I have read many posts suggesting that a wort chiller will is a worthwhile investment. I plan on sticking with extract for a while so I am going pick one up. I am doing partial boils (2.5-3 gal) for 5 gallon batches. Any things to consider/advice? Stainless vs copper? Brands to get/avoid? Thanks!
Wort Chiller
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I have no experience with the stainless steel ones vs. copper, but what I can say is get one that will fit your kettle and go larger if it is in your budget. For example, you may be looking at a 25 foot chiller, I would maybe consider a 50 foot one instead. Or instead of 3/8inch diameter, go larger if possible. I think it is one of those investments that you will not regret. You may find sooner rather than later that you want to do full boils and this would be useful. Especially if you get a 50ft chiller.
I purchased mine from NorCal and love it! It's a 50ft 1/2inch copper chiller. Jay threw in a reducer on the output end to slow down the water flow and help cool the wort faster. Works great, built great and have been very happy with it. Good luck with your purchase.
I purchased mine from NorCal and love it! It's a 50ft 1/2inch copper chiller. Jay threw in a reducer on the output end to slow down the water flow and help cool the wort faster. Works great, built great and have been very happy with it. Good luck with your purchase.
cmpk24
Member
From what I have found after doing some research on this topic myself, stainless vs. copper is a matter of opinion/personal preference.
Stainless is visually prettier.
Performance between the two choices differs very slightly with copper being a little more more efficient in cooling but not by much.
I'd go with something bigger than what is needed 'now' and go for something big enough to expand your brewing if you decide to move up to bigger boils in the future.
I brew the same as you, extracts, 2.5 - 3 gallon boils for a 5 gallon batch. I still use an ice bath. If i were to go to bigger boils then I would look into getting a wort chiller, but I don't intend to get any bigger at the moment.
Stainless is visually prettier.
Performance between the two choices differs very slightly with copper being a little more more efficient in cooling but not by much.
I'd go with something bigger than what is needed 'now' and go for something big enough to expand your brewing if you decide to move up to bigger boils in the future.
I brew the same as you, extracts, 2.5 - 3 gallon boils for a 5 gallon batch. I still use an ice bath. If i were to go to bigger boils then I would look into getting a wort chiller, but I don't intend to get any bigger at the moment.
Thanks! Is the main advantage of going to full boils to be able to do BIAB?
Thanks! On my last batch I used all the ice in the house and was left waiting for longer than I'd have liked.
I've been delving into LODO (low dissolved oxygen) brewing. One tenet is to avoid copper in the mash (not relevant to you) and the boil (relevant).
I have a Jaded Hydra chiller, it's a monster. But it's copper. I wish I could get it in stainless. No Fenton reactions with stainless. These will cause your beer to stale sooner as it's stored than otherwise.
Stainless *is* a bit slower--doesn't transfer heat as well.
I have a Jaded Hydra chiller, it's a monster. But it's copper. I wish I could get it in stainless. No Fenton reactions with stainless. These will cause your beer to stale sooner as it's stored than otherwise.
Stainless *is* a bit slower--doesn't transfer heat as well.
cmpk24
Member
After filling up my sink with all available ice/ice packs and various other frozen items in my freezer, I begin to add ice cold water to the wort in order to bring my volume up and hit SG. By the time i'm done adding the ice cold water, the wort is usually an acceptable temp to transfer to the fermenter.
I was thinking of full boils with extract or partial mashing recipes/kits. I would do that in the past before I upgraded to BIAB. Also, depending on how large your kettle is, would dictate how large of a batch you could go with using BIAB. Also, it would depend on if you sparge or not.
Anyhow, I would go larger if possible and I think others would agree. Cheers!
Aaron Beers
Well-Known Member
>Any things to consider/advice?
There are 2 general types of wort chillers. With an immersion chiller, you chill the wort in the boil kettle. With a plate/counter flow chiller, you chill the wort as it flows to your fermenting vessel.
Three major advantages to an immersion chiller:
1. You can sanitize it by placing it in your boil kettle while it's still boiling. With a flow chiller you need to recirculate boiling wort through it before doing the chilling, and/or circulate sanitizer through the chiller before chilling.
2. You can leave the cold break behind in the kettle. With a flow chiller, the cold break forms inside the chiller on it's way to the fermenting vessel. This means you can't opt to leave it out of the fermenting vessel, and it also means some of the cold break will stick inside the flow chiller and need to be flushed out to avoid sanitation problems.
