Wort Chilling

Post by **brahn** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 10:27 pm

Woohoo!!

I cut my wort chilling time by more than half in my batch yesterday and it was definitely cheaper and easier than the whirlpool chiller. I was doing my standard chilling procedure using my immersion chiller with tap water and then switched over to recirculating ice water when I got down to around 110F. The discovery came when I realized I could use my paint stirrer at a low speed to get the wort moving without aerating it.. Once I got down to below 85 or so I switched to high speed to aerate the wort as well.

The end result: I had my wort to pitching temp (63F), aerated, in the fermenter and the yeast pitched in about 40 minutes! I'm used to spending over an hour just to get the wort down to 85 and leaving the fermenter in an ice batch for a few hours to get to pitching temp. Sweet...

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:51 am

That's cool! Let's just hope you didn't get the idea because you'd just been painting! : Paint Pigment Porter...

jward · Post by **jward** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:39 am

If others want to do this technique but are not so excited about a paint stirrer you might consider a lees stirrer. I have seen Pete go to town on some mead and our Blackwine IV with a lees stirrer. They also fit down the neck of a carboy. I have been thinking about using a stirrer on mash-in instead of a mash paddle.

Post by **brahn** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:05 am

I will note that the paint stirrer has never actually touched paint.

The lees stirrer is the same idea, only a little more expensive.

Oskaar · Post by **Oskaar** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:48 pm

And designed specifically for the task!!

Pete

spkrtoy · Post by **spkrtoy** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:21 pm

I've used a clever way to chill my wort when I did full wort boil extract brewing:
Insert chiller into wort (I used 50' or 3/8" copper in a double loop the diameter of a co2 5# tank)
Fill a cornie keg with 20#'s of ice, fill with water and hook up to chiller and hook up overflow to an ice chest.
Push with co2 at 5 psi, refill once. (you could use a compressor for this as well)
Wort chilled from boiling to 68 degrees in 12 minutes and I've got a full ice chest of warm water for cleaning up.

Oskaar · Post by **Oskaar** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:44 pm

I really love my counterflow chiller. It works in a comperable amount of time, and I can also use it to warm the water to 75 degrees if I'm doing mead and it's cold outside.

cheers,

Oskaar

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:46 pm

I do the same thing pretty much. I use tap to cool down to <110 then move the hoses over to a sub pump sitting a 5g bucket of ice and water. I can easily get the wort temps down to <65 even when its 100d outside.

Not quite the best pictorial example but this is what I do:

I then use an O2 tank and stone to aerate before pitching the yeast.