Immersion or counterflow chiller?

[rbhargan]

I have just gotten back into brewing after a long hiatus and have found myself trying to decide between immersion or counterflow chilling (I have both).

As I understand it, one of the reasons for chilling wort as quickly as possible is to maximize the cold break and precipitate out the maximum amount of proteins and tannins from the wort. However, you also want to minimize the amount of break material that finds its way into the fermenter.

It seems to me that an immersion chiller is the best way to do this. A counterflow chiller may chill the wort quicker, but it is also going to leave all of the cold break material in the fermenter.

I suppose that if you are using a conical fermenter, you can let the trub settle and the drain it off, but for small batch brewers using carboys, it would seem that an immersion chiller is the way to go.

Does this make sense, or am I missing something?

 

[Spartan1979]

The main reason I've stuck with an immersion chiller is that I don't want to have to worry about making sure the counterflow/plate chiller doesn't have all kinds of nasties in it.

 

[logdrum]

That's what I do. I sold my plate chiller when I went to smaller batches & now whirlpool w an immersion chiller.

 

[govner1]

Love my CFC. None of the problems frequently associated w/ plate chillers. Easy to clean before & after use & very consistent, rapid chilling. I whirlpool for 10-15 minutes after flameout then chill. This leaves most of the trub in a nice mound in the BK. Usually takes 15 minutes to chill 6 gal.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[rbhargan]

But, if the cold break produces more trub, doesn't a counterflow chiller just produce more sediment in the fermenter? This is the part that confuses me.

 

[ChuckO]

I pump through the CFC back into the boil during the final 15 minutes of the boil to sanitize the CFC. Then at flame out I continue to pump through the CFC and turn on the cooling water. By the time a good whirlpool is established the wort has been cooled to about 90 deg. I then let it settle before pumping through the CFC to the fermenter. Most of the trub has already settled in the BK by then.

 

[brew2enjoy]

Love my CFC. Gravity drained through it at first but now I use a pump. My immersion chiller has been collecting dust in my garage ever since.

 

[JoeHoffman]

The best method I've developed is to use two Emerson chillers. I collect ice from my fridge for a week before brew day end after sparging I fill my sparge tank with ice and water. Then one chiller goes in the ice bath jumper tube to the chiller in the wort and then out to drain. This works extremely fast with the rapid heat exchange from freezing water to hot wort and you can chose to do what you will concerning the trub. But I always dump it all in anyway and rack to secondary if the amount seems excessive or problematic for the firmentation schedule I have planned.

 

[BBBF]

The best method I've developed is to use two Emerson chillers. I collect ice from my fridge for a week before brew day end after sparging I fill my sparge tank with ice and water. Then one chiller goes in the ice bath jumper tube to the chiller in the wort and then out to drain. This works extremely fast with the rapid heat exchange from freezing water to hot wort and you can chose to do what you will concerning the trub. But I always dump it all in anyway and rack to secondary if the amount seems excessive or problematic for the firmentation schedule I have planned.

Ah yes... The frequently forgotten, Emerson chiller, invented by Edward Emerson in 1973.

 

[JoeHoffman]

If you are making fun of me for a spelling error keep looking there's probably plenty more, I have severe dyslexia which greatly affects my ability to spell correctly

 

[MindenMan]

BBBF, if you can't be nice, keep it to yourself, c'mon. The poster has had 12 posts, and a medical condition that doesn't have a pill to fix it. I wouldn't want someone new to write us all off as a**holes, and miss the vast amount of knowledge and experience given so freely here.

 

[rbhargan]

Joe - I was thinking of doing something similar to your suggestion. I will be using a 5 gallon plastic bucket into which I will place a frozen gallon milk jug filled with ice, then fill the bucket with water. I will wrap about 20' of 3/8" plastic tubing around the jug, in the bucket, connecting one end to my garden hose and the other to the immersion chiller in my brew kettle. Looking forward to doing a test and seeing how well that works.

I will also clean up my CFC and see how it compares to using the immersion chiller.

 

[RM-MN]

Some of us dump all the trub into the fermenter and leave it there. Those who have tried comparing both with trub and without say they can't tell a difference in the flavor. Some people chill their wort really quickly while some do a no chill where it takes hours to get to pitching temperature. Those who don't chill quickly somehow get clear, good tasting beer without worrying about the cold break. How much should you worry about what kind of chiller you should use?

 

[JoeHoffman]

Rbhargon, that sounds good but I would also use as much ice cubes as you can get. The greater surface area of the many cubes will get the water much cooler and keep it cooler during the exchange. The plastic should work but not as efficiently as copper in rapid heat exchange so you may have to flow at a slower rate which will in turn lengthen the cooling process. I agree with the previous poster that cold break dosnt seem to matter much I just don't like sitting around waiting for my wort to chill. In my experience the greatest factor in beer clarity is first yeast strain and secondly conditioning time.

