Beer Forum

OK I have been reading on Jamil's sight about wort chillers. First off I'm better at cooking than working on things (unless it's a printing press). Water coming out of my house is about 63 F degrees and it takes me 40 mins at least to get my full wort boil to 72 F. I would guess about 15 to 20 mins to get it down to 100. I don't know the length of coil on my wort chiller but I believe it's too short. I took a couple pics here they are:

http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/BrewNoob/

I won't even say how much they charged me for it cause from what I read it costs to make tells me I got ripped off. I noticed the IPA I made was good but just seemed more hop flavour. It was a clone and it tasted like the original just not as flavoured. I'm guessing I'm losing alot of flavour waiting for the wort to chill out? I swirl the chiller in the wort to promote faster chilling but I still believe it's too slow. Will I get flavour if I add hops after it cools a bit, say 5 mins into the chill? can I just add more hops in the last 5 mins to counter the loss of volotiles while cooling? has anyone here made a copper wort chiller like I have in my pics and if so how hard is it to mold into shape and does it have to be food grade or is all copper tubing the same? I know, alot of questions. I just want the best hopping I can get though. Thanx in advance.

Gerard

do you use your chiller as it sits or do you stretch it out till the top of the coil is just below the surface of your wort with the base at the bottom of the kettle?

as it sits...that's why i stir with the chiller holding the incoming water side and i also pull it up and down so top to botomm and in a circle basically to keep the wort evenly chilling and promote cold break. I did ponder stretching the bottom portion to help most of it sit off the bottom but I figured if i just keep stirring with the chiller it would have a decent effect.

Gerard

You may want to look into a prechiller. Basically, just get (make) another chiller just like the one you have now. Set it in an ice bath. Then, run your water through the ice-bath chiller, then through your current chiller. If you can drop the water temperature down before entering the wort, it'll cool faster.

Actually, if you do this, you may want to use your current chiller as the prechiller and make a bigger one for your wort.

if you stretch it out a bit you'll expose more of the surface area to the wort to improve heat transfer, and if it's stretched out evenly you won't need to move it around to keep the cooling even. all the best, t.

yea that's some good ideas, might try to make my own though this time cut some costs...anyone know if I need food grade copper or if it's all the same? I heard you can clean copper tubing well with a vinager mix of some sort. Would this make it food grade?

Gerard

Man...I just called home depot and they have 50' coils of copper tubing for $74...this seems a bit steep...or am I just being cheap?

Gerard

oh yea and it's 3/8ths inch tubing.

Gerard