Still new, but wanted to share my thoughts on my first brew day with a chiller

[sixstring]

So up until today, every brew day has been a bit of a drawn out affair when trying to cool down the wort to pitching temp for the yeast. Not only that, but it also took up the sink. Today was different, today I used a copper immersion chiller for my 5 gallon batch (so the wort only had about 3 gallons at most, then I add the rest of the water once it's been put in the fermenting bucket). I didn't want to waste more water than I really needed, so I grabbed a 550gpm immersion pump and dumped that into a cooler with ice water in. Then pumped about 3 gallons through and into the sink first off, to get the really hot water away from the ice, and then started recirculating the ice water by just pumping the water back into the cooler. What used to be a 45-90 minute wait time is now 11 minutes. That is just enough time to clean up or unload and load the dishwasher. I was just blown away by how great it worked. I can now consider trying to brew some lager kits too, since I could easily bring the pitching temp down further with very little extra time. Where as before, I couldn't consider it as the ice water bath in the sink approach just barely got it to ale pitching temp. The tap water is pretty warm in Arizona.

Observations for any new brewers out there who aren't sure what to get or whether to get something or not.

1. Before you talk yourself into it, do plenty of reading and youtube viewing. There's a _lot_ of info on the subject of chillers out there. Be patient.
2. Chillers aren't cheap. They're also confusing. So before you part with your money, do your research. How big are your brew batches? How quickly do you like to clean up? How much money do you have to spend? I personally thought that I needed to go with a counterflow chiller (cfc) without considering anything else. All the youtube videos and reading I did, all pointed to this. I was getting ready to part with the $300ish for the Exchilerator, but then realized I needed a pump too, and probably some tubing, some barb connectors for the pump and the cfc. Suddenly I wasn't sure what pump I'd need, etc. More research time needed to make sure I got exactly what I needed. Then I thought about it for a while and realized that the CFC was probably overkill for my needs. I'm not brewing large 10+ gallon batches. I'm not in any great hurry, and would the CFC truly be worth the money for a small 3 gallon wort boil? I came to the conclusion that no, it wasn't needed. So i bought myself a copper immersion chiller for around $90 (Coldbreak 25'). The pump was about $16 and the 3/8" ID barb with 1/2" screw into the pump was about $2 (or go with the quick connect one which I also got, so i could see if it worked ($4)).
3. Even if your tap water runs cold, do yourself a favour and recirculate your water as much as you can. If you run it through a pump in a cooler filled with ice and water, then it cools your wort really fast.
4. Personally I'd avoid a plate chiller, simply due to the fact of cleaning it seems to be a major arse ache. Cleaning the immersion chiller was about as simple as you could get. I have no idea how easy the CFC's are to clean, but they look pretty simple, just flush with water through each inlet.

The good thing is I now feel like I've got pretty much all the gear I need to for brewing with. I haven't bothered trying to do all grain brews yet (may not bother, just seems like a lot of extra effort that I don't think my brewing will benefit from). I'm happy and equipment wise the cost has been pretty low.

Anyway, the TL;DR is:
If you're doing smaller batches and want to cool things down pretty quickly, then don't splash out on the CFC, but _do_ get an immersion chiller (I'd imagine a copper one is a bit more efficient than a steel one, but probably not by much), an immersion water pump (550gpm will work) and you'll find you have pitching temp wort in less than 15 minutes. Probably be much faster if you get the larger size immersion chiller. I just got a 25' one. Maybe I should've gotten the larger one but I don't think it was worth it, plus I couldn't sanitize it in the boiling wort as the top of the coiled pipe could've stuck out about the boiling liquid.

Looking forward to my next brew day now (which is next weekend, as I want to get some stocked and then bottle day I'll do another brew to keep things moving along in a nice cycle.
Hopefully this helps someone out that have found themselves sitting on the fence about it as I was.
Cheers.

 

[AlexKay]

For others thinking about trying this, it’s rather a lot of ice.