3. An immersion chiller can chill the entire volume of your boil in a shorter period of time, generally speaking. With a flow chiller, if you are siphoning off a gallon a minute, and you have 15 gallons to siphon off, the last of the wort will have been in the boil kettle, hot but not boiling, for about 15 minutes. With a small batch that is not really an issue though.
A disadvantage of an immersion chiller is that you'll generally want some agitation in the boil kettle so that the hot wort is moving around the cold chilling coil and hence chills more quickly. That means stirring on most smaller setups since you won't have a dedicated whirlpooling setup with pump.
For my setup, which will generate up to 25 gallons of finished wort after boil, I use 100' of immersion chilling, a whirlpool pump, and a cooler filled with water and ice to feed the chiller.
>Stainless vs copper?
Mostly a moot point. Copper conducts heat better than steel, but a more important matter about the rate of chilling is your water temp used to feed the chiller and the agitation of the wort around the chilling coil.
Regarding the other comment about "staling" beer due to reaction with copper, the material has a long history of use in brewing, and is still used by some breweries today. I wouldn't focus on the material choice so much, I'd generally prefer stainless steel but keep in mind it will be nominally more expensive than a copper alternative at today's prices.
There are 2 general types of wort chillers. With an immersion chiller, you chill the wort in the boil kettle. With a plate/counter flow chiller, you chill the wort as it flows to your fermenting vessel.
Three major advantages to an immersion chiller:
1. You can sanitize it by placing it in your boil kettle while it's still boiling. With a flow chiller you need to recirculate boiling wort through it before doing the chilling, and/or circulate sanitizer through the chiller before chilling.
2. You can leave the cold break behind in the kettle. With a flow chiller, the cold break forms inside the chiller on it's way to the fermenting vessel. This means you can't opt to leave it out of the fermenting vessel, and it also means some of the cold break will stick inside the flow chiller and need to be flushed out to avoid sanitation problems.
3. An immersion chiller can chill the entire volume of your boil in a shorter period of time, generally speaking. With a flow chiller, if you are siphoning off a gallon a minute, and you have 15 gallons to siphon off, the last of the wort will have been in the boil kettle, hot but not boiling, for about 15 minutes. With a small batch that is not really an issue though.
A disadvantage of an immersion chiller is that you'll generally want some agitation in the boil kettle so that the hot wort is moving around the cold chilling coil and hence chills more quickly. That means stirring on most smaller setups since you won't have a dedicated whirlpooling setup with pump.
For my setup, which will generate up to 25 gallons of finished wort after boil, I use 100' of immersion chilling, a whirlpool pump, and a cooler filled with water and ice to feed the chiller.
>Stainless vs copper?
Mostly a moot point. Copper conducts heat better than steel, but a more important matter about the rate of chilling is your water temp used to feed the chiller and the agitation of the wort around the chilling coil.
Regarding the other comment about "staling" beer due to reaction with copper, the material has a long history of use in brewing, and is still used by some breweries today. I wouldn't focus on the material choice so much, I'd generally prefer stainless steel but keep in mind it will be nominally more expensive than a copper alternative at today's prices.
With extract brewing, there's probably little reason to use a chiller unless you want to go to full boils. From what I've read, full boils are definitely an improvement. Assuming you want to go to full boils and that's the driver for the chiller, make sure you are ready to make the full investment.
Going from partial to full boils most likely implies that you have or are going to get:
1) A kettle big enough for a full boil. For 5 gallon batches, you'll probably start with 6-7 gallons, so an 8 gallon kettle would be minimum. I'd go bigger (and I did, I got a 10 gallon kettle). There may be reasons to go even bigger, the primary being that you want to eventually go to BIAB and want to brew high gravity beers.
2) You'll need a way to heat the larger mass. Full boils on your stove would be a challenge, though some gas stoves may be able to do it. I use a turkey fryer burner, but only because it came with a batch of brewing hardware I got used when I started. Buying new I'd get a bayou classic KAB4 (about $85 on Amazon).
3) A way to chill (the subject of this post). I started with a 25' homemade chiller that came with the batch of equipment I got. It was way better than nothing, but still took quite awhile to get the job done. I upgraded to a Hydra and it's incredible. Unless I was going to much larger batches, where an immersion chiller becomes less practical due to the volume of wort, I wouldn't use anything else. It's fast, efficient, easy to clean and is very low risk to harber nasties that would impact the quality of your beer.
