Chilling wort without wort chiller.

[Moun10]

Any good tips or tricks out there for chilling wort faster without the aid of a wort chiller? It's on my "to purchase list" but I'm about 10 minutes from finishing up a boil. I'm planning on an ice water bath but I'd appreciate any help. Thanks a bunch!

 

[dantodd]

circle the water in the bath one direction around the pot and stir the wort in the pot the opposite direction.

 

[greg75]

Ice baths have worked great for me, and I have absolutely no need for a wort chiller at this time. I can always get my wort down to 70-75 degrees F within 20 minutes. In fact, the last two batches were colder than I wanted them to be when I topped off to 5 gallons. So, tomorrow, I'm going to chill down to 80 degrees, and I'm not going to chill the top off water as much.

Wort chillers become essential for all grain brewing, when the entire volume is boiled. But, for extract, I wouldn't bother. If you do plan on going all grain down the road, however, I guess it would be a pretty cool thing to have.

 

[Beer Weevel]

I do both extract and all grain and I would'nt brew without one. The ability to chill and pitch my yeast within 5 to 10 min max is priceless and a great time saver. Before I had a chiller I chilled in my wort in the kitchen sink what a mess I had water and ice and a big wet fermenter to deal with now it all stays outside. It's a great benifit!!!!

 

[JoeRags]

I just made my chiller yesterday. 20" of 3/8 copper tubing runs $37!!!!!! Its amazing how expensive copper is these days.

Anyways... I'm not yet at the all grain level, but I plan on doing a full boil extract brew today. I bought a 100 quart stainless pot... This has to be the largest pot I've ever seen.

Ice bath's work well for small boils.

 

[JoeRags]

I do both extract and all grain and I would'nt brew without one. The ability to chill and pitch my yeast within 5 to 10 min max is priceless and a great time saver. Before I had a chiller I chilled in my wort in the kitchen sink what a mess I had water and ice and a big wet fermenter to deal with now it all stays outside. It's a great benifit!!!!

What sort of chiller did you construct? How much wort do you chill in that 10 mins?

 

[Bobby_M]

Chilling a full boil to pitching temp in 5-10 minutes is probably only possible if your tap water is really cold. Otherwise, you'll need a prechiller or you'd have to use pumped ice water to do it that quickly.

 

[EvilTOJ]

We made homemade ice cream a few months ago and gave me an idea; In an ice bath, add mostly ice and a little water, then sprinkle salt over the top of the ice. It makes it colder and chills the wort faster. I'm not sure how much faster it is, but it turned the ice cubes into a solid block.

 

[greg75]

We made homemade ice cream a few months ago and gave me an idea; In an ice bath, add mostly ice and a little water, then sprinkle salt over the top of the ice. It makes it colder and chills the wort faster. I'm not sure how much faster it is, but it turned the ice cubes into a solid block.

That's exactly how I do my ice baths, also. It works great!

 

[desiderata]

Maybe a dumb comment, but I thought the salt helps to melt the ice. I'm thinking this because they sprinkle salt on the roads when they are snowy or icy.
???

 

[the_bird]

Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, so that the ice can make the water (which is in direct contact with the brewpot) less than 32 degrees. Honestly, I have a hard time seeing how salt would make a lot of difference, since the ice bath never really gets THAT cold. I had the best luck with ice baths by constantly draining them and adding new cold water, creating water flows and continuously keeping the water as cold as possible. One side of the sink would be for chilling, the other side was filled with ice, the faucet slowly was adding more cold water (and I was adding ice) while the sink was being siphoned into a spare carboy.

 

[bikebryan]

Maybe a dumb comment, but I thought the salt helps to melt the ice. I'm thinking this because they sprinkle salt on the roads when they are snowy or icy.
???

Actually, if they put salt on the road, they do it for two reasons:

1) It lowers the freezing point of water, meaning the water must be colder before it begins to freeze on the road surface.
2) It is rough, providing better traction for vehicle tires.

