Chiller preference question

[kh54s10]

Wow, that's dedication.
I have never and would never clean an immersion chiller anymore than a spray with a hose to remove crud.

More predicable results from hops.
Better cold break formation.
Less risk of contamination.
Less oxidation.

I don't normally do anything more than rinse it soon after removing from the wort (before the crud sticks on) I only do that when really gunky.

 

[kh54s10]

Sure you can. A pump

I challenge you to brush the inside of a counterflow chiller with a pump. I return to my observation of the insides of my ball valve. It was cleaned as well as I could without taking it apart for a number of brews. When I did brush it out.....

 

[kh54s10]

I started out with an immersion. Immersion inside the kettle, then immerse the kettle in the pool. Haha. It was REALLY quick, but there were risks involved.

Haven't posted this in a while - time for a little humility ...

I like it when you are standing there looking at the amount of beer in the carboy and the size of the starter!!!!

 

[Shwagger]

I challenge you to brush the inside of a counterflow chiller with a pump. I return to my observation of the insides of my ball valve. It was cleaned as well as I could without taking it apart for a number of brews. When I did brush it out.....

Dont look inside your water pipes in your town. They are cleaned without brushes, too. Scoured by forced water.

 

[RPh_Guy]

@RPh_Guy, I agree that if you just scroll to the bottom and look at the table, the numbers can be misleading. But that's why I wrote all the stuff above it. I attempted to compare a wide variety of cooling tools, which leaves me open to snipers from all sides because they can't 100% be compared in a simplistic table of time to chill. My comments:

1. You had a good suggestion that it would've been a good data point to add a recirculation pump to the simple coil and JaDeD immersion chillers. I didn't think of that combination.

2. I wanted the simple coil immersion chiller to be my baseline as that's what many people start with & use because it's cheap and simple. In that form, they do not use a pump because that's extra complication and extra cost.

3. The JaDeD IC is not cheap, so maybe that user is more likely to use a pump to recirc while chilling instead of doing the manual bobbing up & down. It is still a good comparison in my data between simple IC vs fancy IC since in both instances there is no pump (and yes, I did the same non-controlled, non-standardized up & down manual bobbing of the IC until I got my last data point).

4. I thought quite a bit how to compare the 2 different groupings of test objects here (those flowing through a chiller and ouputing chilled wort vs the IC that is chilling the whole volume of wort at one time in the kettle). As I wrote in the article, I chose the time to 5F above cooling water for both because that would be the point in time for both you could transfer to fermentor. In the case of the units with the pump, that means redirecting the output hose into the fermentor and letting it run. For the IC, depending on your set-up, that may be picking up the pot and pouring into fermentor, or opening a valve and letting gravity run it into fermentor. I wasn't about to make my experiment even more variable by trying to account for all of these different methods. But that's why I put the data in the table of my wort flow through the chiller so people could see the flow rates to understand.

5. Also, as I mentioned in the article, comparing individual results from one person to another is going to introduce a lot of variables: each person's ground water temperature, tap water pressure, hose flow restriction due to diameter/material/etc, volume of wort they are chilling.

You don't think total chill time is the best endpoint to report? Hmm ok then.

For those of us that want to leave cold break in the kettle, we need to chill the whole batch in the kettle.

I started out with an immersion. Immersion inside the kettle, then immerse the kettle in the pool. Haha. It was REALLY quick, but there were risks involved.

Haven't posted this in a while - time for a little humility ...

Love it! I think we've all had that "Hmm. What now?" moment.

I challenge you to brush the inside of a counterflow chiller with a pump. I return to my observation of the insides of my ball valve. It was cleaned as well as I could without taking it apart for a number of brews. When I did brush it out.....

Soak your IC in hot PBW with constant agitation and then an acid rinse and see how sparkling it is.

A CFC is not comparable to a ball valve because the valve has areas that are inaccessible to the cleanser if you don't properly cycle it while circulating.

 

[Blazinlow86]

It comes with a bore brush to really clean it out. Easy to slip the silicone off and do the job. I did have a full clog once during the boil - it sucked a massive amount of hops in there. The fix was easy / quick. While it's not as fast as the plate chiller, I never considered going back.

I wonder what the advantage of such a fast chill is. I used to chase quick chill times the way I chased efficiency. But now, I can't remember why.

View attachment 656173

I diyed myself one of those. I whirlpool chill back into my kettle. Quick chilling time is important if your doing late hopped stuff imho. Cheers

 

[micraftbeer]

You don't think total chill time is the best endpoint to report? Hmm ok then.

Wow, is that a snake wrapped around a goblet or a snark...

Maybe I didn't explain myself fully. My definition of "total chill time" is time from end of boil, to fermentor filled with chilled wort. Since people using an IC will have a variety of methods to transfer chilled wort from kettle to fermentor, I didn't want to complicate the data collection by trying to represent all the different possible transfer methods. For example:

1. I spend 15 minutes chilling from 200F to 70F with my basic IC, and then I ferment in my kettle. "Total Chill Time" = 15 minutes.

2. I spend 15 minutes chilling from 200F to 70F with my basic IC, and then I dump the whole kettle into a Brew Bucket that has a giant wide opening, which takes me 30 seconds. Total Chill Time 15.5 minutes.

3. I do the 15 minutes 200F to 70F, then I pour my wort a bit at a time through the funnel like swimming pool chiller guy, which takes me 2 minutes. Total Chill Time 17 minutes.

4. I do the 15 minutes 200F to 70F, then I use gravity to transfer from my kettle on a table to my fermentor on the ground, which takes me 1.5 minutes. Total Chill time 16.5 minutes.

