Why boil the wort chiller?

[bondra76]

Awesome. Never boiling my chiller again.


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[Safa]

Amen


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[dogslapbrewery]

I soak my chiller in sanstar while brewing then put it in at flame out and no infections here! Also I used a shark bite coupling to extend my chiller extra 50 feet. Anyone have bad luck with shark bite couplings in the past??

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[RmikeVT]

I can't believe this thread is still going. At first I was like who cares, 15 mins or 0 mins. But now Im thinking well, putting it in at 15 and dealing with the rubber hoses and keeping them out of harms way and how clumsy thing seem to get after I put it in, I think I am going to wort chiller at flameout too.

 

[RichBrewer]

I can't believe this thread is still going. At first I was like who cares, 15 mins or 0 mins. But now Im thinking well, putting it in at 15 and dealing with the rubber hoses and keeping them out of harms way and how clumsy thing seem to get after I put it in, I think I am going to wort chiller at flameout too.

I have melted tubing more than once when it slipped from where I was securing it and having it fall into the flame or a hot portion of my burner.

 

[bondra76]

I have melted tubing more than once when it slipped from where I was securing it and having it fall into the flame or a hot portion of my burner.

yup. I just melted tubing the other night when I boiled the chiller. Putting a large piece of $50 cumbersome equipment into a pot of boiling water isn't exactly the safest of methods.

I'm not competing for Top Chef Masters or anything, but I used to cook in a restaurant during college and I was actually in charge of food safety:

- The highest temp of cooking meat to ensure food safety is 180 degrees for chicken/goose/duck. I'm in Denver with one of the lowest boiling points (202 degrees). Unless you're cooking on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, your wort is past 180. At flameout, I think you're fine to put it in at that point, so long as you're over 180.

- E Coli and most other bacteria cannot survive past 160. I've seen a lot of publications for starters that instruct you to dump in your malt once you've reached 170. Makes sense and they're erroring you on the safe side. So maybe 170 is the magic number and not 180....either way, at flameout you're over both of those numbers.

- The reason to cool down your wort fast is to avoid bacteria getting in. You want to make that jump from the 160/180 range to 75/70 as soon as possible. From 200+ to 180 (and maybe even as low as 160) you're not going to have any bacteria jump in and survive it.

 

[fearwig]

I think cold break (and convenience) is the real reason to cool your wort fast, whatever the LHBS guy might say about pitching ASAP so your yeast can outcompete bacteria. Yeast do that quite well even with a 24-hour delay. Before I set up my current super-unfancy thermoplastic tubing chiller I often cooled overnight, loosely covered, in a rubbermaid outside and made good beer (no infections ever doing that method, in fact). I really think direct contamination from particles or accidental hand contact specifically in a kitchen is the main source of contamination in homebrewing, but maybe that's just an article of faith.

Just the duration and temperatures of a mash, especially combined with mash-out (if you do that) pretty much assure your raw wort is already sanitary (though all kinds of stuff near it might not be, since raw grain is full of bacteria). Meat safety temperatures are guidelines for quick cooking, they don't really translate to the long-sustained temperatures of mashing and brewing. It's more like sous vide, without the hipster pants.

 

[nutty_gnome]

Something to think about - When you pop it in at flameout, your wort will instantly loose temp as the copper and whatever is in your chiller (air or water or both) heats up. Depending upon the physical volume of your chiller, you may have a severe temp drop and I don't know where you would end up. It could be that dropping your chiller in at flameout brings the wort instantly down to the perfect whirlpool-hop-addition temperature. That might be an interesting side-benefit to the technique. N_G

 

[broncosaurs]

I don't think anyone boils their fermenter for 10-15 minutes to sterilize it, do they? A good soak in Star San and most of the time there is no problem with contamination.

Why then does a clean copper coil need to be boiled for 15 minutes to sterilize it?

I think a quick spray/soak in Star San and toss the coil in in 212* water at flame out will kill most anything.

 

[Safa]

Sometimes it's like people dont even read before posting.... Haha

No need for the starsan.
Also, no, an IC will not drop your wort to pitching temps by just dropping it in at flameout. You may drop the wort a few degrees, but I doubt it would even take it to below 200 if the IC had been sitting in a freezer.


