Wort chiller
- Thread starter bobk34
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It's a great investment for the ease of cooling down the wort. I made my immersion chiller myself. It cost me about $40-45 to make (although I hear Home Depot has a sale on 3/8"ID copper tubing) so if you get it while its cheap, you could make it for significantly less. So if you're up to making it yourself, do it! (A hand Pipe-Bender is a great investment so you dont collapse the tube). Otherwise you can buy them for $50 to $$$
EDIT: Just found my old post.
$25 for the copper tubing
$3 for the 3 hose clamps
$8 for the 3/4" FH x 3/8" barb
$4 for the vinyl tubing
EDIT: Just found my old post.
$25 for the copper tubing
$3 for the 3 hose clamps
$8 for the 3/4" FH x 3/8" barb
$4 for the vinyl tubing
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- Dec 17, 2012
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It is a personal choice. I went without one for a good bit and think the beers were fine without it, but am glad I made the investment and bought one. Getting the wort down to yeast pitching temps in 15-20 minutes instead of a couple of hours was worth it to me.
Others can explain the additional benefits that the beer cooling faster does to the final product.
I looked into making one myself, but in the end bought a 50' 3/8" SS tube unit for about the same the make up parts would cost me.
Others can explain the additional benefits that the beer cooling faster does to the final product.
I looked into making one myself, but in the end bought a 50' 3/8" SS tube unit for about the same the make up parts would cost me.
A wort chiller is definitely worth it; unless you want to sit around for an hour or so waiting for your wort to cool down. I would shop around though because you might be able to get a good deal on copper tubing; was able to get 50' copper tubing for $50 (a few days before Home Depot decided to run their clearance sale). If you can get the tubing pretty cheap the rest of the pieces will cost you very little.
brewer_sam
Well-Known Member
I hated trying to cool my extract batches in an ice bath. I recently purchased the Stainless Steel Immersion Chiller from NB for my 3rd batch and give that a go. What a huge difference and for $60 it was a very minimal investment for such a major return. I chilled a 3g batch from boiling to 78 in under 20 minutes when it used to take me 40+ to cool it in an ice bath. I'm normally a huge DIY guy but since the cost of materials almost equaled what NB was charging for a completed one I just went with buying one from them and save me the hassle of attempting to build one. At the end of the day I am very glad that I got one!
I'm really not a DIY guy, but I want to be, which is why even with how close the cost is, it was fun to do it myself. Although, the cheapest IC I found was a 25' 1/4" ID Immersion Chiller on amazon for $50+shipping. Mine is a few feet shorter, but larger internal diameter. I think 1/4" is really not that effective.
brewer_sam
Well-Known Member
And a fine chiller you have. It looks like you did a great job putting it together! I'd use it!
MindenMan
Well-Known Member
A lot of us have been making runs on the last stock of copper tubing from the Home Depot, and making killer IC's. For $27.xx, I bought 50 feet of 5/8" tubing, and am making a ribcage style IC. Tonight I bought a 50' of 1/2" tubing for the same price. I'm not sure what I will do with it, but at the current price of #1 copper, I may just recycle it, or make someone a great deal on a new IC. Offers are open...
ElCid79
Well-Known Member
I could be TOTALLY TOTALLY wrong here. But I don't use one. It seems wasteful to me, to just pour all that water for no reason. I use an ice bath, which still isn't fantastic, but it works very well, and uses a controlled amount of water. I just put a sanitized lid on my pot, and then put it in the ice bath, and leave.... I do have a iron tub, so it acts like a giant heatsink... My wort is usually at temp in about 45 minutes or so, without me touching a thing.....
BadMrFrosty
Well-Known Member
For every one of my batches in the last 2 1/2 years that I have been brewing I just put the lid on the kettle at the end of the boil and chill overnight. Cost = free plus no wasted water.
HopsterMacBrew
Member
As mentioned, these are not terribly difficult to make. You just have to be careful not to kink the tubing. Find a cylindrical-shaped object and slowly unwind your purchased coil into tight coils around your cylinder. This part is trickier than it looks! Leave extra tubing on each end. I used a pipe/tube bender to bend the ends up and out for water supply (best just to look at a picture of another chiller and try to duplicate). Get proper sized vinyl tubing that will snugly fit over the OD of your copper/stainless and secure with hose clamps.
Works like a charm. You will use a lot of water, but to cool wort in 20-30 minutes is a wonderful thing. Besides, I brew on my back deck and use the runoff to water plants, etc. In my back yard.
Works like a charm. You will use a lot of water, but to cool wort in 20-30 minutes is a wonderful thing. Besides, I brew on my back deck and use the runoff to water plants, etc. In my back yard.
You don't actually need the flow very high, as long as the water comming out is cooler than the wort temp then cooling is working to maximum effect. Running them faster won't make as much difference as it first might seem.
I cool with a coil and then an ice bath because once the temperature differential is less due to the wort cooling it much slower to get the temp down just by the coil. During winter it should be easier for obvious reasons but I bought my coil during the summer so I have yet to see what coiling times I get with the winter temp ground water.
I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that the amount of water I used to chill my last batch down with a cooler was probably around the same amount used to fill my bathtub. I'm mostly basing it off the fact that my bathtub faucet outputs more water than my kitchen faucet (by close to double), and it takes about 5-10 minutes to fill my tub and it took about 10-15 minutes to cool my wort to pitching temp.
I'm planning on brewing another batch next weekend so if I remember to try might have to use my bathroom sink to run my cooler and have it outputted into my bathtub to see how close the amount of water used is.