It's basically a moot point these days, since not many places dump salt on roads anymore. Most places now use a chemical mix that may contain some salt, but doesn't always. Now there are much better alternatives that aren't as corrosive to vehicles.

 

[Beer Weevel]

Chilling a full boil to pitching temp in 5-10 minutes is probably only possible if your tap water is really cold. Otherwise, you'll need a prechiller or you'd have to use pumped ice water to do it that quickly.[/QUOTE

Not exactly so, I can chill with my Therminator from 212F to 76F running only 68F water all day long.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm assuming the person I was replying to was using an immersion chiller so that's what I was referring to also.

 

[desiderata]

Actually, if they put salt on the road, they do it for two reasons:

1) It lowers the freezing point of water, meaning the water must be colder before it begins to freeze on the road surface.
2) It is rough, providing better traction for vehicle tires.

Okay, between this and the info from the Bird, it clears things up. I now understand the purpose of the salt. Man, never thought I'd learn something like that from a homebrewing forum.
Think the SWMBO will buy it when I tell her how homebrewing is so educational?

 

[MriswitH]

During our last batch, my brew partner (i.e: girlfriend) and I took and filled one half of the sink with an ice-water bath and set the kettle in there for a few minutes. Once that water started to heat up, we took our dish sprayer and filled up the other side of the sink and also sprayed around the outside of the kettle with the cold water. Once that side got warm, we went back to the other side. Rinse-and-repeat.

Worked quite well. I don't remember how long it took us to get our partial boil down to an acceptable level, but it didn't seem very long at all.

 

[ultraplop]

The method I used last time that worked pretty well and I didn't have to move the pot from to sink or anything like that:

I filled the sink with cold water and right before I put the pot in, i removed the sink drain cover put a dish towel over it and then put the pot on top of that. It starts to drain but with the pot on top of the dishtowel, it drains slowly enough so that i can constantly run water into the sink. This has the effect of cycling out the hot water and cycling in new cold water similar to a wort chiller. probably not quite as effective, but I would say it got 2 - 2.5 gallons down to 75 degrees in 10 to 15 minutes.

If you adjust the faucet to pour the right amount of water in, you can just let it sit and don't really have to mess with it until its done.

 

[Fiery Sword]

In my experience, the purchase of an immersion chiller was absolutely monumental in terms of speed and ease of processing wort. I've done all the icebaths, etc. and reall, really, think that a decent chiller has now become essential to my process. For years I talked myself out of spending $70 on a chiller because I though my process was fine. I think I actually made myself believe that wort chillers were a waste of money. But I tell ya, I was wrong!

Other things I decided I was wrong about (in terms of brewing, the list would be just too damn long otherwise!) :

"These extract can kits are just as good as those ones with all that damn grain."
"I bet this spoon is still sterile."
"Who needs a big boil kettle, I've got 5 smaller pots that'l get me the same capacity!"
"I can shake just as much oxygen into this damn wort as those fancy-schmancy oxegnation kits!"

 

[RoaringBrewer]

I chill my partial boils in a icebath in the sink. I can cool from boiling to 70-75 degrees in ~20 minutes. Just make sure you have plenty of ice. I usually use all the ice my icemaker can hold, as well as an 8lb. bag of ice.

EDIT: this is what I do now, I plan on buying an immersion chiller at some point in the near future. the tap water that comes out of my tap is quite chilly, so it should make chilling a 10min or less process.

 

[ayrton]

From now on, buy a few gallons of spring water at the store to use as your "topper" water. Stick them in the freezer the day before, and then cut them out when you're ready to use them. You'll have massive ice cubes that are ideal for cooling a ton of wort very quickly - I'm talking down to 70 degrees in under 10 minutes. I don't even use my wort chiller these days.