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[fearwig]

At this point I'm pretty sure there's someone out there who starsans their grain mill. And I'm equally sure there's a LHBS employee who advises it--as they try to sell you a tertiary fermenter, and a duplicate kettle and mash tun (for brett beers).

I cringe every time I hear one sell a kit and say, "Just give it one week in primary and two in secondary." Christ, sell them a hydrometer, not a second carboy! Yeast doesn't have a calendar.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Geez, why did I never think of this? From now on it's flame out, chiller in, pump on, wait 30+ seconds, then start chiller. Perfect time for the whirlpool hops too. It's always annoyed me to have to bring it back up to a boil. Just use the thermal mass of the cold chiller to bring it down those first couple of degrees...

 

[RichBrewer]

I don't think anyone boils their fermenter for 10-15 minutes to sterilize it, do they?

Actually, I have always put my chiller in 15 minutes prior to flameout to sanitize it. When I made my chiller, some 18 years ago, that was standard procedure. I always make sure it is clean before I put it into the wort. After reading this, I think I will toss it in at flame-out.

 

[cgunnyon]

Used a wort chiller finally. It was easy as hell to make and worked amazingly. Screw ice baths.

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[fearwig]

Used a wort chiller finally. It was easy as hell to make and worked amazingly. Screw ice baths.

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Yeah, ice baths don't do much more than wishing. My thermoplastic rig works well for the $13 I spent on it, gets me in range within 20-30 min. I say copper's conductivity is overstated as an asset, given its cost.

 

[CrystalShip]

Something to think about - When you pop it in at flameout, your wort will instantly loose temp as the copper and whatever is in your chiller (air or water or both) heats up. Depending upon the physical volume of your chiller, you may have a severe temp drop and I don't know where you would end up. It could be that dropping your chiller in at flameout brings the wort instantly down to the perfect whirlpool-hop-addition temperature. That might be an interesting side-benefit to the technique. N_G

I do it with about 5.5 gallons in the kettle and have a 50ft copper chiller. it maybe loses 4-6 degrees and that's being liberal

 

[CrystalShip]

I have melted tubing more than once when it slipped from where I was securing it and having it fall into the flame or a hot portion of my burner.

When I used to boil the chiller, I would just connect the lines after killing the heat

 

[Safa]

Yeah, ice baths don't do much more than wishing. My thermoplastic rig works well for the $13 I spent on it, gets me in range within 20-30 min. I say copper's conductivity is overstated as an asset, given its cost.

Agree about coppers initial cost. I spent about $55 for my 50ft of tubing.

However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.

I'm done in 6-10 minutes, which in my mind minimizes waste.


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[max384]

I really like this idea, but I do have one concern. If you drop it in at flameout, the parts of the chiller not submersed in the hot water will be very unlikely to reach pasteurization temperature. My IC forms a decent amount of condensation, and a few drips invariably make it into the wort during the cooling process. I'd guess the chance of infection due to this is pretty low, but it's still a possible source of infection.

For this reason, maybe it's a good idea to recommend soaking the IC in starsan, or at least spraying down the part that won't be submerged, prior to dropping it in, if done at flameout. It requires very little effort, and may prevent an infection.


Either way though, I'm glad this was brought up. I had never given this a second thought. The books I read said to do it this way, so I've always done it. I'll probably dip it in starsan and then drop it in at flameout from now on.

 

[bondra76]

However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.

I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.

 

[fearwig]

Agree about coppers initial cost. I spent about $55 for my 50ft of tubing.

However, something to consider (if you're a closet hippie like me) is that you are using 15-25 minutes worth of extra water that I presume gets wasted. Over the life of the chiller (hundreds of brews?) that's a HUGE amount of water.

I'm done in 6-10 minutes, which in my mind minimizes waste.


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I get you there, but I'm on well water and a septic system, so I think all I'm wasting is a few watt hours of pump electricity. And the water's nice and cold this time of year (when it isn't freezing up in my pipes). I suspect I'm using less this way than I would running a bathtub full of water, like I used to.

Copper is rigid, though, and my thermoplastic isn't, which sucks on a practical level, especially indoors. I'd take the copper if I could get it cheap, or use SS or something else if it were cheaply available and I could bend it correctly.

 

[CrystalShip]

I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.