 

[BBBF]

BBBF, if you can't be nice, keep it to yourself, c'mon. The poster has had 12 posts, and a medical condition that doesn't have a pill to fix it. I wouldn't want someone new to write us all off as a**holes, and miss the vast amount of knowledge and experience given so freely here.

Are you kidding me? First of all, the "spelling error" looked like a capitalized name, so it seemed more like an auto-correct issue than a spelling mistake to me and nothing in the rest of the post was spelled poorly. Second, it was totally a light hearted joke and I included the smilie of the two guys saying "cheers" to emphasize that it was not made with bad intent. Third, why throw the guy's dyslexia at me when that didn't come until after the fact. And finally, if my post is considered being an "@sshole," better quit the internet now because it gets much worse out there.

Joe - I meant no bad will. Welcome to the forum.

 

[LibertyBrewer]

The best method I've developed is to use two Emerson chillers. I collect ice from my fridge for a week before brew day end after sparging I fill my sparge tank with ice and water. Then one chiller goes in the ice bath jumper tube to the chiller in the wort and then out to drain. This works extremely fast with the rapid heat exchange from freezing water to hot wort and you can chose to do what you will concerning the trub. But I always dump it all in anyway and rack to secondary if the amount seems excessive or problematic for the firmentation schedule I have planned.

I considered using this method, but instead just pump the ice water through the immersion chiller after I cool the wort down to around 100F using tap water. I picked up a pump for around 10 bucks at Harbor Freight, and it will drop the temp down to around 65F, which is a great starting temp for a lager.

 

[JoeHoffman]

BBBF I know you weren't trying to be an a hole, trust me when you have a spelling problem like me you get pretty used to the critiques and you are probobly right about the auto correct the really funny thing is my brain wouldn't register that kind of thing any way. If you can understand what I'm trying to say then that's good enough for me

 

[Grossy]

If you are making fun of me for a spelling error keep looking there's probably plenty more, I have severe dyslexia which greatly affects my ability to spell correctly

Oh come on, I gave you pass on the spelling. But when I read the BBBF comic reply to it I could not stop laughing.

I think his post was just good fun.

 

[Grossy]

I have just gotten back into brewing after a long hiatus and have found myself trying to decide between immersion or counterflow chilling (I have both).

As I understand it, one of the reasons for chilling wort as quickly as possible is to maximize the cold break and precipitate out the maximum amount of proteins and tannins from the wort. However, you also want to minimize the amount of break material that finds its way into the fermenter.

A lot of people chill their wort in various ways and dump the whole contents right in to their fermentors.

The reason I learned for chilling the wort comes from John Palmer's book "How to Brew"

"There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it."

I have used both Immersion and CFC, and liked them both. I am now going to 20 gallon batches and am switching to a CFC. I sanitize the CFC by running the wort through the CFC for the last 15 of the boil. During chilling, I recirculate the cooled wort back into the boil kettle until the whole batch is down to 65 degrees. I can chill 20 gallons down below 140 degrees in 15 minutes. Below 140 the dimethyl sulfide is no longer being created.

 

[JoeHoffman]

Oh come on, I gave you pass on the spelling. But when I read the BBBF comic reply to it I could not stop laughing.

I think his post was just good fun.

Man, I had no idea this would get you all worked up so much. The guy took a friendly jab at me and I took as such. I guess I just wanted to let him know that while his quick wit may have been just that, it didn't impress me much. Like pointing out to a three legged dog that he only has three legs and chuckling about it.

 

[BBBF]

Man, I had no idea this would get you all worked up so much. The guy took a friendly jab at me and I took as such. I guess I just wanted to let him know that while his quick wit may have been just that, it didn't impress me much. Like pointing out to a three legged dog that he only has three legs and chuckling about it.

My brother actually has a 3 legged dog and I did ask him if he gets a discount on getting the dog's nails clipped. I also thought that was funny...

Sheesh... Tough crowd.

 

[LandoLincoln]

I have just gotten back into brewing after a long hiatus and have found myself trying to decide between immersion or counterflow chilling (I have both).

As I understand it, one of the reasons for chilling wort as quickly as possible is to maximize the cold break and precipitate out the maximum amount of proteins and tannins from the wort. However, you also want to minimize the amount of break material that finds its way into the fermenter.

It seems to me that an immersion chiller is the best way to do this. A counterflow chiller may chill the wort quicker, but it is also going to leave all of the cold break material in the fermenter.

I suppose that if you are using a conical fermenter, you can let the trub settle and the drain it off, but for small batch brewers using carboys, it would seem that an immersion chiller is the way to go.

