Immersion coolers, theory vs practice

[Airplanedoc]

I also just used a ice bath and cooled my wort down to 70F in roughly 20 Min.

I think the big problem when using a ice bath is that it is hard for most to get a large enough volume of cold water to bring down the temp in the pot. I used a pretty large sink filled with Water and 1 22lb bag of Ice. I would guess I had 2-3X the amount of cold water as I had hot Wort.

 

[Soma]

50' of 3/8" copper tubing cools my wort to 65F in about 15 mins. Groundwater is pretty cold in Canada, probably affects it a lot. Also, keep the coil moving constantly and you'll cut the time in half.

 

[h22lude]

50' of 3/8" copper tubing cools my wort to 65F in about 15 mins. Groundwater is pretty cold in Canada, probably affects it a lot. Also, keep the coil moving constantly and you'll cut the time in half.

That's what I found too. I did a full boil and used 50' of 3/8" piping to cool it using ground water. Cooled from boiling to pitchable in 15 minutes. I will never go back to an ice bath. If I want to chill it quicker, I will make a pre-chiller to keep in ice water so the water going through my IC is ice cold. That should chill it in less than 10 minutes.

 

[solbes]

Groundwater temps are critical to cooling time. Using my 25' of 1/2" copper was very fast when brewing in Feb and March of last spring, maybe 10 minues to pitching temps. It took quite a bit longer on my last 2 brews in September since our water is so much warmer. I would guess 20 minutes to 75 and then another 10 minutes to get the last 10 F. In the fall I need an ice water bath surrounding the boil kettle to get that last 10 degrees.

 

[WhiskeySam]

Chill to 100 using your standard IC setup. Then recirculate ice water to get to your desired temp. Requires a sump pump or a pond pump. Around 80 bucks for Home Depot's bargain sump pump. Not cheap, but the difference in time is astounding when you're recirculating ice water through your IC.

 

[BrentJ]

Ok, I'm from Houston and rarely can get my wort down to 70 with my IC and ground water. I typically stop at 80 degrees. I haven't had problems with the fermentation not starting. Typically I use liquid yeast but did use a dry on a Pumpkin Ale this weekend with no problems getting the fermentation started. Is dropping to 70 just a safeguard for the yeast or is there some other reason? I'd appreciate some education here. I've only extract brewed but am learning a ton from this site about all grain....

 

[TheSlash]

Ok, I'm from Houston and rarely can get my wort down to 70 with my IC and ground water. I typically stop at 80 degrees. I haven't had problems with the fermentation not starting. Typically I use liquid yeast but did use a dry on a Pumpkin Ale this weekend with no problems getting the fermentation started. Is dropping to 70 just a safeguard for the yeast or is there some other reason? I'd appreciate some education here. I've only extract brewed but am learning a ton from this site about all grain....

Well, the higher the temp the faster and easier fermentation is. It also produces less cleaner flavors with most yeasts the higher you go.

Mine I pitched at 70-73 area always started visible fermentation in mere hours. 3-5.

Once I started dropping the wort to 60 in the fridge and pitching, it started to take 12-24 hours. I see a lot of people pitch between 70 and 80, but they all seem to have a way to keep the wort temp down during the first big 3-5 day window.

remember if sanitation is good, you don't have to aerate and pitch your yeast right away. A lot of people let it sit a few hours, and some a few days!! I don't have the balls for that yet, but I have let the last 2 sit about 5-6 hours in the ferm chamber to cool.

 

[solbes]

As the yeast go through their reproduction phase after pitching, the temperature of their environment has a direct effect on the byproducts that are produced. I typically want to be in the lower side of the yeasts fermentation range for at least the first 36-48 hours. Less unwanted flavors for the yeast to clean up later.

You'll make beer either way, but try a batch where you take the time to cool to the low side. Can you submerge your boil kettle in a sink of ice water and keep adding ice? Circulate the ice water and provide some circulation within the kettle. Easier living up north I know, but then again we have to deal with 4-5 months of that white stuff.

 

[Brewham]

I use a 25 foot pre-chiller in a bucket in the sink. Once the ground water stops working I put ice water in the bucket to bring it down the rest of the way. Keep a high flow rate and *gently* stir the wort for best chilling.

 

[CidahMastah]

+1 stirring.

I have a 50' 1/2 '' immersion chiller and I stir mine here and there when chilling 11G of wort. It takes me 12 minutes to get to 75F 15 to get to ~65F.

 

[Burgs]

I use an aluminum kettle from Academy Sports. I place it in a galvanized garbage can and add enough water and ice to go up to the handles. I leave the lid on the kettle...sometimes I leave ice sitting on the lid. I add ice as necessary to replace what melts. I sometimes stir the ice around a bit, but I absolutely never disturb the kettle because I really like the cold break that I get when I don't stir the kettle at all--all the solid material forms clumps that are easy to avoid when siphoning. I don't even use a thermometer anymore, because I know from experience that the wort will be down to 20-23C in about 25 minutes, so I pull it out then and when I siphon it, I can tell it's cool enough because it feels cool through the siphon hose, and the stick-on thermometer of my fermenter says the temperature once the level of the wort gets up that far.

So basically you buy 60 lbs of ice per batch of beer? No thanks.

 

[BetterSense]

I doubt it's 60lb, but I don't buy it anyway. I get it from my fridge's icemaker and collect it in my chest freezer in plastic shopping bags. So it doesn't cost me anything other than whatever extra electricity is used to make it, and that is probably recovered because supposedly freezers are more efficient the more full they are.

 

[BrentJ]

Thanks for the info on temp impact to the early fermentation. I can rig up a prechiller or go the ice bath route. In the winter I can "float" the boil pot in the pool and that helps. I just sure why it was important. Now I do...