Immersion Chiller Configuration

I've found a prechiller does next to nothing for me. Go with the 50' chiller. You can make larger or smaller circumference rings in your chiller to accomodate your pot size; get some measuring tape and the putative vessel(s) you will use to shape the coils and see how the coil spacing is affected by the circumference of each ring.

 

I brew in Texas, and a pre-chiller is a necessity for me. The first few times I used a prechiller I did not see the benefit...until I started shaking it. If you shake it up and down in the ice bucket for the entire time you are chilling, you will have extremely cold water coming out of your pre-chiller. If you don't shake it, the ice water closest to the chiller will be warmer than the rest of the water in the bucket...

 

I have used every conceivable chiller configuration out there and currently an using and love an immersion chiller with a recirculating whirlpool running in the opposite direction of your chiller flow. If you have a pump and a valve on your BK I would do a 49 foot chiller with a 1 foot return in the opposing direction. Works like a champ....

 

I just rock a regular immersion chiller, then I put the pot in the sink with cold water on the outside. Works great. The second option may work, but it seems like it may be more work than its worth. You have enough length to make a nice, big chiller with a lot of surface area.

 

I made a pre-chiller with an old cooler and some regular tubing. Works great. I would do the 50 ft copper immersion and use the cooler/tubing as a pre-chiller

 

50ft chiller...if you need extra power, pickup a submersible pump from lowes, HD, etc. and sit it in a bucket of ice water and recirculate that through the chiller. This works best if you use tap water to get the wort down to around 100. This method will also allow you to chill to lager temps fairly quickly.

 

Can you elaborate on what's happening inside your BK? Is that a pickup tube resting on the bottom and the return above it coming through the elbow and into a compression fitting for the recirc/whirlpool? Which is the valve?

 

I would use the pre-chiller. Cut the copper into 2 25-foot lengths and put garden hose connections on all 4 ends (a male and a female for each chiller). The key is moving both wort chillers while you're cooling. Otherwise, as jheezee said, the water surrounding the coils will be higher than that in the rest of the vessel. I usually just move it up and down in the kettle/ice chest, and it takes me about 10 minutes to cool a 10-gallon batch down to the high-60's. Also, the agitation of the wort chiller will help aerate the wort.

 

The bottom is a pickup tube with a ball valve on the outside and the top is the whirlpool with an inline thermometer and ball valve. Basically I kick the cold water on for the IC then open the bottom ball valve and pump the wort from the pick up tube back through the whirlpool. I keep the whirlpool below the wort level so it isn't exposed to too much oxygen in the first few minutes when really hot. I am able to crash 12gal of wort from boiling to +/-65 in a little over ten minutes. The secondary benefit is the cold break and hop particles collecting in the middle of the kettle because of the whirlpool so less trub gets in the primary. Here is a mock up pick of the outside of the kettle:

 

I use two immersion chillers inline with the first submerged in ice. I cool my wort very quickly. Unsure of the length of the copper tubing.

 

I'm making my own immersion chiller this weekend. Just need to figure out which supplier is cheaper: mcmaster carr, home depot, or lowes.

As for the OP, I would go for the 50' chiller. It is a gamble on whether the prechiller would work, and even if it did, would it cool more efficiently then all 50' of surface area on the wort? I may be wrong, but I am not so sure.

 

Update: McMaster Carr is expensive. Very expensive.

 

If you have a Menards in your area, i've found that they tend to be the cheapest.