Does this make sense, or am I missing something?

If you believe that you want to get as little trub into the fermentors as possible, then sure, go with the immersion chiller and you'll rest easier.

If you believe that it doesn't matter because all that gunk settles out anyway, then go with the counterflow chiller. Unless you're talking about a plate counterflow chiller, in which case you're going to have to worry about filtering the hot wort somehow if you use pellet hops, because those things tend to clog easily from hop trub. If you're talking about doing the old pipe-within-a-garden-hose counterflow chiller, then you don't have to worry about it.

If you're one of those guys that worries or would worry about the true cleanliness of the insides of a counterflow chiller, then you should use an immersion chiller.

Here's something that might change your mind about how important it is to get the trub out of your fermentors.

 

[Calypso]

My brother actually has a 3 legged dog and I did ask him if he gets a discount on getting the dog's nails clipped. I also thought that was funny...

Sheesh... Tough crowd.

I actually though you were serious and started searching for an Emerson chiller. Well played.

But then I found this: http://www.emersonclimate.com/europ...l/Food_Processing/Pages/Process_Chillers.aspx, and I figured you all were just way more hardcore than me.

 

[Setesh]

I know it has already been stated, but I prefer my immersion chiller cause I'm friggin lazy and don't want to fuss with the more thorough cleaning regimen plate chillers demand.

As far as trub goes, there is nothing saying you can't recirc your wort back into the kettle after running through your counterflow. After it is all chilled let it settle like normal then transfer. I like as much trub as possible to stay in the kettle so I can reuse the yeast. If you use buckets to ferment in you can always top crop though, which circumvents that problem nicely and give you much healthier yeast anyways.

 

[cabron99]

I pump through the CFC back into the boil during the final 15 minutes of the boil to sanitize the CFC. Then at flame out I continue to pump through the CFC and turn on the cooling water. By the time a good whirlpool is established the wort has been cooled to about 90 deg. I then let it settle before pumping through the CFC to the fermenter. Most of the trub has already settled in the BK by then.

What he said! Easy and I'll never go back. You can't make me go back. Only takes about 10 gal water, which I use to do my cleaning.

pao

 

[dyqik]

To the OP's dilemma:

Build an immersion chiller. It's easy, cheap, will do the job, and doesn't require a pump*. If you later decide you want to upgrade (or switch for those of you that don't like CFCs ) to a counterflow chiller, then the immersion chiller will probably still be useful as a prechiller to cool your groundwater in summer get better performance from the CFC.

Leaving break material and hops behind in the kettle isn't an issue for a CFC if you recirculate until the temperature in the kettle gets below about 120F, and either whirlpool or use a hop blocker/false bottom.

*although using a pump to whirlpool is much easier than stirring the wort to get the best out of the immersion chiller.

 

[neild5]

A lot of people chill their wort in various ways and dump the whole contents right in to their fermentors.

The reason I learned for chilling the wort comes from John Palmer's book "How to Brew"

"There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it."

....

The Cold Break when done quickly permanently preciptate out. If done in a CFC it will end up in the fermentor but since it will not dissolve it will fall to the bottom. There it will not do anything but take up space and act as a cushion for the yeast to land on.

 

[Nickeldeposit]

Counterflow no contest!

 

[typebrad]

Looking for opinions - my immersion chiller (they're garbage in my opinion) will get my wort to about 80°F with our summer tap water temps in west TN. I ice the inflow tube in the sink, but it doesn't help.

It takes patience, and sometimes I'm cursing at midnight while pitching my yeast, but I'll take it down to 80°, fill fermenter, then bung and place in my chest cooler (set at 65°) until I hit pitching temps. This can take hours.

How can I cool the extra 15 degrees in a timely manner? I'm scared of counterflow because of cleanliness.

Ice bath? Take it old school?

Is it doing anything bad to my wort if I let it cool slowly in my cooler? I've read the "natural chill" brewers just let it sit out for days until they hit pitch temp.

 

[mgohring]

I don't think you're running any risks with a slow cool. As long as you can keep your beer protected during the cool down you should be fine. I've entered a wort transformation contest where the brewery creates the wort and you pitch your own yeast. I'll bet 24 hours went by before I could pitch yeast into that beer. It turned out great. Actually took second place in the experimental category.

Are you stirring your wort as it's chilling? Immersion chillers are most efficient when the wort is constantly moving across the cold coils. I find I can get my hot wort to pitching temps in 15 minutes give or take depending on how vigorously I stir. You may be dealing with higher ground water temps than me though. I think I'm typically around 55 degrees out of the tap.

