Chilling the Wort

[tommy24a]

I just got done making my first all grain 5gal batch. I have an immersion chiller that I used, I am in the North East and this time of year my tap water is VERY cold. It took almost 1.5 hours to bring the temp down to 80 degrees...that's a lot of water!. Any ideas on how to reduce this time? Plate chiller? Counter chiller? What do you guys/gals use? Thanks.

 

[Toggels]

That is a long time.... I run the tap water thru a pre-chiller (immersion chiller) in a 5 gallon bucket of ice water... this cuts the time down..
Also the immersion chiller needs to be the heavy duty type 50' copper type..
I use the smaller 25' one as the pre-chiller..

That said, I just bought a plate chiller... using the old immersion chiller as the pre-chiller now.

 

[Coupleathree]

Did you swirl your wort at all?

 

[allenH]

Stir, stir, stir. I live in Florida, in August, with 78 degree ground water, it takes 30 minutes to get to around 86 degrees. After that, I have to throw it into the ferm chamber (chest freezer) to get to pitch temps.

(Actually, I don't stir, I agitate the IC up and down)

 

[mvcorliss]

You want to keep the wort moving, you don't need to stir constantly. You also want to keep the tap water flowing very slowly through the chiller. Has something to do with hear transfer efficiency or some such geeky stuff.
That said, it was 20f here in MA today! I'm pretty sure if I left my wort sitting in the kettle for an hour and a half without a chiller it would have cooled to pitching temp! What exactly were you doing?

 

[day_trippr]

I keep seeing people recommend slowing the water flow to improve efficiency or speed or something. It's just not true. Period. End O' Story. Thermal transfer is higher with greater temperature differential, so the colder the water and the higher the volume flow rate the better. Always.

I'll almost guarantee that the OP just dunked his chiller in the kettle, turned on the water, then kicked back and waited. My well runs around 55°F this time of year and I used my IC last brew day (usually use a PC) and cooled a full 5.5 gallons from boiling to 66°F in 8 minutes by simply keeping the wort spinning the whole time.

It takes literally just two seconds of not stirring to feel the "out" water from the IC get hotter than if you keep the wort spinning. That should tell you all you need to know...

Cheers!

 

[BigFloyd]

I keep seeing people recommend slowing the water flow to improve efficiency or speed or something. It's just not true. Period. End O' Story. Thermal transfer is higher with greater temperature differential, so the colder the water and the higher the volume flow rate the better. Always.

I'll almost guarantee that the OP just dunked his chiller in the kettle, turned on the water, then kicked back and waited. My well runs around 55°F this time of year and I used my IC last brew day (usually use a PC) and cooled a full 5.5 gallons from boiling to 66°F in 8 minutes by simply keeping the wort spinning the whole time.

It takes literally just two seconds of not stirring to feel the "out" water from the IC get hotter than if you keep the wort spinning. That should tell you all you need to know...

Cheers!

This ^^^^^. Stirring the wort is key. Good water flow through the chiller helps a bunch too. Before I switched to a plate chiller (mounted to my E-BIAB cart), I had made a 1/2" ID copper chiller with garden hose connections. Water would flow through it very fast and it chilled extremely well.

 

[NTXBrauer]

I just got done making my first all grain 5gal batch. I have an immersion chiller that I used, I am in the North East and this time of year my tap water is VERY cold. It took almost 1.5 hours to bring the temp down to 80 degrees...that's a lot of water!. Any ideas on how to reduce this time? Plate chiller? Counter chiller? What do you guys/gals use? Thanks.

This is an abnormal long period of time to chill 5 gallons of wort to pitching temp. By swirling the chiller around in the wort you will definitely improve on the cool down time, but even if you do not move the chiller around it should not take 1.5 hrs. What is the size of chiller you are using? I chilled 6 gallons down to 75 degrees, in around15 mins, here in TX today, and my ground water is definitely not as cold as yours. I did swirl the chiller around, but only used around 70 gallons of water to chill the wort. (which was used to irrigate around the lawn and trees).

 

[eastoak]

I just got done making my first all grain 5gal batch. I have an immersion chiller that I used, I am in the North East and this time of year my tap water is VERY cold. It took almost 1.5 hours to bring the temp down to 80 degrees...that's a lot of water!. Any ideas on how to reduce this time? Plate chiller? Counter chiller? What do you guys/gals use? Thanks.

get a plate chiller, works great when you have really cold tap water.

 

[day_trippr]

get a plate chiller, works great when you have really cold tap water.

LOL! All decent chillers works great when you have really cold water.

If I had used my 30-long PC I'd have saved three minutes of cooling - and faced a half hour of cleaning. I use the PC when the water isn't so cold. That's when it'll still chill a batch in five minutes while my IC will take 15 or more...

Cheers!

 

[eastoak]

LOL! All decent chillers works great when you have really cold water.

If I had used my 30-long PC I'd have saved three minutes of cooling - and faced a half hour of cleaning. I use the PC when the water isn't so cold. That's when it'll still chill a batch in five minutes while my IC will take 15 or more...

Cheers!

a plate chiller is more efficient than an immersion chiller especially when the wort is not stirred using an immersion chiller. it sounds like the poster did not stir judging from the long time it took his wort to get down to 80 degrees. i guess if you run lots of hops through a plate chiller you could spend 30 minutes cleaning it but i don't think that is a given, i hope not or else i'm doing it wrong!

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

I have a 25 ft wort chiller made from 3/8 in copper tubing. It cools 3.5 gal in 7 min. Stirring makes a huge difference!

 

[tommy24a]

Well thats what I missed! I did not stir!.. being a noobee I did not know that. Thats why I joined these forums. Thanks you very much guys. I am sure I will have more questions!.. Thanks again!