Agreed. I like to collect my chiller water in buckets then use it for cleaning my kettle, the hot water loosens the protein goo from the top and bottom of the kettle and it wipes off with a paper towel.

The water collected that isn't as hot as the first bucket's worth is usually poured into the washing machine for laundry or used for watering my hops during the summer when its dry.

 

[CrystalShip]

I get you there, but I'm on well water and a septic system, so I think all I'm wasting is a few watt hours of pump electricity. And the water's nice and cold this time of year (when it isn't freezing up in my pipes). I suspect I'm using less this way than I would running a bathtub full of water, like I used to.

Copper is rigid, though, and my thermoplastic isn't, which sucks on a practical level, especially indoors. I'd take the copper if I could get it cheap, or use SS or something else if it were cheaply available and I could bend it correctly.

Wort chillers are tremendously easy to make. I bought 50ft of 3/8" copper tubing from lowes for like 58 bucks, then wrapped it around a corny keg as a guide.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I really like this idea, but I do have one concern. If you drop it in at flameout, the parts of the chiller not submersed in the hot water will be very unlikely to reach pasteurization temperature. My IC forms a decent amount of condensation, and a few drips invariably make it into the wort during the cooling process. I'd guess the chance of infection due to this is pretty low, but it's still a possible source of infection.

For this reason, maybe it's a good idea to recommend soaking the IC in starsan, or at least spraying down the part that won't be submerged, prior to dropping it in, if done at flameout. It requires very little effort, and may prevent an infection.


Either way though, I'm glad this was brought up. I had never given this a second thought. The books I read said to do it this way, so I've always done it. I'll probably dip it in starsan and then drop it in at flameout from now on.

I had reached the same conclusion about the exposed parts of the chiller. Instead of dunking, I'll use my spray bottle of starsan.

I like to use the other end of my wort chiller (dumped water) to fill a cooler full of all my fermentation equipment. Accomplishes both sanitizing the fermentation tools and cooling my wort at the same time.

I've been putting the "first runnings" out of my chiller into my plastic wash tubs for cleanup, then the less warmer water into my mash tun to clean it, then dumping off the rest.

Agreed. I like to collect my chiller water in buckets then use it for cleaning my kettle, the hot water loosens the protein goo from the top and bottom of the kettle and it wipes off with a paper towel.

The water collected that isn't as hot as the first bucket's worth is usually poured into the washing machine for laundry or used for watering my hops during the summer when its dry.

I've got some rain barrels that are empty most of the summer, I think I'll fill them with the cold chiller water.

 

[CrystalShip]

I had reached the same conclusion about the exposed parts of the chiller. Instead of dunking, I'll use my spray bottle of starsan.

...definitely wouldn't hurt. If anything, the acidity of the starsan may help keep the copper shiny

 

[fearwig]

Wort chillers are tremendously easy to make. I bought 50ft of 3/8" copper tubing from lowes for like 58 bucks, then wrapped it around a corny keg as a guide.

Nah, I meant it sucks that my plastic isn't rigid because I have to recoil it to get it in the pot, and copper holds shape. My only opposition to copper is cost, I'll probably upgrade someday but kegs, ingredients, etc. come first.

 

[kombat]

No, an IC will not drop your wort to pitching temps by just dropping it in at flameout.

Who said it would? Are you talking about this?

When you pop it in at flameout, your wort will instantly loose temp as the copper and whatever is in your chiller (air or water or both) heats up. It could be that dropping your chiller in at flameout brings the wort instantly down to the perfect whirlpool-hop-addition temperature.

Whirlpool temperature != yeast pitching temperature.

Sometimes it's like people dont even read before posting.... Haha

Yeah, don't you just hate that?

 

[Safa]

Who said it would? Are you talking about this?







Whirlpool temperature != yeast pitching temperature.







Yeah, don't you just hate that?

Whoops! My brain said pitching = yeast! My bad!


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[NickTheGreat]

Hmm. Never thought about this. But I've had a recipe or two calling for hops at 5 min. And that's a kinda PITA to do with the stupid chiller in there.

Might do this at flameout too. Would help cool ever so slightly, probably

 

[dstranger99]

I always add the chiller @ flameout. I spray it down with starsan and have it sitting in the sink before I drop it in anyway.....