Sorry if someone else mentioned this already; I didn't read all of the other posts.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my brewing. That is, I'm a beginner who is gadget happy and built an immersion chiller but I'm sitting here doubting there is much of a benefit to full boils while still on all-extract. Of course, I got the idea of better hop utilization, but what's an extra ounce of hops, a buck? In fact, I think I've been over-bittering my last couple batches because the recipe was accounting for a 2.5 gallon boil and I did a full 6.5

The only thing that has me holding on to the full boil is that it's one less hurdle for me when i go all grain. Right? Because I do agree that using huge chunks of ice for makeup "water" is very quick. However, I used cool-whip and disposable gladware containers because the ice just pops out in the shape of a hockey puck with no cutting involved.

 

[Beermaker]

Dude I will sell you a stainless imersion coil chiller for $10 + shipping. I have pics of it in my gakkery.....check it out and let me know.

 

[lukabrazi]

From now on, buy a few gallons of spring water at the store to use as your "topper" water. Stick them in the freezer the day before, and then cut them out when you're ready to use them. You'll have massive ice cubes that are ideal for cooling a ton of wort very quickly - I'm talking down to 70 degrees in under 10 minutes. I don't even use my wort chiller these days.

Sorry if someone else mentioned this already; I didn't read all of the other posts.

This is what I just did on my first batch and it was so quick. Instantly down to 80 degrees. Is there anything wrong with this method?

 

[Revvy]

We made homemade ice cream a few months ago and gave me an idea; In an ice bath, add mostly ice and a little water, then sprinkle salt over the top of the ice. It makes it colder and chills the wort faster. I'm not sure how much faster it is, but it turned the ice cubes into a solid block.

That's how I used to do it before I

 

[ChshreCat]

That's how I used to do it before I

Someone got Revvy's address? I think he's had a stroke!

 

[Revvy]

Someone got Revvy's address? I think he's had a stroke!

My friken computer burped or something...I didn't even know it posted....

I meant to say that I used to use salt in my icebaths before I got my wort chiller, and the attachement to use it in my kitchen for small batches as well as larger batchs with my turkey fryer.

I could get a 3-4 gallon pot chilled in about 40 minutes with 2-3 ice water changes and stirring.

One thing to do is to leave your brewspoon in the kettle for the last 15 minuted of boil to keep it sterile, then when you move it to the sink leave the spoon in and stir it every few minutes.

 

[ChshreCat]

One thing to do is to leave your brewspoon in the kettle for the last 15 minuted of boil to keep it sterile, then when you move it to the sink leave the spoon in and stir it every few minutes.

That's exactly what I do. I always add my extract right at the end of the boil, so my spoon is in there through the last few minutes anyway. At flameout, I slide the kettle off the hot burner and leave the spoon in there until I'm done chilling.

When I have the kettle in the sink, I put the lid on it after the first or second water change with the spoon's handle sticking out. I don't have to take the lid off to stir it then. That way I'm circulating the wort in the kettle, but I'm keeping it covered and free of airborne contaminants.

 

[ultraplop]

My friken computer burped or something...I didn't even know it posted....

You must have spilled your homebrew on it. Don't worry too much, I would take it as a compliment

 

[togabear]

I can't remember where I read this, but guy sterilized old half gallon water jugs, added sterilized water, froze them, sterilized the outside again, and then dropped them into his brew kettle without cutting them open. He would wait till it thawed, removed it, and add another. He said he cycled them out of freezer like this until the wort was cooled. My BKis really thick walled so this would help a lot, but I would worry about infection.

I guess a wort chiller is similar, but its metal so easier to sterilize. Also stirring the wort also seems like a good way to add some nasties to your wort if your not careful. This is what I do too though.

 

[KYB]

Granted this is over 3 years old now... I've been doing all grain for almost a year and still do an ice bath (5gal post boil), haha. I have a few gallon jugs of water frozen that I put in the bath. I plan to get a wort chiller to brew 10gal though.