So the times in the table represent the time it took me from end of boil, to the time I can start filling the fermentor. You can add on whatever time your particular transfer method is. To enable full comparison, I provided wort flow rate through the CFC and plate chillers so you could calculate it.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I wouldn't have made the readers make the calculations to figure out your total chill time, but whatever.

Why start at 200°F and not boiling temp? Are you at 6250ft elevation?

 

[passedpawn]

You don't think total chill time is the best endpoint to report? Hmm ok then.

If you're doing a side-by-side comparison, the important thing is the relative performance, not the absolute numbers. Of course, the absolute time is interesting too, but not relevant in the comparison. I did my review in a similar manner.

 

[RPh_Guy]

If you're doing a side-by-side comparison, the important thing is the relative performance, not the absolute numbers. Of course, the absolute time is interesting too, but not relevant in the comparison. I did my review in a similar manner.

What metric did you use to compare them side by side?

 

[passedpawn]

What metric did you use to compare them side by side?

Chilling Time (205° -> 100°). You should have a look: Chiller Showdown: Blichmann Therminator vs JaDeD Brewing Cyclone

See post #28 there for my rationale for those temperatures.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Chilling Time (205° -> 100°). You should have a look: Chiller Showdown: Blichmann Therminator vs JaDeD Brewing Cyclone

See post #28 there for my rationale for those temperatures.

I would have done it the same way, measuring the batch temperature. That way you can compare the ability of each chiller to lower a set amount of volume by a set amount of degrees.

 

[NewJersey]

I started IC, went to a plate chiller, and am going back to an IC.
It's just easier and I'm pretty sure that no matter how good you clean a plate chiller there's still gonna be stuff in there.
I already own two pumps and am gonna keep one of my keggles for the sole purpose of filling it with ice to the top and then water (I work at a bar and can get ice for free)
I'm gonna pump ice water through the IC and use the other pump to whirlpool the wort.
Just have to add water at the same/just a bit slower than I'm pumping out.
I cannot wait to see how fast this works. I would think I could at least keep up with a plate chiller using ground water to cool 6 gallons.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I started IC, went to a plate chiller, and am going back to an IC.
It's just easier and I'm pretty sure that no matter how good you clean a plate chiller there's still gonna be stuff in there.
I already own two pumps and am gonna keep one of my keggles for the sole purpose of filling it with ice to the top and then water (I work at a bar and can get ice for free)
I'm gonna pump ice water through the IC and use the other pump to whirlpool the wort.
Just have to add water at the same/just a bit slower than I'm pumping out.
I cannot wait to see how fast this works. I would think I could at least keep up with a plate chiller using ground water to cool 6 gallons.

It's generally recommended to use ground water to chill down to ~100°F and then switch to ice water, which you should circulate.
That should git r done pretty quick.

 

[Soulshine2]

Appreciate everyone’s responses. Interesting to note no one mentioned the concern of copper byproducts during the boil/clean. KISS method is probably my best bet.

what sort of copper byproducts are you referring to?

 

[Soulshine2]

I started out with an immersion. Immersion inside the kettle, then immerse the kettle in the pool. Haha. It was REALLY quick, but there were risks involved.

Haven't posted this in a while - time for a little humility ...

oh boy - Glass carboy , patio brick pavers , bare feet on the swimming pools edge, dog walking around ,overfilling the carboy ...BAAAAAD combination of ideas right there.

 

[Soulshine2]

A plate chiller clogs and holds debris waaaaaaaay more than a CFC.

The CFC is just running the wort through metal tubing. There's no place for things to get stuck.

On the other hand here's the inside of a plate chiller:
View attachment 656166
It's like a filter.

that right there, looks to me like a great way to grow an infection . ill keep using my Copper IC.

 

[passedpawn]

oh boy - Glass carboy , patio brick pavers , bare feet on the swimming pools edge, dog walking around ,overfilling the carboy ...BAAAAAD combination of ideas right there.

Yep, not proud of that. I did end up breaking that exact carboy in the pool, right on the steps. Thermal shock took her in her prime. Twas a sad night for all. The chilling method though... come on, that's some space-age immersion cooling right there. Here was the the next evolution of my journey to make the fastest chiller. This brought it down in only a couple of minutes.

 

[kh54s10]

Soak your IC in hot PBW with constant agitation and then an acid rinse and see how sparkling it is.

A CFC is not comparable to a ball valve because the valve has areas that are inaccessible to the cleanser if you don't properly cycle it while circulating.

How do you know the middle 3 feet in the counterflow chiller is sparkling clean?? Do you run an endoscope through it? And when I took the ball valve apart the gunk was not only in the inaccessible areas.....

 

[RPh_Guy]

Do you run an endoscope through it?

Yep, every time. It's hot side equipment -- it doesn't need to be sparkling. Just like your dirty valves didn't cause problems.

I know my cleaning regimen produces excellent results without scrubbing (including valves) so I feel confident there's nothing inside my chiller. With less thorough cleaning methods I could maybe see reason to be concerned.

 

[kh54s10]

Yep, every time. It's hot side equipment -- it doesn't need to be sparkling. Just like your dirty valves didn't cause problems.

I know my cleaning regimen produces excellent results without scrubbing (including valves) so I feel confident there's nothing inside my chiller. With less thorough cleaning methods I could maybe see reason to be concerned.

Didn't say it couldn't be done. I am sure I don't clean anywhere near where others would find acceptable in areas. I just prefer to be able to see that my chiller is clean. I will soon have a pump on my Unibrau that is in shipping. It will have to be cleaned in place. I am not going to take it apart every time to clean.

On a side note I did replace that grungy brass ball valve with a 3 piece stainless steel ball valve so I could occasionally take it apart for a thorough cleaning.