Wort Chillers

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:52 pm

I've been debating the CFC vs IC chiller battle. I had been using a 1/2" X 50' IC with the whirlpool method and had good results. I noticed that any hoppy beers did indeed tend to have better hop aroma with that method. I like the idea of cooling the entire batch as quickly as possible rather than leaving near boiling wort in the kettle during the time it takes to move it to the fermenters through a CFC.

Based on that, I'm really leaning towards an IC. Realizing that a 1/2" X 50' is not going to have anywhere near enough cooling power to take care of 20 gallons of wort, I'm thinking of making two 1/2" X 50' ICs. My idea is to make them concentric, with one a larger diameter coil than the other by a good few inches, then have a single inlet that splits to both with a tee fitting and a second tee at the outflow to re-converge the outputs. I haven't read it anywhere, but I would speculate that just having a 100' coil would render the last 30% or more useless as it would have collected all the heat it's going to at that point.

What do you all use and why? What do you think of this idea?

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:13 pm

I'm switching over to an IC for cooling after witnessing Brad cool wort to Lager Pitching temp but I'm going to keep my CFC for maintaining mash temps.

I think your dual 50' would work .. I might be tempted to have them run in different directions though ... one up from the bottom and one down from the top ... to distribute the cold water in two different locations in the boil pot. The good news is that you can pretty easily change flow direction by your connections!

Just my 0.02

Dan

BrewMasterBrad · Post by **BrewMasterBrad** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:19 pm

The IC with a whirlpool is the way to go. I like Dan's idea of having each of the coils having the cold water running in opposite directions. That should work nicely.

bwarbiany · Post by **bwarbiany** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:40 am

If you have an IC, having two coils is undoubtedly better than one long coil, and the whirlpool is most likely better than 2 coils. And 2 coils with a whirlpool would chill greatly.

Or, you could do what I do. I recirculate wort through the CFC (using hose water) to get the wort down to 100 deg F. You can then run the wort into the kettle and you'll be right at pitch temps (I often use ice water rather than hose water in the chiller at that point, since SoCal water isn't that cool).

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:16 am

Backyard Brewer wrote:I've been debating the CFC vs IC chiller battle. I had been using a 1/2" X 50' IC with the whirlpool method and had good results. I noticed that any hoppy beers did indeed tend to have better hop aroma with that method. I like the idea of cooling the entire batch as quickly as possible rather than leaving near boiling wort in the kettle during the time it takes to move it to the fermenters through a CFC.

Based on that, I'm really leaning towards an IC. Realizing that a 1/2" X 50' is not going to have anywhere near enough cooling power to take care of 20 gallons of wort, I'm thinking of making two 1/2" X 50' ICs. My idea is to make them concentric, with one a larger diameter coil than the other by a good few inches, then have a single inlet that splits to both with a tee fitting and a second tee at the outflow to re-converge the outputs. I haven't read it anywhere, but I would speculate that just having a 100' coil would render the last 30% or more useless as it would have collected all the heat it's going to at that point.

What do you all use and why? What do you think of this idea?

Like Brad mentioned, I would add a whirlpool to this if you plan on cooling 20g. My IC doesn't have a whirlpool so I manually dip the chiller up and down and side to side during the cool and it makes a huge difference in how quickly I can chill my wort. Trying to do that with 100' of copper would be a major chore or a great workout depending on how you look at it. It really is the best way to go that I've seen if using an IC. Oh, and +1 on Dan's idea.

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:13 am

I think Brad first pointed me to Jamil's site ... but look about halfway down the page at the pics on the left. Jamil uses the wort return to create the whirlpool so both the wort and the coolant need to be pumped. This is where I'm headed as I already have the pump in place.

See here.

Dan

BrewMasterBrad · Post by **BrewMasterBrad** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:49 am

I now use a sump pump to pump ice water through the IC after the tap water has taken the wort down to about 100F. This works great. I just hook up the IC to the garden hose to start the process and I fill my HLT and mashtun with the hot water exiting the IC so I can use it for cleaning. After the wort gets down to 100F, I switch the IC input to the pump that is submerged in ice water and I recirculate that while adding more ice as necessary. This saves water and is very efficient.

jward · Post by **jward** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:33 am

I would go with 2 separate coils like you described. I would have them both put the cold water to the bottom and have the heated water leave the top. If you run one coil in the top and out the bottom you may move the heat from the top of the kettle to the bottom and not just from bottom to top and out. What convinced me of this was someone pointing out that industrial equipment moves heat this way (bottom to top and out). I would expect a strong whirlpool would minimize this but not eliminate it.

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:45 pm

Here it is, I still need to clean it.

maltbarley · Post by **maltbarley** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:47 pm

Very cool! Now you just need to hook it up to your glycol bath.

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:56 pm

Looking forward to seeing how well that thing works.

Dan

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:17 pm

maltbarley wrote:Very cool! Now you just need to hook it up to your glycol bath.

It already is

I have a coil in my glycol bath that is attached to a straight-through/bypass pipe.

Ground water in --> tee to immersed coil --> bypass valve --> tee from coil --> chiller

My ground water goes into that and then to the IC. So, until I hit about 110*, I leave the bypass valve open and the water just runs straight through the thing to my chiller. Once Ihit ~110* I close the valve and the water is forced through the coil in the glycol and viola! I have near or below freezing water running through the IC.

The ice-bath & pump method saves a lot more water and probably works better, but I already have the glycol chiller, might as well make it work.

Post by **brahn** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:30 pm

That's quite a fancy chiller Derrin. It looks like working from home is going well.

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:48 pm

The funny thing is I'm also getting way more real work done too!

I just did a burn test on the new stand followed by a chill test. So, with about 24 gallons of water in the new B3 HD kettle and large NG burner on the new stand I was able to go from 71* to boiling in about 1:15. I definitely need heat shields, I blued the stand in a few places.

With the new chiller and without using a whirlpool pump, I was able to chill from 212* to 91* in 10 minutes. That's with 71* ground water and rolling the coil back and forth some.

I'll live with those numbers!

Other than heat shields and assembling my hoses I'm ready to make beer again! yeah!

Here's a photo of the system ready for the burn test:

brianc · Post by **brianc** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:22 pm

Looks great Derrin!

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