If you plan to stick with partial boils, I wouldn't waste my time on a chiller. You can get there reasonably quickly by doing the following:
Chill you top up water to near freezing. I would put my gallons of top up water in the freezer when starting the brewing process. By the time the boil is done, it would have some ice crystals in it but not be frozen. Put the boiled wort in an cold water batch (don't waste ice initially, there's plenty of temperature differential just using cold tap water). After it's chilled some, add it to 1/2 of the expected top up volume that's already been put into the fermenter. Then top up with more of the pre-chilled top up water to reach the desired volume.
Finally, if still too warm, now do the ice water bath. You can add some rock salt to that to make the salt water batch even colder.
Going from partial to full boils most likely implies that you have or are going to get:
1) A kettle big enough for a full boil. For 5 gallon batches, you'll probably start with 6-7 gallons, so an 8 gallon kettle would be minimum. I'd go bigger (and I did, I got a 10 gallon kettle). There may be reasons to go even bigger, the primary being that you want to eventually go to BIAB and want to brew high gravity beers.
2) You'll need a way to heat the larger mass. Full boils on your stove would be a challenge, though some gas stoves may be able to do it. I use a turkey fryer burner, but only because it came with a batch of brewing hardware I got used when I started. Buying new I'd get a bayou classic KAB4 (about $85 on Amazon).
3) A way to chill (the subject of this post). I started with a 25' homemade chiller that came with the batch of equipment I got. It was way better than nothing, but still took quite awhile to get the job done. I upgraded to a Hydra and it's incredible. Unless I was going to much larger batches, where an immersion chiller becomes less practical due to the volume of wort, I wouldn't use anything else. It's fast, efficient, easy to clean and is very low risk to harber nasties that would impact the quality of your beer.
If you plan to stick with partial boils, I wouldn't waste my time on a chiller. You can get there reasonably quickly by doing the following:
Chill you top up water to near freezing. I would put my gallons of top up water in the freezer when starting the brewing process. By the time the boil is done, it would have some ice crystals in it but not be frozen. Put the boiled wort in an cold water batch (don't waste ice initially, there's plenty of temperature differential just using cold tap water). After it's chilled some, add it to 1/2 of the expected top up volume that's already been put into the fermenter. Then top up with more of the pre-chilled top up water to reach the desired volume.
Finally, if still too warm, now do the ice water bath. You can add some rock salt to that to make the salt water batch even colder.
If you're not concerned about copper and its long-term staling effects, you're not. If you drink the beer very fast, it may be a moot point.
But it shouldn't necessarily be more expensive. Here are Northern Brewer's wort chillers; the Stainless is the same price as the Copper: https://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/brewing-equipment/wort-chillers/immersion-chillers
Thanks to all for the advice! I have been so focused on the kit directions that I didn't think to add cold water to the wort in my brew kettle. I ferment in glass carboys and chilled to about 70 before transferring to avoid cracking. My set up is currently a 5 gal kettle. 1st brew I boiled 2.5 gal per IPA directions, cooled (about 25 min in ice bath with me stirring), funneled, added water to make 5 gallons, agitated to add oxygen and pitched. I didn't have a hydrometer yet so couldn't take any readings. It fermented nicely, but I may have racked into secondary before yeast was completely done. It's been in bottles for 1 week so far so I'm getting closer. I steeped per directions then added water to my boil to reach 3.5 gal for the 2nd batch (oatmeal stout), but due to increased volume my chill took almost 40 min. Then I whirlpooled and auto siphoned into my primary. I added water to get to the high end of the recommended OG before pitching yeast. Thinking higher OG would get me higher ABV.
JONNYROTTEN
Well-Known Member
Skip the secondary. You don't need it for most beers. Leave it in the primary the whole time.
All an immersion chiller is a coiled up piece of copper tubing you run water though. you could make your own if you wanted. Not sure if its any cheaper than just buying one though
All an immersion chiller is a coiled up piece of copper tubing you run water though. you could make your own if you wanted. Not sure if its any cheaper than just buying one though
I've made a couple of my own. It's not hard.
Renegade Brewer
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There are terrific responses above, and I applaud your advancement in this wonderful hobby.
When new brewers take my class I always recommend the first two upgrades any beginner make are a kettle large enough to accommodate a full wort boil and a wort chiller designed to accommodate his or her kettle.
