Wort Chiller for 5 Gallon batches

I use a 3/8" X 25' IC for 5 gal batches, but my well water is nice and cold

 

The best thing I've ever done re: chilling is setup an ice chest with a submersible pump to recirculate ice cold water through the chiller. There's a little bit of work involved, but you can cool down a 5 gal. batch in no time!

 

Do you start with hose water and then after cooling for a certain amount switch to the ice water or do you start directly with the ice water?

 

Use tap water to get your temps down to at least 100. Then switch over to the ice water. 15 lbs of ice can get me below 50 F.

 

I use what was called 50' of 1/2 copper coil. But it isn't really half inch, it's more like 3/8. Long story short; I don't order from brew international anymore. It work well though, South East Texas tap water can get me to 100 fairly quick, and down to 80 a bit later. I recommend the Ecosmart pond pumps which are cheap on Amazon. I'll try to give a link later if I remember.

 

knowing what I know now, I would probably get a stainless chiller vs a copper chiller. Easier to clean.

 

I have a 25' and it can take an hour or more to chill wort. We brewed on a very hot day and the water was 70 degrees. Couldn't get the wort below 79 after over an hour.
Instead of getting a bigger one, though, I'd get a 2nd wort chiller or prechiller to run in line. Put some ice in a bucket, put it by the faucet and chill the water going into it. Probably cheaper and easier than the pond pump. But you would need a 3/8" to male garden hose fitting to attache the wort chiller to the prechiller. They make these, but you could probably get a used wort chiller on craigslist easy.
https://www.coldbreakbrewing.com/co...ort-chillers/products/12-5-copper-pre-chiller

 

Bigger is better, but you really want it to be totally submerged. If you're thinking about upgrading give some serious thought to a plate chiller, it cut my cooling time in half.

 

I have a 50' x 1/2" chiller. Even with a few turns on each end out of the liquid, it'll still get down to 60 - 65 degrees (F) in 20 minutes or less, depending on season. (I have it as a rib cage design, 2 opposing coils, interlocked.)
I don't mind having extra, if I decide to brew a 10 gallon batch it'll still work well.

 

I have a 50' x 3/8" chiller. When brewing on days with the temp in the mid-to-upper 90°F, I'd say it can take an hour to cool the wort to upper 70's°F. I only recently started paying more attention to the time it takes.

I do have a couple of coils that stick out. Doesn't bother me too much. And yes, I think the difference in chill time between a 25' and 50' would be significant.

I picked up a 25ft coil at a yard sale and use it as a pre-chiller and it seems to have cut my time in half.

I am using city water and not cooler well water.

To me, the pond pump is an appealing option. I have to constantly stir my pre-chiller and add ice/remove water. Again, I've been brewing in hot weather mostly.

 

Start with ice water and runoff the hot return until it's below 120*F. Once below 120*F I add more ice and recirculate. Should I be concerned about using ice water from the get-go?

 

Not if wasting ice is a concern for you. If you google the topic; you will see that people that start with ice water melt it incredibly fast. The water is greater than 200 F at first. Using tap water, it takes me 20-30 minutes to get down to 80. There is no way my ice would last long enough to get me to 80 if I used it from the start with the 200+ F water. And then I'd still have wort too hot to pitch. That's also why plate chillers, and counter flow chillers are out of the question for me as well. Unless I was recirculating the wort back into the pot in a whirl pool, then a plate chiller or counter-flow would be cool.

 

Gotcha! Haha. We learned this pretty quickly, which is why we'll runoff the return until it cools down quite a bit. Appreciate the heads up though.

 

I have a stainless chiller on spring water. I find swirling the wort chiller while it is chillin gets me to 80 in 15 minutes vs 20 25 minutes just leaving the chiller in the wort.

Stainless is easy to clean fer sure

 

No idea, I was asking you! I just bought a pond pump and am looking for tips.

Thanks!

 

Touché! Well, I've not come across any research (yet) indicating that cooling this quickly as I do is bad for the beer . I was ready for you to tell me that using ice water from the get go was ruining my beer!

Just to recap, here's the process w/ the cooler + pond pump + coil:

1) Add 10 lbs ice to cooler w/ ~8 gallons of water. Give it a couple minutes to chill water.
2) Detach return hose from cooler so hot runoff does not go back onto ice water.
3) Start pump/circulation and runoff hot water until temp drops to 120*F or below (you may have to add water during this part of the process)
4) Once temp is below 120*F, add another bag of ice and reconnect the return hose to the cooler and begin recirculating.
5) Add ice as needed. We've never had to use more than 3 bags for a 5 gallon batch, but I have the luxury of having a chest freezer nearby to store them.

 

Like mentioned plate is the way to go. I was staying out of the conversation as I thought pumps were off limits; I'm not trying to suggest an orange with a request for an apple. However, once conversation opened to pumps, thought I'd jump in. With my plate chiller, I can chill a 5 gallon batch from boil to upper 50s in way less than 5 mins (never truly hit a stop watch).

For the data lover, check this out:
http://www.dudadiesel.com/files/beerwortchart.pdf

Last, you can still make use of your immersion chiller as a pre-chiller. Just put it inline with the garden hose in an ice bath. Great for lagering, gets temps into the 40s for spot on pitch temps.

 

I've wanted to try a plate chiller for a while now, but from what I've read, the amount of time required to clean a plate chiller eliminates it's practicality. How do you clean your plate chiller and how long does that take?

 

You can't take a plate chiller apart, so the only way to clean them is to soak or circulate with a cleaner such as PBW or isopropyl alcohol. Very low effort. I recently switched to a plate chiller, and while it is much faster than an immersion chiller, it has its own limitations. For me, the biggest drawback is having to filter out all hop matter before chilling. Otherwise I don't think I'll be going back.