Wort chiller

[drummerboyas157]

I just got my things for all grain brewing and will be mostly outside to brew. I was wondering how people hook up their wort chiller what kind of connections and where to? Also how many feet do you need for a 5gal batch to cool effectively my friend made one for me but i highly doubt its 50ft.

 

[zacster]

You'll be OK with a small chiller, but a larger one is even better. I do my brewing inside so I have a hose to sink adapter, although I could have just done a direct to sink connection since I made it all myself anyway. But when I do move outside I'll be ready with the direct hose connection.

 

[vlucchetti]

Small should be fine, I use the same chiller for my AG's as I did for my extracts. Only difference is one was inside, the other outside. Sink adapter for indoors, direct to hose outside.

 

[LuiInIdaho]

I have a chiller that has 60 Ft of half inch copper. That allows for a lot of water volume to go through the chiller, and also provides a lot of surface area. With my setup I can chill five gallons of beer down to pitching temps in about 5 minutes. Others will have different results using the same chiller because their water temp is different. However, reading the forums, if you can chill in 15 minutes or less, you are in great shape.

As far as connections to the chiller goes, I brew outside or in the garage. So I use a garden hose hooked up to the spigot to supply water to my chiller. I also bought several quick disconnects for garden hoses at Home Depot, and I put them on all the items that get attached to the garden hose (like a water filter). This allows me to very quickly attach any needed item to the garden hose, or quickly detach it when I need the hose somewhere else. I also bought a small ball valve that fits on the garden hose (I leave it there all the time) which allows me to turn off, turn on, or control the flow from the garden hose to the water filter, chiller, kettles for cleaning, etc. I find that this setup works great and saves me a lot of time.

Best of luck on the new chiller. Mark

 

[Phyrst]

I have challenges here in Texas where my ground water is 85 degrees and the ambient air is near 100 in the summer time. It doesn't help that I'm trying to cool 5.5 gallons with a 25' chiller. It takes me about 20 minutes to get the wort down to 100 degrees. Then I hook up a submersible pump that recirculates ice water from a cooler. In about 15 minutes from the time I hook up the pump I can have the wort down to 65 degrees.

 

[annoyingrob]

Up here in Canada, I use 25ft of 3/8" copper, and can cool 5 gallons from boiling to ~80f in about 10 or 15 minutes running my garden hose to it.

 

[brewmadness]

I found a fitting that sweats onto the copper pipe and has a female threaded deal on the other end for a garden hose. works great.

 

[MazdaMatt]

Here's some food for thought... the parameters of my chiller are irrelevent, I can cool a TRIPPLE the speed if I grab onto it and use it to stir the hot wort.

So... use whatever the hell you've got and instead of spending money on a bigger and better one, spend money on a method of rapidly flowing the wort across the coils. All other parameters barely matter compared to flow rate on BOTH sides of the copper (and of course ground water temps, left out for brutally obvious reasons).

 

[lobotion]

Can I connect the wort chiller to a garden hose?

 

[vlucchetti]

Can I connect the wort chiller to a garden hose?

If you have the correct attachments, sure. Just be sure to drain it into a good spot!

 

[drummerboyas157]

Thanks for the stir with chiller tip sounds good to me!

 

[vlucchetti]

Thanks for the stir with chiller tip sounds good to me!

It is a good one, found it out by accident about three brews back. So much easier to do when you brew outside and have room to move around.

 

[annoyingrob]

Can I connect the wort chiller to a garden hose?

What I do is buy some 3/8" clear vinyl tubing from Home Depot, slide it over my 3/8" copper hose, and zip-tie it down. Then, heat up the other end of the tubing with hot water so it's soft and flexible, and slide it over a 1/2" hose repair connector ( also available at home depot for a few bucks each). I can hook the garden hose up to one end and push cold water into the coil, then I hook another hose up to the outlet and let it drain into my alley.

You can also just buy fittings that can be soldered to the copper pipe, but I like having some "sacrificial" hose close to the chiller that can hang down. I would hate to melt a hole in the side of my good garden hose having it resting against my burner.

 

[Jakeintoledo]

I say take your bad self down to Lowe's or Home Depot and get yourself some of that flexible copper tubing. Find a dude and tell him what you're wanting to do--namely, say, "I have a hose connection (which is typical), want to hook two hoses up to either end of this copper tube."

I bought raw copper tubing and some fittings, wrapped the tubing (carefully) around a coffee can or something like that. it's pretty bad ass, and cost me MAYBE $20 total.

 

[zacster]

I made my own also, but it cost a lot more than $20. I used 50' of 1/2" tubing, but ultimately I think that was unnecessary. In any case it works pretty well with clamped on hose, and a garden hose fitting at one end. I should put another hose fitting on the other end so I can re-use the water for the garden.

 

[verbhertz]

My 50 foot refrigeration coil was over $50 alone. Forget if it was 3/8 or 1/2".

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

I have just acquired a heat exchanger from a combi boiler. It is stainless steel and copper plate sandwiches. When I have sorted the fittings, the unit will be submerged in a sink of cold water with the tap running AND cold water will flow in one direction through the unit and the hot wort in the opposite. With standard copper coils it is worth measuring the output temperature and adjusting the flow rate as for any piece of equipment there will be an optimal flow rate to hit a certain desired temperature eg 22 deg C.

 

[hoserbrau]

I like to collect the hot water that first comes out of my immersion chiller in my HLT. I then use that hot water for cleaning. Once the runoff gets cool, I'll run it into a tub where I'll stick my kettle. I'll usually dump some ice in the tub as well to help cool it down.

I've recently acquired a friend's immersion chiller, and I sunk that in a bucket of ice water. I ran my hose through his chiller (sitting on ice), then into my immersion chiller which was sitting in the kettle full of wort (which was in the tub of ice water). It was over 100 degrees that day and I got it down to about 75 degrees in 20 minutes. It wouldn't get any cooler than that though.

 

[RhinoDon81]

I attach my chiller to the spigot on the outside of my house, have about 5 feet of hose and a hose clamp holding it onto my chiller. I have about 5 feet clamped on the outlet of the chiller and I run that off into my yard.

My chilelr is about 30 feet of coiled stainless. I can chill down 5 gallons in 15 minutes with ease. works great and keeps my kitchen clean!

 

[lobotion]

I attach my chiller to the spigot on the outside of my house, have about 5 feet of hose and a hose clamp holding it onto my chiller. I have about 5 feet clamped on the outlet of the chiller and I run that off into my yard.

My chilelr is about 30 feet of coiled stainless. I can chill down 5 gallons in 15 minutes with ease. works great and keeps my kitchen clean!

Yeah thats what I want to do but it in my yard it gets really hot cooking to.

 

[drummerboyas157]

OK so i just used my chiller... It made me very sad. It is taking forever to get from 120 to 80 ive dropped from 120 to 110 in the last 20 min... its 3/8ths and is about a foot in diameter with 7 coils laying on top of eachother about. why is it taking so long? I know its not 1/2 and 50 feet but still if it takes me over an hour to chill my wort with this i cant imagine it makes that big off a difference with 1/2 except water that doesnt pick up the heat. the water going out feels cool.

 

[drummerboyas157]

well i think my thermometer was broken

 

[phoenixs4r]

Stir. Also, the home depot near me has these cool full flow quick disconnects I picked up. A compression fitting and the quick disconnect makes it much easier to connect the chiller after a long brew day of drinking and forgetting to attach the hose before killing the flame.