wort chiller

[WichitaBrewer]

Wow, that looks like a really effective way to make a lot of wort chillers fast! I Assume that the car is propped up and someone accelerates to wrap the coil!?
What I've done for chilling before is to use both a immersion chiller in my kettle, then racking from the kettle to the carboy through a counterflow chiller. You have to be careful though, because using the two together can do some serious chilling (I've had beer coming out the other end of the counterflow at about 45 degrees when I've used the two chillers together!

WichitaBrewer

[Thirsty Boy]

What do people think of immersing your coil in ice water and circulating the wort through the coil?

I do it that way and pinched the idea from colplink's pictures in the brewing sculptures thread.

It seems to work really well and you can nail your temps really closely, because you just stop circulating when its right. Also you can get a bit tricky with how you set up the hoses and get it to whirlpool itself.

Doesn't seem that too many people do it this way.... is there a reason that I should know about?

[WichitaBrewer]

I've heard of doing it that way before, and it sounds like a good idea (I can't do it that way since I have no wort pump). Do you have to keep replacing water/ice in the tub that you are immersing your tube in though as the wort flow warms the water? I do like the idea of just circulating until you get exactly to the temp that you're looking for though.

WichitaBrewer

[BrewNoob]

I found that the inside of the steamer basket from my turkey deep fry pot was exactly the size I wanted. Not as easy as wrapping on the outside but that would have made the coil too wide, so i managed to cram it along the inside walls. It's not pretty but WTH, as long as it works I'm happy.

Gerard

[BrewNoob]

I fianally tried out my new wort chillig system on the 4th. I have a 50' chiller and a 50' prechiller coil i put in a bucket with a bag of ice. Temp went from boiling to 71F in 18 minutes. I'm very pleased. Only thing that went wrong is i put the ice in too soon and some residual water in the coils froze and I had to shake it a bit to get the slush moved through. Next time I'll do the ice about 2 mins before boil is done.

Gerard

[WichitaBrewer]

Never used a prechiller before, but I tell you what, it took me much longer than 18 mins to chill my wort down that much on the 4th, so I'll have to give it a try!

WichitaBrewer

[SunkenBier]

Thirsty Boy I think people dont cycle the wort through the chiller because that will require cleaning and sanitizing the inside of the coil. It is harder to verify the inside is clean compared to the outside. The outside is much easier to render sanitary by just immersinging it during the boil

[Thirsty Boy]

Thirsty Boy I think people dont cycle the wort through the chiller because that will require cleaning and sanitizing the inside of the coil. It is harder to verify the inside is clean compared to the outside. The outside is much easier to render sanitary by just immersinging it during the boil

Sounds reasonable. I think the immersion chiller is the simplest and easiest option. If only I could use one... unfortunately I dont have access to a faucet or a drain where I brew

I dont worry so much about sanitation because the coil I use to cool is the same one that makes up the heart of my HERMS. So before its a chiller; its been soaking in 70 C + water for well over an hour, and I circulate the boiling wort through it for a while before I add the ice, just to make sure. That way the pump and everything is nice and bug free as well.

I can see why you might not want to do it if your coil was only being used as a chiller, although, a CFC would present the same set of issues wouldn't it?

I'm going to experiment with pulling the coil out of the HLT and dropping it into the kettle as an immersion chiller. I will still be using the pump to circulate ice water though it , but I will get to compare wort on the inside of the coil to wort on the outside of the coil. I suspect it will come down to a combo of effectiveness and whichever one gives me the biggest pain in the arse to use.

Thanks for the feedback