Cooling wort

[wolfie7873]

Here's what I've been doing that has worked pretty well. It really just seems to synthesize a lot of what's been said in various posts.

I have a copper coil immersion chiller. The first thing I did was distort the chiller so that it isn't cylindrical. It looks more like a spirograph drawing. Imagine a three-petal flower that repeats as you travel down the spiral. This way, a greater cross section of the wort is in contact with the coil.

Then, rather than run tap water through the chiller, which as has been stated can be practically futile in southern states in the summer, I put the kettle in an ice bath and run the water from the ice-bath itself through the chiller. I bought an inexpensive aquarium pump (I know it was less than $20, I think it was less than $10). The pump goes in to the ice bath and pumps icy water through the chiller. The tap water refills the ice bath as a "prechiller" like what was described by someone else.

10#-15# of ice and maybe 5 additional gallons of water cools 3 gallons of wort in about 15 minutes.

 

[Nosybear]

I can get wort chilled in 20 minutes using our tap water but then, as you mention, our tap water is considerably cooler here in Colorado. Good call on distorting the chiller, I'll implement that one as soon as possible!

 

[Krimbos]

Wolfie

Can you post a picture of your distorted chiller?

 

[wolfie7873]

Not the best pic of the chiller per se, but hopefully enough that you get the idea (I had this pic available), I can take another one if need be when I'm at home. But you can see the whole setup here.

 

[Krimbos]

So you just twisted a standard chiller to provide more exposure to the wort?

 

[wolfie7873]

So you just twisted a standard chiller to provide more exposure to the wort?

Precisely. It started out cylindrical, just like everyones, but then I just gently pulled it out of shape. If you do this yourself, just make sure the overall diameter still fits inside your kettle.

 

[Nosybear]

Plus, make sure you have room to move it around in the kettle.

 

[MrBIP]

Haven't followed the entire thread, but...
I've been using a standard (non-distorted) wort chiller. I did spread the space a bit between the coils, but certainly not distorted. Run tab water (well water). And constantly whirlpool manually with a big spoon against the flow of the chiller. 20 minutes every time.
I would be nervous that I'd end up kinking the copper trying to distort it like that.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I cool my quick extracts I call easy extracts the old fashion way, when adding the water to fill up to 6 gallons and stir for 15 minutes, then put the carboy in the deep freezer, the temp is generally around 120 at that point, let that set till the next morning bringing it down to 50ish. That drops the hops down to the bottom so I pull the beer off the top into another carboy then add the yeast, oxygen and add to the chamber, that warms up to 62 slow and seams to work great for extracts

 

[Nosybear]

Ozarks: Any problems with souring? I'd expect the process you described could allow acetobacter to get a toe hold. From everything I've read and experienced, the quicker you can get the wort chilled and saccaromyces scavenging up the oxygen, the better your final product.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

not a bit, Im guessing mostly because its sealed completely at that point and in a -30 degree freezer

 

[surfmase]

So you just twisted a standard chiller to provide more exposure to the wort?

Precisely. It started out cylindrical, just like everyones, but then I just gently pulled it out of shape. If you do this yourself, just make sure the overall diameter still fits inside your kettle.

Just a technicality here, but the surface area of your heat exchanger does not change by altering the shape of the coils. only by changing length or diameter of tubing can you change surface area. This is the important factor for heat transfer, that and conductivity.

edit: the coils must also be submersed in the wort to be affective. Just pointing out from the picture that roughly half appear to be in the air.

 

[Thurston Brewer]

I think the point of distorting the shape is not to increase the overal surface area but to distribute it more efficiently around the wort. With each coil positioned closely to the ones above and below it the most efficient transfer of heat is into the larger volume of wort to the outside and inside of the coil; heat transfer up and down are reduced because there's another coil there. Essentially, the coils are cooling each other rather than the wort to some extent because they're so close together. Also, unless you have enough turbulent flow within the kettle to keep wort actively flowing through the space between coils, you'll have thermal 'dead spots' where cooled wort collects, which further reduces efficiency.

As for the second comment, it looks like he took the picture with an empty kettle so we could see the coils.

 

[cabercrooner]

I use a converted extreme cooler for my mash tun. During the boil, I clean out the grain, fill it with water and hook my 120v pump and copper coil to it. I pre-freeze some large ice blocks beforehand and toss them in. Turn on the pump, sanitize my coil and toss it in. I add more ice as needed. Cools down 20 L batches fast. Last week, it was-35 C and I just picked up my kettle answer placed it outside in the snow bank. 5 minute Cool down!

 

[legropes]

Hi guys,

The water is way too hot where I live so I have been cubing my wort and let it cool overnight then I place it in the Fridge to finish it off. It saves water, does not spoil my beers and I don't waste time trying to cool it down with water that won't do the job. Anyway cubing works well as long as your container is 5 gallons or so and you can squeeze the air out before you tighten the lid.....Happy brewing!

 

[GFHomebrew]

I've,done a cube or two leg ropes I know you need to adjust your hops with this method but recently I've been trying First Wort Hops adding to mash just before mash out and I've found it does add some smooth bitterness so I'm sure this would work when cubing wort.