Assuming my 4 AM math is right, the heat transfer to cool a gallon of water by 18 F will melt a pound of ice.

With your description above, and assuming you pre-chilled (by sending the very hot water down the sink) to ~150 F, your 3-gallon batch probably needed about 15 pounds of ice to cool. Does that sound about right?

 

[An Ankoù]

Did you find a chiller to share with?

I guess if your mains water is warm then you're going to have difficulty getting down to pitching temperature. Here, the tap water is around 10C (30 degrees F) at this time of year, but it gets warmer in the summer. I suppose if I was brewing around 20C or lower in the summer, I'd be doing in an Inkbird controlled fridge. It seems to me I could just as easily use the fridge to bring my wort to temperature after the immersion chiller had done as much as it can.
Why? Access to ice water in any volume is not obvious here in the frozen wastelands of Brittany.
Love the avatar, by the way.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Every brewer is going to have a different situation to tackle cooling the wort. Water temp at the tap/source is the determining factor too. Small batch brewing definitely has an advantage to chilling down quicker.

A couple years ago I replaced my copper counter flow with a stainless steel plate chiller. The CFC worked fine but I wanted to upgrade to a more efficient chiller. I brew 10-15 gallon batches and the plate chiller works great. A pump is used, but it's a standard item on my system.

Cleaning isn't a concern, just need to flush it with hot cleaner/water after use then rinse and sanitize.

 

[sixstring]

For others thinking about trying this, it’s rather a lot of ice.

Assuming my 4 AM math is right, the heat transfer to cool a gallon of water by 18 F will melt a pound of ice.

With your description above, and assuming you pre-chilled (by sending the very hot water down the sink) to ~150 F, your 3-gallon batch probably needed about 15 pounds of ice to cool. Does that sound about right?

Yeah, i dumped 16lb bag in the cooler and that was all I needed. And if you buy it at costco, it's pretty cheap for ice. Plus I have some gel freezer packs that I've been saving up for this too. Forgot about those until just now But they would make sure I don't need anymore than 16lb

 

[sixstring]

Did you find a chiller to share with?

I guess if your mains water is warm then you're going to have difficulty getting down to pitching temperature. Here, the tap water is around 10C (30 degrees F) at this time of year, but it gets warmer in the summer. I suppose if I was brewing around 20C or lower in the summer, I'd be doing in an Inkbird controlled fridge. It seems to me I could just as easily use the fridge to bring my wort to temperature after the immersion chiller had done as much as it can.
Why? Access to ice water in any volume is not obvious here in the frozen wastelands of Brittany.
Love the avatar, by the way.

haha, for some reason my homebrew is always in demand. Everyone at work wants a bottle or two when i get some made and then everyone at home pretty much shares them, so I'd say yes, plenty of chillers to share with haha.
Yes, if I were still in England, tap water wouldn't of been a concern. But AZ has very warm water all year round.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Yeah, i dumped 16lb bag in the cooler and that was all I needed. And if you buy it at costco, it's pretty cheap for ice. Plus I have some gel freezer packs that I've been saving up for this too. Forgot about those until just now But they would make sure I don't need anymore than 16lb

The ice bath chilling makes sense for your situation. You're going to have a good investment in a fancy chiller, possibly a larger pump, hoses and fittings - I can attest to that. Lots of ice can be bought cheaper!

That melted ice water can be recycled in different ways around your home brewery or giving a drink to some thirsty plants.

 

[Jim R]

We have always have had a chest freezer at our house for our food. Before brew days I freeze up 3 gallon milk jugs filled with water for my ice and also collect a bag of ice cubes from the refrigerator. About halfway through my 1 hour boil, I throw all of my ice into a cooler with some water along with a cheap pond pump from the local home store that I use to circulate water through my immersion chiller. It works well and the whole thing was cheap. If the hose is handy, I will often run some tap water through it first for a few minutes to bring the wort temperature down a little first to make my ice last longer. I can usually chill to pitching temperature within 20 minutes maximum which is a good time to be cleaning up anyway.

