Short Wort Chiller?

[NarrowsBrewCo]

Hey Guys,

So I just got a 10 gallon brew kettle, along with a 25' immersion wort chiller as I'm starting to do some all grain BIAB recipes. I've never used a wort chiller before and I'm curious on one issue.

My kettle a 10 Gallon Tall Boy is actually too tall for the wort chiller. I was able to bend one of the outlet lines to it comes above the kettle, but the other end comes from the bottom so I can't really adjust that one.

Has anyone had this issue? Can I still use it, or should I return it and find a chiller with more height? I've heard of guys just hanging theirs on the edge of the kettle, I guess my concern there is if the wort chiller is that short, it may not get full contact with the wort.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[SirMontalbon]

Uncoil it and build a counterflow chiller.

 

[micraftbeer]

Just "stretch it" a bit. Those are made from soft copper tubing so it's easy to stretch the coils apart and give you more length. It's good to keep the attachment points up out of the kettle if at all possible to save you from unexpected fittings coming loose and filling your cooling wort full of hose water (happened to me once and it made me very sad).

The other thing to keep in mind is for your wort chiller to really work its fastest, you want to move it around in your cooling wort to increase the parts of your liquid volume getting in touch with the cold copper tubing. If you just let it sit with the coil in one spot and the beer not moving, you get localized areas of chilled wort next to the coil, and warm areas further away. So if you're going to be moving it around by hand, whether or not it reaches all the way from the bottom to the top of your boil kettle is less important.

This method of manually moving around the wort chiller was taught to me by the brewer at our local brewery. I was at first shocked, having been taught to be paranoid about contamination and something floating into my wort so I kept it lid on and covered any cracks with aluminum foil. But this dropped my wort cooling time from 30 minutes to around 15 minutes.

 

[gromitdj]

Hanging it from the side of the kettle is not a problem. Its actually what I do with my tall boy kettle. Since the hotter wort will rise to the upper level, you might actually want the chiller in that portion of the volume.

As far as uncoiling it and building a counterflow chiller, I don't believe that advice is practical. I prefer my immersion chiller, maybe you do too.

 

[NarrowsBrewCo]

Thanks for the advice guys. Yeah I'll stick with the immersion chiller for now and see how things go.