I stress a full wort boil because you will reduce what we refer to in competitions as “extract twang.” This is a flavor created when concentrating your sugars at high heat and carmalizing the sugars in your extracts. When I judge a partial boil beer I can tell it’s an extract partial boil by the sweet cloying flavor left behind by carmalized sugars. On the other hand, I’ve judged beers that were extract full wort boil that I couldn’t tell were extract at all. The high quality of extract we as homebrewers have access to today is amazing!
The wort chiller is a much needed piece of gear because as we move to full wort boils the ice bath becomes impractical and impossible. Also we want to ensure we get the wort from 212 to 70 or lower as quickly as possible for sanitation reasons. We’ve created a wonderful Petery dish of yumminess that every microbe floating in your kitchen wants to infect. The quicker you can get that into your controlled environment with your inoculated yeast the more success you’ll have at creating a clean beer. We also want to drive off DMS. DMS will blow off with steam during the cool down resulting in less off flavors. Lastly as others have stated, we strive for that cold break. Cold break leaves behind the large proteins and helps in a cleaner clearer beer.
As far as stainless vs copper, I recommend copper because it is more efficient in transferring heat, but if stainless is what you have the coin for I’d rather see a new brewer use a stainless chiller rather than no chiller.
If you can’t swing the larger kettle and chiller at the moment perhaps consider doing 2-3 gallon batches until you can get the equipment needed for the larger batches. I would much rather see a new brewer improve and grow in the hobby on a small batch scale than see him create a sub-par product and end up with more mediocre beer when he could make great small batches.
The poster above who said to stop the secondary is absolutely correct. The only thing you are doing by racking your beer over to a secondary vessel is risking infection and oxidation. Only very rare circumstances call for a secondary: when we actually initiate a secondary fermentation by adding an additional yeast to perhaps spur a beer, add fruit to a beer, maybe extensive dry hopping, but I argue in favor of hop bags or an infuser, or extended aging upwards of 6+ months. Otherwise leave your beer be.
Welcome to a great hobby and don’t get overwhelmed with all the info; it’s just beer.
Please support your local homebrew shop whenever possible
When new brewers take my class I always recommend the first two upgrades any beginner make are a kettle large enough to accommodate a full wort boil and a wort chiller designed to accommodate his or her kettle.
I stress a full wort boil because you will reduce what we refer to in competitions as “extract twang.” This is a flavor created when concentrating your sugars at high heat and carmalizing the sugars in your extracts. When I judge a partial boil beer I can tell it’s an extract partial boil by the sweet cloying flavor left behind by carmalized sugars. On the other hand, I’ve judged beers that were extract full wort boil that I couldn’t tell were extract at all. The high quality of extract we as homebrewers have access to today is amazing!
The wort chiller is a much needed piece of gear because as we move to full wort boils the ice bath becomes impractical and impossible. Also we want to ensure we get the wort from 212 to 70 or lower as quickly as possible for sanitation reasons. We’ve created a wonderful Petery dish of yumminess that every microbe floating in your kitchen wants to infect. The quicker you can get that into your controlled environment with your inoculated yeast the more success you’ll have at creating a clean beer. We also want to drive off DMS. DMS will blow off with steam during the cool down resulting in less off flavors. Lastly as others have stated, we strive for that cold break. Cold break leaves behind the large proteins and helps in a cleaner clearer beer.
As far as stainless vs copper, I recommend copper because it is more efficient in transferring heat, but if stainless is what you have the coin for I’d rather see a new brewer use a stainless chiller rather than no chiller.
If you can’t swing the larger kettle and chiller at the moment perhaps consider doing 2-3 gallon batches until you can get the equipment needed for the larger batches. I would much rather see a new brewer improve and grow in the hobby on a small batch scale than see him create a sub-par product and end up with more mediocre beer when he could make great small batches.
The poster above who said to stop the secondary is absolutely correct. The only thing you are doing by racking your beer over to a secondary vessel is risking infection and oxidation. Only very rare circumstances call for a secondary: when we actually initiate a secondary fermentation by adding an additional yeast to perhaps spur a beer, add fruit to a beer, maybe extensive dry hopping, but I argue in favor of hop bags or an infuser, or extended aging upwards of 6+ months. Otherwise leave your beer be.
Welcome to a great hobby and don’t get overwhelmed with all the info; it’s just beer.
Please support your local homebrew shop whenever possible
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