Hi! I am wondering if my counterflow cooler is the culprit of some haze in my beers.The point is that even though it takes me 30-40 mins to cool and fill the fermentor after boiling,i can not get any lower wort temp. than 80F.So, i need to put the filled fermentor into the fridge to cool it down to 64F to be ready to pitch an ale yeast,this matter takes about 6 hours.I would like to hear your opinions TIA Tebuken
Can't say with any certainty that it is or is not your chiller, but a slow chill can result in a poor cold break, which can lead to haze issues. The question, then, is why would your counterflow chiller only get you to 80? Is your ground water that warm? What kind of flow are you getting through the thing?
My cooler is a copper coil of about 30 feet long,it is inside a plastic hose where tap(not cooled)water flows,something very common,maybe should it be a bit longer?
I don't think that's too short. Many you buy are 25 feet of 3/8" copper tubing. Perhaps you're flowing the wort through too quickly, although it doesn't sound like that's the issue either. How tightly does the rubber hose fit? Is there enough room to get tap water through at a decent pace? How hot is the tap water exiting the CF? If ti's not all that hot, you're not getting a good heat exchange. If your tap water isn't 80 degrees, you should be able to get your wort cooler than that, and much more quickly as well. Full Disclosure: I don't use one myself, still living in the dinosaur age of an immersion chiller, but I know a counterflow should be more efficient than it sounds as those yours is.
Wondering if you ran an IC before your counterflow as a pre-chiller would help. Run from tap to IC. Have the IC in a small bucket of ice water (salty if you really want to go whole hog) and then from the IC into the CF. I happen to be blessed with pretty cold tap water (went from flame out to pitching temp in about 15 minutes last weekend) but that's what I've seen others in hot weather do.
I start the whirlpool immediately after boil has ended for 10 mins,then i let it rest another 10 mins and then begin the drain to the CFC .Ihave never checked the temperature of the dispensed tap water dumped.
How is your CFC hooked up? To some people the proper way is counter intuitive. You want the water drainage (where the water is warmest) to be at the wort input from the kettle, and the cold input by the fermenter. If you have it flipped you will get warm water on the cooler wort, causing no heat exchange. 30-40 minutes is super long too. I use gravity on mine from a height of 5-6' and get 5 gallons in 15-20 max through 1/4" (IIRC) tubing.
I'm with him...... You always want the coldest water hitting the hottest wort......So the input of cold water will be near the output of your wort. I always run my water for a few minutes before I run my wort. Also try turning your valve down lower on your boil pot to slow the wort down and turn your cooling water on full blast. I use a meat thermometer stuck into my tubing on the wort output side so I now that the temp going into my fermentor is where I want it.
No you don't, that's why it's counterintuitive. Warm water at 110F can still cool 212F wort, but it cannot chill (it will actually warm) 90F wort. If your cold water is on the cold end, you will get heat transfer the whole way through.
The input of my cold water is near the output of the wort,that is how it should work, hot wort circulating in one way and cold water circulating in the opposite one,in my opinion ,is the way heat exchange occurs.Maybe if i close a bit more my drainage valve it would help but i start to worry about the time consumed could damage the wort.
Look at it this way... would it be consuming any more time than you currently spend waiting on it to chill in the fridge? I'd slow the wort flow to match the water flow, and check the water temp as it exits the chiller. Especially when you first start the wort, the water should be pretty damn hot. If it isn't, something is amiss, as you're not getting good heat exchange.
Yeah....looking at what I wrote I wrote that wrong. I knew what I meant I have the hot wort going into the top of the coil and the fresh water coming up from the bottom
Well as I said, I don't use one. However, I'd think that the water should be hot, based on heat transfer. If the water coming out is cool to the touch, then something is wrong.
Mine isn't cool, but it's tepid. I get cheap, cold water so I launch it through without a care in the world. There is a benefit to living in the province with 100,000 lakes I guess
tebuken, do you have any temp gauge on the wort output side of the cfc? If not, I'd recommend trying to get a read on wort as exits the cfc. I used to have a Blichmann thru-mometer for my cfc for this reason although there are plenty of DIY projects out there on to build your own on the cheap. Also not a bad idea to get a read on your tap water temp and also on your outgoing chiller water. Just as an example, let's say my tap water was 52F, I believe I could usually get outgoing chiller water at around 130-140F (collected for cleaning purposes) if chilling my wort to 64F from ~205F. That was on a 50ft cfc. The warmer the tap water, the warmer the outgoing chiller water will be because you need to increase chiller water flow to compensate.
