the coil (the fittings). Being sprayed on the legs with boiling water hurts!

Two- the garden hose on the "out" side gets hot, but it's still fine. They just get "soft" and if you have a kink where it gets soft, then you can never "unkink" them.

Three- if you put the hoses on after the chiller boils for a while, those fittings are HOT. Very, very, very hot. It's so much easier to put them on while the chiller is cool!

Of course, I'm being facetious, but I really did learn those things the hard way!
 
I also drop it in the boil with the hoses attached, one word of caution though, dont get the hose too close to the burner or you will have a hell of a time cooling the wort with a hole melted through your hose.
 
azscoob said:
I also drop it in the boil with the hoses attached, one word of caution though, dont get the hose too close to the burner or you will have a hell of a time cooling the wort with a hole melted through your hose.
Click to expand...

This is true. I don't have a hole in my hose, but it is melty and deformed a bit from resting briefly on the leg of my burner.
 
In my experience...

- you MUST screw the hoses on first or you risk old water getting into your wort
- you should test it before putting it in your wort! it's a small step that can save you a bunch of worry... several times I've had to tighten the fittings to stop leaking water
- there's no reason not to attach the hoses first
 
Thanks, everybody, for your answers!

Taking your advice, I'll put the hoses on first, test with the water on for leaks, put the chiller in the kettle with 15 minutes left in the boil, and not let the hose get to close to the burner.

Got it!
 
<3 the hose fittings on wort chillers.

So much easier than the clamps.

I bought a couple six foot hoses from Lowe's, they were designed for trailers or something.

Perfection.
 
+1 on testing.

I also found it's best to empty most water before use. A chiller full of cold water can really kill a boil.
 
Also not a bad idea to test fire your chiller before it goes in the pot. I found out the hard way that I hadn't fully drained all of the water out of my chiller last winter when I stored it in my keggle on my screen porch. There was a 1" split on the bottom of one of the coils, which I did not notice until I put the chiller into the boil, and then turned the water on at the end of the boil. I know immediately that SOMETHING was wrong, but couldn't immediately figure it out. I was bright enough to pull the chiller out of the wort almost immediately, so I really didn't pump too much dirty hose water into it, but it took about two hours of cutting sections out of my chiller until I could cut it back to the point where the expanding ice hadn't stretched the tubing out past its original od, where I could put a female-female coupler on it. PITA!:drunk:
 
Alternately you can just stick your chiller in at flameout and not have to worry about melted hoses or hot fittings.

I give mine a quick Star-san spraydown to knock off any dust and drop it in at flameout. The wort is more than hot enough to sanitize it, especially if you leave it for a minute or two before turning on the water.

-Joe
 
nostalgia said:
Alternately you can just stick your chiller in at flameout and not have to worry about melted hoses or hot fittings.

I give mine a quick Star-san spraydown to knock off any dust and drop it in at flameout. The wort is more than hot enough to sanitize it, especially if you leave it for a minute or two before turning on the water.

-Joe
Click to expand...

Not a bad thought!
 
^^^The answer is "YES" the boiling wort effectively sanitizes the chiller coils.

glenn514:mug:
 
glenn514 said:
^^^The answer is "YES" the boiling wort effectively sanitizes the chiller coils.

glenn514:mug:
Click to expand...

Newbie question then.... Why drop it in at all and risk burning holes in the hoses? Why not just drop in a bucket of star-san or sanitizer?
This is an honest question. I start a bucket of star-san in my primary that I keep stuff in that needs to be sanitized and I keep my IC in there as well. Is this a wrong procedure and why?
 
Nowuries said:
Newbie question then.... Why drop it in at all and risk burning holes in the hoses? Why not just drop in a bucket of star-san or sanitizer?
This is an honest question. I start a bucket of star-san in my primary that I keep stuff in that needs to be sanitized and I keep my IC in there as well. Is this a wrong procedure and why?
Click to expand...


It's not wrong - just different. I find it easier myself to drop the IC into the boil 10 minutes before flame-out along with my irish moss. The burning hose is not a problem. I did get a semi-melted patch once when I wasn't paying attention, but that's only once out of all my batches of beer.

But, if you want to tackle bugs with starsan, I see no problems at all. Starsan and 10 minute boil are probably both overkill anyway. The fluid is plenty hot at flameout to kill the nasties on the coil I would think.
 
When I made my IC I made the inlet and outlet a bit long so there would be no chance of my tubing touching my brew pot. I also ensured they had a little downward angle to prevent any water from leaking into the Wort. Of course this is all because I read atleast a dozen recommendations here on HBT :) :mug:

Yes, leave hoses on when puting IC into boil.
 
BrewBrain said:
It's not wrong - just different. I find it easier myself to drop the IC into the boil 10 minutes before flame-out along with my irish moss. The burning hose is not a problem. I did get a semi-melted patch once when I wasn't paying attention, but that's only once out of all my batches of beer.

But, if you want to tackle bugs with starsan, I see no problems at all. Starsan and 10 minute boil are probably both overkill anyway. The fluid is plenty hot at flameout to kill the nasties on the coil I would think.
Click to expand...

Cool, I just like knowing that I'm doing something the right way. I do drop Irish Moss in at 15 minutes, it might help remind me to drop the IC in at the same time.
Thanks
 
To the OP.
This may be a little OT but I use an IC actually 2. I put one in the boil kettle and on in a tub filled with ice water. This works great. Before I had 2 ICs I used the thinnest water hose I could find coiled up in the icewater bath. Also to conserve water I run tap watter untill the temp stops dropping, then put the 2nd IC/waterhose coil in the icewater bath. I generally get to pitching temps in 20 min or so...... YMMV.....:mug:
 

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