Cooling Methods in a Drought

It takes me 15 gal of tap water plus two or three half gal ice blocks to chill a 5-gal batch down to about 60 deg. It’s a fairly simple setup. A self priming transfer pump pumps the water from a round 20-gal. tub through the 25 ft immersion cooler into a 15-gal tub, which I use later to clean up.

Here’s the process. I chill the wort within 5 minutes from boiling to about 90 deg. This consumes roughly ⅔ to ¾ of my ice water. At this point I turn off the pump, remove the immersion chiller, replace the lid on the kettle, break up the ice in a separate pail, and place the kettle into the tub with the remaining cold water. I slowly add the crushed ice to the tub and let it sit for an hour or so, which brings the wort to about 60 to 65 deg.

There is one caveat to this process. The temperature drop will not be nearly as steep, and you will need much more water, if the immersion chiller just sits in the wort. You have to move it carefully -no splashing- but constantly to maximize the heat exchange.

 

Why the worry with splashing? You need to aerate anyway...

 

My main concern is enhanced oxydation of hop oils, mainly when late hop additions.

 

Check these videos out with Wil Wheaton. Can't remember if it is Part 1 or Part 2 but he briefly discusses chilling and recycling his chill water.