-
2 years 9 weeks ago
-
2 years 33 weeks ago
-
5 days 16 hours ago
Wort chilling, what do you use?
September 21, 2007 - 8:31am
So thinking about my brewery again and I was wondering what everyone uses for chilling their wort. I have heard good and bad on all solutions, and I know people have their preferences.
September 21, 2007 - 2:45pm
#2
The only concern I have with counterflow chillers is I have read some people who get clogs. The idea I like is using an immersion chiler with a whirlpool. Of course this adds some complexity but should be very effective.
I am still undecided. If I do the counterflow I will probablybuild one. I saw a great write up somewhere where someone wrapped their inner tubing with copper wire to prevent laminar flow problems with the cooling water. I really like the high end B3 counter flow chillers cause the polish real nice, but they are $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ :shock:
September 21, 2007 - 4:12pm
#3
I use an immersion chiller at the moment. Takes roughly an hour to cool most of the time. I want to build a counter flow chiller. I have the garden hose already, just need to buy some copper. My plan is to use 3/8 inch copper tubing. I have thought about wrapping the copper tube with a copper wire to cause tuberlance, but may hold off on the first one.
Garry
September 22, 2007 - 12:25pm
#4
I was pricing copper tubing from Lowes and the convoluted copper tubing at B3 is actualy about the same price.
September 27, 2007 - 1:36pm
#5
I was thinking about this again and thought about what Jamil Z does. He uses an immersion chiller with a whirlpool. He claims great results and if you read his page his reasons sound logical.
I was thinking about this and about using a heat exchanger in the HLT for controlling mash temps. A heat exchanger should be useable both directions. In other words you could circulate the mash water thru the heat exchanger with hot water in it during mashing, then during the boil cool down the water and circulate the hot wort thru the same heat exchanger to cool it. Once it get cool enough you could always add ice to the HLT. With a thermometer on the hot liquor tank you could easily see what the temp is. This should reduce the amount of equipment a bit and should be less wasteful of water.
HMMMMM :)
September 27, 2007 - 1:37pm
#6
Does that last post make me sound like an engineer?
:lol:
September 28, 2007 - 6:43am
#7
It makes you sound like a Beer Geek 8) I still think for its simplicity, results and cost (build your own), that im going with the counter flow chiller, I will just water my plants with the excess. I am not too worried about clogs as I will be filtering out the trub in my kettle.
I use an immersion chiller right now, but that was because I have been going extract with 5 gallon batches. I will be using a gravity fed counter-flow chiller for my all grain batches. I plan to use my old immersion chiller as the inner tube and a standard garden hose as the outer jacket.
DrunkRedDragon.com