Efficient chilling method?

[Multigrain]

Hi all,

I have always found that chilling the wort is the step with most hassle and I am looking for advice to improve performance.

I usually do a 22 liter batch size and I am currently using a 12 plate counter flow chiller. The water pressure is decent but it is still taking me 30 minutes to get chill down the wort to to 20-22 C. I really really dont want to waste all that water. I am usually satisfied when I get the temp down to about 35C and let it cool by itself after that.

Today I got quite fed up with it to be honest. I made a quite hoppy pale ale, used pellets in the pot and crossed my finger it would not clog the plate chiller. It did... Using a plate chiller is quite cumbersome with 4 hose connections, boxes piled up to make sure the hoses dont get kinked etc.. so its not a quick fix to resolve a stuck system.
I put the pellets in the pot to get maximum utilization of the hops in a hoppy brew.

I have done loads of research but it seems like some people can chill 20L with a plate chiller to pitching temp in 10-15 min, and others like me cant really go below 35 degrees without using at least 25 minutes and lot of water.

15 min to 30 Degrees is for me acceptable. I wonder what everyone is using to achive this? My plate chiller was not cheap and I dont like the idea hitting another landmine. Especially all of you who do a lot of hoppy beers, how do you avoid a stuck system, do you keep everything in a bag or do you have a bigger system with a false bottom?

How do you chill your wort, with what method and in how long time?

 

[Dads_Ale]

I don't think a 12 plate chiller is really up to the job of chilling in a single pass.

I have one of these

and it will chill down to mains water temp in a single pass with the chiller water at a trickle. I haven't timed it but my first use accumulated about 30l of used chiller water for a 40 litre batch.

I do try and avoid getting pellets in it by whirl pooling in the boil kettle and a 20 min rest before dropping through the chiller.

and it does take some extra cleaning and drying after use.

 

[Saisonator]

Hi all,

I have always found that chilling the wort is the step with most hassle and I am looking for advice to improve performance.

I usually do a 22 liter batch size and I am currently using a 12 plate counter flow chiller. The water pressure is decent but it is still taking me 30 minutes to get chill down the wort to to 20-22 C. I really really dont want to waste all that water. I am usually satisfied when I get the temp down to about 35C and let it cool by itself after that.

Today I got quite fed up with it to be honest. I made a quite hoppy pale ale, used pellets in the pot and crossed my finger it would not clog the plate chiller. It did... Using a plate chiller is quite cumbersome with 4 hose connections, boxes piled up to make sure the hoses dont get kinked etc.. so its not a quick fix to resolve a stuck system.
I put the pellets in the pot to get maximum utilization of the hops in a hoppy brew.

I have done loads of research but it seems like some people can chill 20L with a plate chiller to pitching temp in 10-15 min, and others like me cant really go below 35 degrees without using at least 25 minutes and lot of water.

15 min to 30 Degrees is for me acceptable. I wonder what everyone is using to achive this? My plate chiller was not cheap and I dont like the idea hitting another landmine. Especially all of you who do a lot of hoppy beers, how do you avoid a stuck system, do you keep everything in a bag or do you have a bigger system with a false bottom?

How do you chill your wort, with what method and in how long time?

I have heard that it is better for heat extraction to have the water flowing at just a trickle.
You could recirculate it into the pot down to 80c then next pass straight into the FV.

 

[Multigrain]

Thanks for your response. I was very close to build a counterflow chiller myself, but since I move so much, i went with the smallest option. Yeah I think you are right, its not quite up for the job. I am curious to what setup is necessary to be able to chill 15-20 liters to 20C in 10-15 min as they who sell them claim they can. I have seen the odd comment of people who have been able to. Would like to see a chart of flow volume and tap water temp vs time. Should be a fairly linear relationship.

 

[Multigrain]

Yeah, I can try and slow down the waterflow, would reduce the water consumption for sure without loosing to much performance.

 

[Ciaran12s]

I studied a bit on heat transfer and thermodynamics a number of years ago. All very interesting stuff which I thoroughly enjoyed. Given all the materials used in the cooler, wall thicknesses and hence heat transfer co-efficients, mass flow rates, volumes etc. It is really quite simple to work out exactly what you you require given your non-variables to get that 10-15 minute target.
Unfortunately I don't really remember too much more from my learning days in that topic as I've never actually used it since but all very interesting stuff I have to say.
It really all comes down to length of coolant tubes the coolant flows through/the mass flow rate of the coolant through those tubes/the mass flow rate of the medium to be cooled flowing around those tubes/the temperature of the cooling medium/the temperature of the medium to be cooled.

As I recall(which isn't a great deal probably due to the mass volumes of cheap cheap cider and tennets being drunk at that time) the relationship isnt linear, the closer the temperatures come the less the cooling effect is.

What I have found is that if you stick an immersion chiller in and turn the tap on, it will cool. There's plenty of cooling medium flow however if your wort is sat stagnant then there is basically no medium to be cooled flowrate. So to overcome this the wort needs to be moved(stirred) during the process. Once the wort gets cool (high20ish) the difference between coolant and medium to be cooled is fairly close so the cooling effect slows down.

My immersion chiller is pretty rough and ready 10mm copper tube x 10metres. I find that within about 20minutes of running (considering there's been a 20 minute stand after the boil) the wort is down to mid high 20s. After draining to the fv (from a height for aeration through quite cool air) the wort is down by another 7 or 8c

 

[Saisonator]

In the middle of winter my Grainfather CFC will cool 23 litres of 100c wort into the fermenter in 15 mins.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
There are many homebrewers who use a "no chill" method.

 

[GerritT]

Hi!
There are many homebrewers who use a "no chill" method.

I use "outside" since I only have 1-gallon capacity anyway.

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