 

[sixstring]

We have always have had a chest freezer at our house for our food. Before brew days I freeze up 3 gallon milk jugs filled with water for my ice and also collect a bag of ice cubes from the refrigerator. About halfway through my 1 hour boil, I throw all of my ice into a cooler with some water along with a cheap pond pump from the local home store that I use to circulate water through my immersion chiller. It works well and the whole thing was cheap. If the hose is handy, I will often run some tap water through it first for a few minutes to bring the wort temperature down a little first to make my ice last longer. I can usually chill to pitching temperature within 20 minutes maximum which is a good time to be cleaning up anyway.

Gallon jugs. What a grand idea. That'll save buying ice too. Thanks for that thought.

 

[refect]

Chillers certainly make things easier when it comes time to cool that wort down. I use the stainless immersion chiller that came with my foundry. It works well and is easy to clean, so I haven't changed to anything else. Although, I have been contemplating buying an exchilerator, or something similar. I'm not too big on plate chillers myself just because of the possibility of stuff getting stuck in them and making sure they are clean.

Circulating your wort, or stiring it when using an immersion chiller will certainly help cool it faster.

I'm in Florida, so my ground water is usually in the 70s. I use regular tap water to get my wort down to the 90s (Usually takes about 10 mins or so). Then I make an ice bath and use a pump to recirculate ice water through the chiller like you mentioned to get the wort down to the 70s. The ice water is pretty much melted by the time it reaches the 70s, so I just transfer to the FV and let the glycol chiller get it down the rest of the way.

Usually I have to empty the entire ice tray in my freezer to make my ice water big and cold enough to recirculate with, so I only get one shot at making one on brew day lol

 

[IslandLizard]

When chilling wort keep the difference in temperature between the wort and your chilling medium (regular tap, iced, or pre-chilled water) in mind. Often referred to as the "delta-T."

Use regular tap water to bring the wort temp down as low as you can. The workable limit is about 40-30F above your (domestic) tap water temperature. Then switch to chilled water (using ice, ice packs or pre-chilled water from your fridge or kegerator, or so.*

IOW, save your ice or iced water for when it counts the most: to chill your wort down the last 30-60°F to get it to pitching temps (55-65°F).
Sending iced water through your chiller when your wort is 200°F isn't going to have much more effect than using regular tap water, even if it's at 80°F.

* Also keep an eye on the temperature of the chiller's exit water, so you're not wasting "precious" (chilled) water.

With this method I can easily chill a 5 gallon batch down from boiling to 60-65°F with only 5 or 6 gallons of pre-chilled water (~32-35°F).

 

[Willy]

For over a year I used a simple 25' coiled copper chiller to cool down the wort. On hot summer days it would take a little more than "way too long!" Finally broke down and dropped the $200 on a Jaded Scylla( the skinny sister of the hydra made for AIO systems). It offer sever concentric copper coils and 50' of copper tubing.

Verdict? So amazing and wonderful. I dropped from 210°F to 109°F in about 4 minutes. Yowza! As is usual - it goes slower with a smaller temp differential and the final chill to 80°F took about 12-15 min.

Another big plus ... Provided as a tip from Jaded... Use a spoon to softly create a little movement in the water the chiller works more efficiently - this little trick was a big help too.

My only regret is the time lost using the previous chillers. Wish I got one sooner.

 

[Thorrak]

I’ve owned 2 Jaded chillers to date as I’ve swapped between systems, and hope to get a third here shortly as I’m discovering that I really don’t like using CFCs. Can confirm - they’re fantastic.

 

[Willy]

I’ve owned 2 Jaded chillers to date as I’ve swapped between systems, and hope to get a third here shortly as I’m discovering that I really don’t like using CFCs. Can confirm - they’re fantastic.

Me too. Got a Scylla for my Brewzilla and it is awesome. Dropped 100° F in less than 5 minutes. Whoa. Get the size that fits your kettle. Loving it.