Regarding immersion vs counter flow, I've had both and prefer my immersion over the counter flow. I like that I can regulate the temp of the entire batch as opposed to just boiling hot and pitching temp. It's great for doing hop stands where you want to hold the wort at a specific desired temp. You can always modify the immersion chiller down the road to do whirlpools with the addition of a pump and bypass needing to manually stir the wort. And lastly, you can physically see/clean the surface that's coming in contact with the beer. That was the one of the biggest determining factors for me when I switched to the immersion chiller.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[typebrad]

I stir as much as possible with an immersion chiller and a thermometer bobbing around the kettle.

I guess I'll just have to wake up and get these batches started earlier for my gradual cool-down. Nothing like shaking a full carboy in the middle of the night to oxygenate after falling asleep on then couch before pitching. I've pulled muscles I didn't know I had.

Tons of fun!


/Will always still be figuring it out/

 

[Vaureywwc]

Personally I think you should avoid immersion chillers, I've always been worried about trace lead (granted you get the same thing from CFCs) Though there is no reason to not use one, you can get the Hydra which at a 58 degree ground water can cool your beer in 3 minutes. I prefer CFCs however they seem to be more convenient.

But that is simply just my opinion.

 

[black_belt]

Are you stirring your wort as it's chilling? Immersion chillers are most efficient when the wort is constantly moving across the cold coils. I find I can get my hot wort to pitching temps in 15 minutes give or take depending on how vigorously I stir.

Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I thought you want to avoid vigorous stirring while the wort is hot. Doesn't that add oxygen while the wort is susceptible to add off flavors?

 

[Calypso]

I thought you want to avoid vigorous stirring while the wort is hot. Doesn't that add oxygen while the wort is susceptible to add off flavors?

You don't have to stir that vigorously, and you mostly want to avoid splashing. I just gently stir inside the coil every couple of minutes, just to exchange what fluid is sitting against the coil.

 

[mgohring]

I don't worry about hot-side aeration and don't believe that it's a thing. I've heard arguments on both sides. If post-boil hot-side aeration was a real concern no one would ever whirlpool their wort. On the commercial side of things, I would think most breweries employ a whirlpool post-boil for clearing trub and in some cases, for extended whirlpool hopping.

In the case of using an immersion chiller, the beer temp falls really quickly during the first few minutes of chiling. If hot-side aeration does exist, it wouldn't happen for very long.

 

[typebrad]

Oxygen fine pre-pitch. Oxygen bad post-pitch. In fact, you want oxygen pre-pitch, hence the number of pulled muscles I've had shaking 6.5 carboys with 5.5 of wort!


/Will always still be figuring it out/

 

[black_belt]

^^^ Cheers to the above few posters for the information.

 

[stevedasleeve]

I truly don't believe troub in the fermenter amounts to anything. Over the last few years I've both filtered out as much as I can and just dumped everything - cold break + hop mud etc - and frankly noticed not a thing bad about the latter.

I thus use an immersion chiller which is stupid simple to clean, avoids the hassle of cleaning and sanitizing all the bits associated with counter flow or plate chillers, and cools adequately even in summer for me. If you go that route I'd suggest getting a big one - my 50' stainless one does well for 5 gallon batches winter and summer.

Cheers!
Steve da sleeve

 

[govner1]

Looking for opinions - my immersion chiller (they're garbage in my opinion) will get my wort to about 80°F with our summer tap water temps in west TN. I ice the inflow tube in the sink, but it doesn't help.

It takes patience, and sometimes I'm cursing at midnight while pitching my yeast, but I'll take it down to 80°, fill fermenter, then bung and place in my chest cooler (set at 65°) until I hit pitching temps. This can take hours.

How can I cool the extra 15 degrees in a timely manner? I'm scared of counterflow because of cleanliness.

Ice bath? Take it old school?

Is it doing anything bad to my wort if I let it cool slowly in my cooler? I've read the "natural chill" brewers just let it sit out for days until they hit pitch temp.

I prefer a CFC as they are much more efficient and easy to use & clean. As far as your cleanliness concerns, aren't you putting a huge copper coil in your wort when using your IC?
To clean a CFC effectively all you need do is let some StarSan sit inside for 5-10 minutes then rinse.
You could employ a method I use w/ my CFC (I'm in GA & it's hot here as well) to get faster chilling. I picked up a submersible pump on sale at HF. I put it in a bucket w/ a water and ice mixture. Pump it through your IC. You can even recirc it through the bucket, adding ice as needed.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Calypso]

I prefer a CFC as they are much more efficient and easy to use & clean. As far as your cleanliness concerns, aren't you putting a huge copper coil in your wort when using your IC?

Yes. But you're letting it sit in boiling wort for 10-15 minutes before flame-out. That will kill any baddies residing thereon.