Counterflow chillers. How long do you leave it after the boil?

[Agentgonzo]

After many many years using an inversion chiller, I moved to a CFC with the grainfather purchase a couple of years ago.

For those who use CFCs, how long do you wait after the end of the boil before transferring/cooling your wort (when not deliberately doing a hop stand)?

I used to chill immediately, but at this point there is still a bunch of hot break floating around due to residual convection currents that won't get filtered out during the transfer. How long do you leave it to settle (if at all) before transferring?

 

[gyurmaember]

Roughly 15-20 mins.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Roughly 15-20 mins.

Do you cool at all for a bit, or just leave it at 100°?

I'm wondering whether a quick chill to 80 will help kill some of the connection currents

 

[gyurmaember]

Just leave it, till the whirlpool slows down, amd the solids settle in the middle.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I know this is a bit of an old thread but I do think it’s a very interesting question. Did you reach a conclusion @Agentgonzo ?
Personally I‘ve tried a few different ways but it doesn't seem to matter *that* much.
One thing for sure is that a sudden rapid chill drops out more cold break - literally going from clear wort in the kettle straight after the boil to something that looks like egg soup, in a single pass through the CFC.
Equally however it’s quite handy to recirculate through the CFC back into the kettle with the end of the pipe going into the hop spider: the gummy hops catch quite a bit of ‘break’ material that way.
I sort of alternate between the two but I’ve got no conclusive evidence yet which is “better”.

 

[MashBag]

After many many years using an inversion chiller, I moved to a CFC with the grainfather purchase a couple of years ago.

Can I ask why? I thought they were a bit slow.

That said I do like the recirc idea

 

[Agentgonzo]

I know this is a bit of an old thread but I do think it’s a very interesting question. Did you reach a conclusion @Agentgonzo ?

I didn't reach a conclusion. As mentioned on other threads, I tend to not repeat brews that much, and if I do they tend to be a year apart so it's impossible for me to do a side by side comparison.

My usual SOP used to be to start the cooling/transfer straight after the boil.
Since this thread, I've tried letting it stand for ~ 20mins first, and also letting it stand for ~10m, then do a whirlpool, then stand for 10m. In both cases the wort in kettle settles and you can't see much hot break at the surface and the wort is clear. I've also done a 15m recirc through a hop spider and got similar results.

My fermenter is stainless steel so it's impossible to see wort clarity after the transfer - and it'll be full of cold break anyway. I normally take a hydrometer sample half way through the transfer, and once it's settled it's always been clear. I've not noticed any difference with the sample in all my methods.

I've not noticed any changes in clarity in the resulting beer

 

[Agentgonzo]

Can I ask why? I thought they were a bit slow.

That said I do like the recirc idea

The grainfather g30 comes with a CFC.

I've found that the CFC is faster than my immersion chiller - especially when you factor in the transfer time after the chill with an immersion chiller. The immersion chiller used to drop the wort down to about 35° fairly quickly but take a long time to drop it to 20°. You can make it cool faster if you swirl the chiller around in the wort, but that requires you to sit there with it rather than just set it going and walk off

I think the CFC can chill-and-transfer the whole 23L of wort in about 20m in winter, 25m in summer. It can go faster if I turn the cold water tap up faster, but I'm generally not in a hurry and don't like wasting water

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Can I ask why? I thought they were a bit slow.

That said I do like the recirc idea

A counterflow chiller is massively more efficient than immersion chiller (of the same length); see https://help.grainfather.com/hc/en-...r-vs-Immersion-Chiller-what-s-the-difference-

 

[MashBag]

Hmm. I thought it was a surface area thing. I have a jaded stylie copper immersion.
100c to 25ish in 6-8 minds pump on. But that's still not as quick as run away

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Hmm. I thought it was a surface area thing. I have a jaded stylie copper immersion.
100c to 25ish in 6-8 minds pump on. But that's still not as quick as run away

Nope, it’s a temperature difference thermodynamic efficiency thing

 

[hoppyscotty]

We’ll the counterflow you’re taking a thin column of wort and surrounding it with a thin layer of cooling water so you get better cooling over a shorter distance and just pumping the wort through in a single pass (ideally), so cooling a smaller volume of wort at any given time.

The problem with immerson chillers is it’s trying to cool the whole body of wort down in one go so you need a lot a lot a lot more length of coil which is essentially what the jaded chiller does.

I’m not sure the whole hot break and cold break thing is a thing. Pro breweries just pass the wort through a huge single pass plate chiller as fast as possible. They’re not going to be waiting for any hot break to settle out before passing to the fermenter. Time is money. Not sure if they have some fancy filter systems or anything but as soon as the boils over it’s get it into the fermenter quick smart, unless they’re doing a hopstand….but even then the larger breweries will be using hop backs.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I’m not sure the whole hot break and cold break thing is a thing. Pro breweries just pass the wort through a huge single pass plate chiller as fast as possible. They’re not going to be waiting for any hot break to settle out

Yes, I’m not too worried about the hot break: I skim off as much of the grey scum as I can when it hits the boil but that’s about it.
I’ve certainly found that the cold break is maximised by chilling as rapidly as possible, which I think is desirable because you want to get as many of those haze-forming proteins clumped together so they can sink to the bottom of the FV. I don’t bother filtering them out though: IMHO they quickly form a sediment that gets covered over by dead yeast cells.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

We’ll the counterflow you’re taking a thin column of wort and surrounding it with a thin layer of cooling water so you get better cooling over a shorter distance

That’s correct. The cooling effect is also greatly assisted by the way the streams of hot wort and cooling water pass through in opposite directions. This ensures the last bit of (mostly cooled) wort leaving the CFC encounters the freshest, coldest cooling water; and the new super-hot wort entering the CFC encounters the fairly hot cooling water leaving in the opposite direction (which is still able to begin cooling it down). It’s always going to be far quicker and use less cooling water than an equivalent length cooler immersion.

 

[MashBag]

I’m not sure the whole hot break and cold break thing is a thing.

Me too. Hence my move to overnight chilling.

 

[MashBag]

It does depend on the definition of efficiency though. I get time efficient chilling (with jade's style) as opposed to water efficiency with a CFC. But I get brilliant water efficiency with overnight chilling.

 

[Birdsnestbrewery]

I use the cooling water from my CFC for cleaning. Very little wasted.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I use the cooling water from my CFC for cleaning. Very little wasted.

Yea this is true. And if you were doing back to back brews you could use the waste water in your second brew by pumping it back into your HLT thereby saving electricity too. .. Not a consideration for the average home brewer unless you are doing a double batch.

 

[Wynne]

At the brewery where I work, we skim the foam off just before the boil starts. the copper empties from the bottom through slotted plates so the hops settle to form a filter bed which filters out most of the remaining hot-break. We have an in-line filter just upstream of a plate heat exchanger which traps hop particles and remaining hot break to try to protect the heat exchanger from clogging. The big difference between a 17 barrel batch and a home brew batch is the transfer time (11/2-2hrs vs 15-30mins) so the hops have time to settle out post-boil. if we don’t skim, the hot break tends to clog up the hop-bed resulting in slower transfer time and making the copper harder to clean afterwards.

 

[MashBag]

I have an inline filter for bottling. A stainless fuel filter, with a scrubby insert. Brilliant.