I want to use a copper immersion chiller I have to recirculate wort. I have a 25’ chiller that I have only used for a prechiller. I was thinking of putting it a pot of water that the temp would be controlled by heating with a burner when needed. I have a march pump so I can run the wort from the mash tun through the chiller and back in the MT. this would allow me to maintain and/or raise the temp as needed. I tried doing the same just recirculating through the mash tun with the heat under the MT but it gets a little tricky trying not to get hot spots or roast the grain. My question, would the fact that it is copper effect the taste of the wort?
Copper is A-OK. Just make sure that the inside is clean of any green as it is toxic at high levels. Pumping acid based sanitizer should clear any up.
Steve is right on the money. I did this very thing for many years. Works great.
Copper is good. In fact, Belgian brewers will tell you that they specifically keep copper mash tuns in their brand new system (Bavik) to get the trace metals into the wort. You also see a lot of copper coolships…Not that different (in a way) from a copper chiller.
Steve, are there any cleaners you would recommend
PBW/Oxyclean followed by StarSan (or saniclean if you have a pump). Should do the trick. I know the outside of mine looks amazing after I soak it in StarSan.
I thought PBW was an alkaline cleaner and oxiclean a neutral cleaner
Both have sodium percarbonate as the active ingredient. PBW has other stuff in it that help with rinsing from what I have heard.
Everyone has already covered most of the important sanitation / safety issues so I’ll move on to other items:
You can have fairly wide temp swings doing this; the smaller the volume of water the faster the system is going to respond to the heat that you add. Play with it and if you really like it, consider putting the coil into a small insulated drink cooler and adding a small electric heat element with 120v power and control the whole thing via Chinese PID and you will have a pretty nice, electric controlled HERMS system. (Will hold heat and respond quick enough if you have a small volume of water.)
Adam