Wort chillers

[miteyjoe]

Hello all,

I didn't see any specific discussions about wort chillers and had a couple of questions before I invest in one. I mainly brew in my kitchen and do not have access to a garden hose type connection on my sink. When I cool my wort, I usually submerge the brew pot in an ice bath in the sink. My question here is: without access to a garden hose type connection on my sink, can I use a siphon to draw water from the ice bath through the wort chiller and circulate that way? It almost seems so easy that it may not work. I just hate the idea of wasting all that water in the sink.

Anyhow, your thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers!

-Joe

 

[TANSTAAFB]

You can buy an adapter for most sinks that goes from an aerator thread to a hose thread. The water coming out of the chiller is going to be very hot at first. You could collect some in buckets to clean but you will have to run the water for 10-20 minutes depending on the temp of your tap water and pitching temp. I usually do a ice (or snow!) bath to speed chilling with my immersion chiller.

 

[Marc77]

Hello all,

I didn't see any specific discussions about wort chillers and had a couple of questions before I invest in one. I mainly brew in my kitchen and do not have access to a garden hose type connection on my sink. When I cool my wort, I usually submerge the brew pot in an ice bath in the sink. My question here is: without access to a garden hose type connection on my sink, can I use a siphon to draw water from the ice bath through the wort chiller and circulate that way? It almost seems so easy that it may not work. I just hate the idea of wasting all that water in the sink.

Anyhow, your thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers!

-Joe

I don't know about you but I have to brew on a very limited budget. One thing you might consider is having your pot (I'm assuming 5 gallon batches) on the kitchen sink top with a batch of cold water on one side and empty on the other. Then use your racking cane to suck water into pipe which is attached to a immersion chiller or counter flow chiller with the hot water going into the empty side of the sink.

That way you can add more cold water and ice to one side and run the hot water off into the empty side. If you've only got one big sink I'm fresh out of ideas. When I was doing 5 gallon batches I did what you've been doing but in the bath tub. It always worked good for me. Bit of a PITA but hey, you do what you gotta do.

 

[miteyjoe]

It's only one big sink, but I was thinking that I can use the ice bath and racking cane and sort of create a closed-loop. My idea was to have the racking cane draw from the ice bath and empty back into the same sink. I would probably need to add ice to compensate for the warm water coming out of the chiller. I wasn't sure if anyone had tried something like that.

 

[mjohnson]

What about putting an immersion chiller in a bucket of ice water and run your wort through it. Kind of like a counterflow chiller but with icewater instead of a hose. Then, if you move and have access to a hose later, you'll be all set.

 

[miteyjoe]

Thanks, I like that idea. My only concern would be sanitizing the inside of those tubes. If I were to use it that way would stainless be a better choice that copper?

 

[TANSTAAFB]

The water coming out at first will be too hot to compensate with ice. Either replace your aerator with a hose adapter or siphon from a bucket of ice water. Some people have used a cheap pump to push water through an IC and once the temp gets low enough you could add ice and close the loop.

 

[TrickyDick]

You could buy a submersible pump with threaded fittings and adapt to connect your wort chiller pretty easily. These submersible pumps are sealed and UL listed for this purpose. You could do as you said and put into an ice bath in the sink to pump ice water through if you wanted.

TD

 

[mjohnson]

Thanks, I like that idea. My only concern would be sanitizing the inside of those tubes. If I were to use it that way would stainless be a better choice that copper?

It might be - although many people build copper counterflow chillers. If it were me, I'd probably use stainless since its about the same price as copper these days (unless you get a deal somewhere). You can use PBW or oxyclean between uses to clean it out - there isn't much that PBW won't clean out. With regards to copper, I think the only thing you should be aware of is verdigris. That is poisonous. The risk is likely low if you follow a decent cleaning regimen.

Someone will probably chime in about how copper will chill faster. They might be right. But I kinda doubt they'd be right enough to make a practical difference.

The pond pump is also a good idea. I do this when my tap water isn't cool enough. I got a harbor freight pump for about $17 bucks. I added some brass hose fittings to it and its pretty slick. That might be the way to go.

Edited to add:
To avoid getting slammed about my verdigris comment, I only wanted to mention it since cleaning copper was raised as an issue. To be balanced, here is some more reading from John Palmer:

For routine cleaning of copper and other metals, percarbonate-based cleaners like PBW are the best choice. For heavily oxidized conditions, acetic acid is very effective, especially when hot. Acetic acid is available in grocery stores as white distilled vinegar at a standard concentration of 5% acetic acid by volume.

Brewers who use immersion wort chillers are always surprised how bright and shiny the chiller is the first time it comes out of the wort. If the chiller wasn't bright and shiny when it went into the wort, guess where the grime and oxides ended up? Yep, in your beer. The oxides of copper are more readily dissolved by the mildly acidic wort than is the copper itself. By cleaning copper tubing with acetic acid once before the first use and rinsing with water immediately after each use, the copper will remain clean with no oxide or wort deposits that could harbor bacteria. Cleaning copper with vinegar should only occasionally be necessary.

You do not need to clean copper shiny-bright after every use. With time, the copper should take on a dull copper color, not black, not green or blue, just dull, like an old penny. This copper oxide is relatively inert to wort and will mimimize copper dissolving into the wort, more so than shiny-bright copper.

The best sanitizer for counterflow wort chillers is Star San. It is acidic and can be used to clean copper as well as sanitize. Sanitizing with Star San only takes minutes and should not be left in the chiller more than an hour, because it will start dissolving the copper.

Cleaning and sanitizing copper with bleach solutions is not recommended. The chlorine and hypochlorites in bleach cause oxidation and blackening of copper and brass. If the oxides come in contact with the mildly acidic wort, the oxides will quickly dissolve, possibly exposing yeast to unhealthy levels of copper during fermentation.
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