About to destroy my immersion chiller...

Hi all,

I am constantly in awe of those who claim that they can get 5 gallons of wort from boiling to pitch temp in 15 minutes with an immersion chiller. I am using one right now (25 ft., copper, fitted with a whirlpool arm) rigged up to two pumps (one to recirculate the wort, one pumping chill water through the coil. It started as ice water and has risen to about 65 degrees). Wort is stuck at 74 degrees. It has been nearly an hour. Not sure what I can do about this now…what’s the magic trick to keep this part of the process more time-efficient?

More ice. I just put it in the fridge until it is ready to pitch

I suppose I can toss it in the fridge. Shouldn’t take more than an hour to get to 68, I suppose.

Don’t pitch until the beer is at pitching temp. It will be fine in the fridge without year for a few hours. For me it is often 12 or more before I pitch

I use a 50 ft., 3/8 in. immersion chiller, a pump to recirculate the wort (not the water) and 55F well water.  I can go from boiling to 60F in about 15 min.  So it’s situation dependent.

I have a 60 foot 1/2" RIC that I run my well water through. ~45º winter, ~55º summer. I can get down to about 10º above my chill water temp in about 15-20 min. It stalls there and ive never had tge patients to see how long it would take for the wort to match the coolant temp. This is exactly what you are experiencing,  so toss in another block of ice.

You’re wasting the ice, if you are using the ice in the initial part of the chilling.

Just use tap water to take the majority of the heat out of the kettle with the chiller. Switch to the chilled water recirculation when the wort gets down to about 20 or 30 degrees of your tap water temperature.

This way, the tap water can carry away most of the heat and you save the chilled water to take it down that extra bit that the tap water can’t.

+1

I would start with room temp water and get the wort down to around 100F, then switch to ice water to bring it down the rest of the way. Save the really cold water for the end when the temp difference will do the most good.

*2  Exactly what I was going to suggest.

Rock salt in the ice water might help. I have used it a couple of times, and science tells me it works, but I haven’t paid much attention.

It may buy you a bit but it would make your chiller water unable to be used in your landscape.  Plants don’t like too much salt.

Paul

My tap water temp changes with the season, so in the summer I can’t get below 90F without help.

I used to do a ice water recirc loop, but I would ALWAYS forget to buy it before brewday. $5/batch isn’t insignificant, and setting up the loop is just another PITA step in the process. So I quit doing it altogether.

Now I just get as much cooling as I can w/ tap water while I clean (100F or lower), and cool the rest of the way in my ferm. fridge. I oxygenate/pitch before bed or the next morning, giving plenty of time to make sure the temp is stable.

I carry over more trub since I don’t get a good cold break, so if clarity is important I’ll rack into another fermentor before pitching. Definitely worth doing anyway if you want to speed up clarification or harvest slurry.

In summary: RDWHAHB

I do the same to about 80F or lower. Kyle’s right, RDWHAHB.

A year or two ago I set up my system to chill the wort with a counter flow chiller and a whirlpool fitting into the kettle.  I tried to get the whole 10 gallon mass down to pitching temps, first with well water, then when I got down to about 100F with ice water.  This took forever and went through a lot of ice.  I was trying to leave all the cold break in the kettle.
Lately I recirculate through the chiller with well water and the whirlpool attachment down to 100F and then pump the wort through the ice water counter flow directly into the fermenters.  I gave up on leaving the cold break in the kettle.  I can regulate the flow to target temps for ales or lagers this way.
It still takes 40 to 60 minutes, but I’m in Florida.  My well water is 72F.

I go the same route as most noted above, but I get below 60 with my well water year round and only use ice in the winter when I can freeze 5 gallon buckets part way by leaving them out over night - free ice!  It saves me on water overall in the winter and avoids the ice cake on the drive with the closed loop system just adding new ice when needed.  This time of year the lagers go in the fermentation chest for a few hours then whip and pitch and go to bed - then wake up to bubbles in the morning, typically.  Ales don’t need or get the ice treatment - and I make most of my ales in the winter so I can dial in the heat wrap to keep them in the low 60’s in my 30-40F garage.  Saison is the exception, of course.  Summertime beer that one usually.

I’m still debating the best way to cool.  Once I put fermenters in fridge and once I immersed a fermenter in an ice bath.  The ice bath is faster but the temperature strip thingy on the side of the fermenter can get in the way.  Also thinking about freezing a jug of water, sanitizing the frozen jug and putting the jug into the kettle.

I still do that in the hot months - done it for a long time. It’s a really easy, low tech way to get those last few degrees F of cooling. You just need to stir steadily while the jug is in there to be able to measure a steady temp. Another tip - cool with your IC until it reaches its limit and remove it. Once it hits its cooling limit, it actually will slow down any further cooling by holding its steady temp. I’ve cooled to lager pitching temps (~48F) doing this.

I used frozen 2 liter pop bottles in a cooler hooked up to a submersible pump, sitting aside the first couple gallons of hot water and keeping it for later so it does not heat up the cooler water.  I have been able to cool the wort in 20 minutes.

+1 too.