Immersion Chiller Usage

[brewyourown4life]

I just finished building my immersion chiller, 25 feet of 3/8 copper, had it in my brew pot of three gallons of boiling water and some distilled white vinegar to clean it, boiled it for 20 minutes then hooked it up to the sink faucet to see how fast it would cool the 3 gallons of water. this is when it hit me do i crank the cold water as fast as it will go or do i turn it on slowly to draw the heat out

 

[bigben]

Heh, that's the question for the ages when it comes to the IC.

The faster the water is running, the faster it wil cool the beer. However, you will use a lot more water than if you slowed it down and let the cooling water become totally heat saturated. But then it will take a bit longer....it's a balancing act.

 

[WBC]

I have 50 feet of 1/2 inch copper tube in my chiller and use a 15 gallon pot. I only need to run the water medium to pull the heat out in about 15 minutes. It helps to stir a bit too. Most of the heat gets pulled out in the first 8 minutes because the tap water is so much colder than the wort but it gets much slower as the wort cools a bit. The longer your copper is the faster you can run the water and the quicker it cools. It's a matter of thermal conductivity. The more surface area you have in contact with the wort the better it works.

 

[brewyourown4life]

thanks for the tips. brewed an irish stout today put in the IC cranked the cold water wide open and cooled three gallons from boiling to 66 in 12 minutes