Got to 70F Quick and Cheap w/ an Emersion Chiller

cflury · Jul 31, 2015

Hello Everyone,

Thought I would share a technique I discovered yesterday while making a batch of IPA. I historically have had issues getting my wort down to proper pitching temperature using only my immersion chiller off my hose (usually takes 40+ minutes and I only get to 90F [Hey it's Georgia & Summer]) so I have been researching techniques to improve my times and ending temps. As I am currently a little low on hobby funds I was looking for a cheap or home made solution. Not quite finding anything out there that was < $40 in parts, I decided to take the idea of a two stage immersion chiller and implement with the one immersion chiller I already own.

My Solution: 2 Stage Immersion Chilling w/ 1 Immersion Chiller

Stage 1 (Start @ End of Boil): Run immersion chiller off hose as normal until wort temperature is around 130F - 140F (this took around 15 minutes).

Stage 2 (Start @ 130F - 140F): Hook mashtun ball valve to the water-in tube of the immersion chiller, fill the mashtun with 20Lbs of ice, elevate above kettle (I used a ladder) and slowly feed water into the mashtun with a hose while stiring wort.

Results: Using this method I was able to get my wort down to 75F in only 25 minutes! This was an awesome improvement over my previous times & temps for $2.99.

Notes: I did have to start the water flow for stage 2 by sucking on the water out tube of the immersion chiller (I was very careful of the fact that 140F water would be heading towards my mouth/face).

Let me know if any of you try this, have tried it in the past, and if you have any other super cheap suggestions for quickly cooling wort.

Cheers,
Chris

charliethebum · Jul 31, 2015

Nice. I might have to try this

m00ps · Jul 31, 2015

I would just stick with taking longer to cool, especially with IPAs. I hopstand all my IPAs for an hour or more and it really helped push that hop character over the top.

BTW its "immersion" sorry that was bugging me.

thekraken · Jul 31, 2015

I think a lot of folks do similar to this. I run ground water through my IC till the wort is around 100F, then I pump (recirculate) ice water through the IC using a cheapo harbor freight submersible pump.

Some people like to have second coil that is placed in an ice batch and their hose water is first run through that ice bath coil to pre-chill the incoming water to the IC.

Natdavis777 · Jul 31, 2015

Another thing you could try is using the ice in the MT with a fountain pump (cheap) hooked up to the chiller. I bet that would cut your time down a bit more without much overhead

corypedia · Aug 5, 2015

I've had great results using an immersion chiller and 3 2-liter bottles of frozen water (ice, lol) directly in the wort.

You do have to take some extra care to make sure you thoroughly clean the 2-liters and sanitize them, but i've done my last 3 batches like this and am able to cool 5 gallons of wort using a hose attached to my immersion chiller and 3 2-liter ice bottles in under 12 minutes.

NOTE: make sure to get off all the glue form the label and remove the plastic ring around the top that of the bottle just as a precautionary for cleaning/sanitizing.

hanuswalrus · Aug 5, 2015

I've had good success implementing the combo: ice bath / immersion chiller. Chill to about 100 with just tap water through the chiller, then fill the sink with cold tap water (cold as I can get it), set the kettle in the water (leave space for ice), start the chiller going again with tap water and slowly add ice to the bath. I can chill to 70 in 20 minutes this way.

brewfarmDan · Aug 8, 2015

I have a chiller off an electric drinking fountain (a liitle hard to find). I run tap water thru the chiller into the immersion coil, when the out temp hits 100F I plug in the chller for drop to 70.

sd_brewbie · Aug 8, 2015

I just have a fountain pump in a home depot bucket. Run my hose into the bucket and pump through my chiller. I let the hot out water flow to my hlt for cleaning later. Once I get around 100f I dump a bag of ice in the HD bucket and shortly after move the out water back to the bucket so I can turn my water off. Chills pretty quick this way.