Best way to chill wort

[iglehart]

I have a wort chiller, but in the summer my water temp gets to about 78, no lower. What is a cheap way to chill the wort down to 65-70? I also brew 3 gallon batches so I have to take that into consideration as well. I usually do a full boil in a 5 gallon kettle.

 

[GHBWNY]

I have a wort chiller, but in the summer my water temp gets to about 78, no lower. What is a cheap way to chill the wort down to 65-70? I also brew 3 gallon batches so I have to take that into consideration as well. I usually do a full boil in a 5 gallon kettle.

3 gal. should cool pretty quickly. Can you put your brew kettle in a sink with ice water [while running the wort chiller]? Also, use the chiller to stir the wort while it's cooling. That will more quickly de-stratify warm spots and give the wort some need aeration (just be careful not to drop any foreign matter into it while doing so). I stick my wort chiller in the boiling wort 10 minutes before it's done to sterilize it and then transfer the whole business to the sink and hook it up.

 

[BrunDog]

What type of chiller? I would recommend you chill into the kettle (IC or CFC/plate with pump) for the bulk of the heat removal, then switch to a bucket of ice water for the remaining.

Or if your sanitation is solid, just chill to as low as you can, then put the fermenter in your temp box to bring it down and pitch yeast later.

 

[Nagorg]

I have the same issue here in TX. So, I use ground water through an IC to take it down below 100 and then switch to a bucket of ice water with a submersible pump. I'm also using a chugger to recirculate the wort and keep it flowing around the chiller. The ice water lets me take things down to ~60-65 and that's when I transfer and pitch.

 

[MrAverageGuy]

3 gal. should cool pretty quickly. Can you put your brew kettle in a sink with ice water [while running the wort chiller]? Also, use the chiller to stir the wort while it's cooling. That will more quickly de-stratify warm spots and give the wort some need aeration (just be careful not to drop any foreign matter into it while doing so). I stick my wort chiller in the boiling wort 10 minutes before it's done to sterilize it and then transfer the whole business to the sink and hook it up.

I also brew half-batches, and cool the wort the same way (kettle is small enough to put in the sink with ice, while also running the wort chiller)....though it's cooling off now in SoCal, so, hoping to skip the ice when I brew next week.

 

[Roland_deschain]

I made my wort chiller from a coil of 3/8" copper. I connected that to tubing attached to a submersible pump. I set my kettle in sink with cold water, then fill the other side with water and 22lbs of ice. The pump moves the water through the coil and the output from the coil is returned to the sink to remix with the cold water, melting the ice and keeping it chilled. I can get 5 gallons of hot wort down to 65deg in under 10 minutes and it doesn't waste a ton of water.

 

[wilserbrewer]

What is a cheap way to chill the wort down to 65-70?

Put a few liter soda bottles full of water in your freezer, when the wort gets down to 100 degrees or so, sanitize the frozen bottles and add to your kettle....not the most glamorous, but cheap and easy and effective IME.

cheers

 

[Terek]

i just chill it till its below 100, then transfer to fermenter, and put the fermenter in the chamber until it aclimates

 

[mkyl428]

I usually chill as best I can with the hose, then I hook up a pond fountain pump from harbor freight in a bucket of ice water to my chiller and recirculate the ice water.

 

[Happywanderer]

Yep - I also use the submersible pump and ice water. I've got an 80-qt cooler that I fill with water/ice. works great.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Fill a carboy with ice as much as possible. Add in hot wort. It worked for me when I was doing 5 gallon batches. You could also fill the tub with ice and water to cool your brew.

 

[Nagorg]

Here you can see the wort level as a condensation line. The wort has been chilled below 65 via the ice bucket and sump pump through an IC method.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I have the same issue here in TX. So, I use ground water through an IC to take it down below 100 and then switch to a bucket of ice water with a submersible pump. I'm also using a chugger to recirculate the wort and keep it flowing around the chiller. The ice water lets me take things down to ~60-65 and that's when I transfer and pitch.

This.

I do the same thing (except the chugger), but with a side of the sink instead of a bucket. Gets it down to the 65° - 70° range in about 15-20 minutes.

 

[Bobby_M]

With a 3 gallon batch size I would just use the IC to get down to 80F, then put the pot into a sink full of icewater OR as mentioned before, transfer the 80f wort to the fermenter and put it into the fridge (if you area using one for fermentation control).

 

[Nagorg]

Yeah... I suppose the IC and pump thing is a bit much for 3G batches. An ice bath in the sink is the easiest and cheapest thing on that scale. :smack:

 

[wilserbrewer]

Yeah... I suppose the IC and pump thing is a bit much for 3G batches. An ice bath in the sink is the easiest and cheapest thing on that scale. :smack:

Yes, for only 3G, I would be tempted to not even bother with the IC, and just chill in the sink. Since your goin there anyhow.

 

[feinbera]

Do you have a fermentation freezer/chamber/whatever? Nothing wrong with cooling the last 20 or 30 degrees the slow way and holding off a couple hours to pitch your yeast, it's what I've been doing the past few batches.

 

[mattsearle]

I just coil up a bunch of the hose thats going to my IC and submerge this in ice water so that it drops the temperature of the ground water before it reaches the IC. You can coil up as much as you need to get the temp as low as needed within reason.

 

[brrman]

Before I changed to a cfc, I had a "pre-chiller" copper coil spliced into the hose that led to my immersion chiller. Much like, mattsearle, but in this case it was a dedicated copper 3 ft coil that could be added or removed to the hose via disconnect. I just submerged it in a bucket of ice water when chilling to get my ground water down to colder temp.

 

[nudarkshadowl]

I make 10 gallon batches so cooling for me was an issue with the AZ summer tap water temps. I ended up getting a sabco chill wizard, and a sump pump from homedepot. I recirculate ice cold water through the chill plate and back into the bucket, then add ice as needed. I can chill my 10 gallon batches to basically whatever I need to in about 10 min or so, while also oxygenating the wort with pure oxygen. Before recirculating with ice water, the best I could do off hoses from the tap in the summer was about 80 degrees. Much easier to deal with the system this way too. Not the cheapest method, but I'm a huge proponent of saving and getting what you want versus just making something work. Buy once, cry once, lol. Others may disagree and there are alot of ways to achieve the same results, especially with 3 gallon batches, but the above is my method. Cheers!

 

[GHBWNY]

Fill a carboy with ice as much as possible. Add in hot wort. It worked for me when I was doing 5 gallon batches. You could also fill the tub with ice and water to cool your brew.

I seriously don't think it's a good idea to dump boiling hot wort into an ice cold glass carboy... just sayin'.

Besides that, there is the sanitation factor with the ice itself. Where did it come from, was the water sterile, who handled it, etc.?

 

[BrunDog]

I seriously don't think it's a good idea to dump boiling hot wort into an ice cold glass carboy... just sayin'.



Besides that, there is the sanitation factor with the ice itself. Where did it come from, was the water sterile, who handled it, etc.?

All that, and what about watering down your wort? How would you dial in your OG?