What works better: Wort Chiller Question

[Jordan Logo]

What has worked better for you folks?

1. Running a pump on your wort chiller and recirculating with a pool of ice water

2. Or just running it off your tap

 

[day_trippr]

Answers will clearly depend on source water temperature. Those of us with deep wells will likely go with 2.
When my well water reaches my brew space it's still under 60°F even in August so no ice required here...

Cheers!

 

[Blazinlow86]

As day tripper mentioned it depends on your situation. For myself personally my ground water comes out at 70f or lower depending on the time of year and we don't have any water shortages so I can just use the tap. If say that's the ideal method of possible but won't work for everyone. Cheers

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

South Florida here. House water is like 85F already. Use that until the wort is around 90F then ice water recirculated via pond pump. I buy a 20 lb bag of ice, which I'll put in a cooler with water and the pump. Can get down to 63F so I can pitch.

 

[BruceH]

What has worked better for you folks?

1. Running a pump on your wort chiller and recirculating with a pool of ice water

2. Or just running it off your tap

My tap will be in the high 50's or lower even in the heat of summer so I go with the tap.

However, I have been thinking of going to china freight and getting a pump so I can just run isolated ice water and get the wort chilled faster.

What is your ground/tap/city water at temp wise?

 

[AzOr]

For ales- usually just tap water. Can easily get it to 65ish. The first 5 gallons go into a retired plastic fermenter. Then the rest goes into a barrel which I will water the garden with next day. The first 5 gallons is usually about 130ish so I use that to clean brew equipment.

For lagers- I run the tap until 70ish then switch over to sink filled with ice. I use a cheap pump I got at HF for about 15 bucks. Works well. Gets my wort to low 50's in about half hour.

 

[cswant88]

I’m ice water all the way with my immersion chiller. It uses up a lot of ice, but I have access to a commercial ice machine at work. Fill up an ice chest on Friday for a Saturday brew. Makes for a darn quick chill. I was filling a 48qt cooler and it would stall out around 80-85F. Using 70qts now and I can get it all the way down to 55-60F if I want. Let’s me chill slightly cooler than ferm temp. This is with about 6.25 gallons in the kettle.

 

[beernutz]

There's not a better, I do both. I run the hose through the immersion chiller until the wort temp is under 100F then switch to pumping ice water through it. The output is pumped back into the ice water.

I save the first output water from hose chilling in my HLT and use it for cleaning.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Southern California. Summer water temps are probably 80.

So I run tap water until the wort drops to about 110-120, then switch to ice water.

 

[gnef]

I do both! I built a dual stage counterflow chiller, so the first stage uses groundwater, whatever temperature that is, and then the second stage is recirculated ice water with a submersible pump. In the summer in Georgia, I can chill down to low 60's, upper 50's in one pass. In the winter I can get into the 40's from what I recall, also in one pass. It takes me about 15 minutes for 11 gallons of wort into the fermenter. Cleanup is more significant, but the chilling times are worth it for me.

The chiller is 50 ft in total length, half for each stage, and I have it wrapped around a home depot bucket, which makes it easy to move around and relatively secure. I do have valves on it if I need to slow down the flow to get a lower temperature, but I've found that for ales, which is what I brew almost exclusively, I don't have to worry about it. If anyone wants more information on the chiller, I posted about it a while ago with pictures and more details.

 

[SanPancho]

The bigger the delta in temps the more cooling power. So start with tap and then switch to ice once you get within 20f of your tap water. Thats the physics of it.

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

South Florida here. House water is like 85F already. Use that until the wort is around 90F then ice water recirculated via pond pump. I buy a 20 lb bag of ice, which I'll put in a cooler with water and the pump. Can get down to 63F so I can pitch.

Brewed on Saturday - 90F and 90% humidity. Got wort down to 63F with the help of a bag of ice. I also chill my stainless steel fermenter and wrap it in Reflectix while filling it - not sure it really helps but I use the Reflectix during mashing so why not.

 

[Soulshine2]

What has worked better for you folks?

1. Running a pump on your wort chiller and recirculating with a pool of ice water

2. Or just running it off your tap

I used to use a pump with a bucket of ice water . Seems it took forever and the ice quickly turned into warm water because I never had enough.I tried using frozen jugs of water . The outside of the ice inside the jug turns to water while a big chunk of ice floats around inside. I dont have a freezer dedicated to making and storing ice so I would have to go buy bagged ice. So- I started just using a hose from my outside faucet ( I brew in my polebarn. )In winter our ground water is in the 50s but in the summer its more like 70 . I run it out to my garden or yard. The running water is cheaper than driving to get ice,buying said ice and driving back ,takes about the same time too.
So , for me ,its just more cost and time efficient to run the hose.
YMMV

 

[IslandLizard]

This is what I've been doing for years:

1. Chill with tap water until wort is 20-30F above tap water temp
2. Then switch to ice water. Either tap water through a pre-chiller or direct ice water feed (pump)
3. Single pass to drain as long as output of chiller water is >15-20F higher than input. Recirculate when difference is <15-20F.

Adjust those temp ranges to your specific situation.

In short:
Using ice water to get 205-120F wort down to [tap water temp + 30-40°F] is a sheer waste of ice, unless water is premium priced.

Chiller water can be routed to a rain barrel or other reservoir for subsequent use.

 

[Shawn Cassidy]

Aside from the water source... does the method (immersion, counter flow, or plate) change the cooling performance?

 

[MaxStout]

Our water mains are 8' below ground, so summertime water rarely gets above about 60F, which makes for good chilling to ale pitching temps just with that.

When I chill for lagers I do this:
I connect the hose to run water through two ICs in series, a pre-chiller and the wort chiller. Chill the wort until it is ~65-70, then drop the prechiller into a 5 gal bucket of ice with a little water and keep chilling the wort the rest of the way down. I keep adding ice to the prechiller bucket as needed, but usually only need around 10-15 lbs. total. I can easily get the wort to the upper 40s this way, even in summer.

 

[Soulshine2]

Aside from the water source... does the method (immersion, counter flow, or plate) change the cooling performance?

heres where youre going to get different opinions .
I use a copper immersion chiller , just your basic 50 ft coil of home depot soft copper with a hose on each end to accept a garden hose in/out. I like the fact that I can just toss the chiller in the kettle the last 10 minutes of the boiling wort to sterilize it . then I just turn on the water flow and Im chilling. If need be after the fact I can scrub it and see where any particles are stuck to it. Cheap, easy , effective.

I looked into chiller plates and counterflow systems and I feel like there is a chance of something left behind that Id never be able to see nor get to and cause some sort of infection. JMHO

 

[CascadesBrewer]

What has worked for me lately is to chill to around 90F, transfer to my fermenter, and let my fermentation chamber chill down to pitching temps. It takes 3 hours or so. It might not work great if I was planning to leave for the day, but I hear plenty of people that pitch the next morning.

My tap water this time of year is around 70F. I acquired a second immersion chiller last year. Running them both worked great during the winter. Recently I tried putting one of them in a bucket of ice water, and that did not seem to help at all. An old method of mine is to fill a bucket with ice water and let that run through the chiller. It works but is still a bit slow.

I have thought about a pump with ice water, but I guess using my fermentation chamber is working well enough that I am not sure I want to add more equipment to my brew day.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

@CascadesBrewer same here using a counter-flow chiller. To save time and water year round I cool the wort to 80-85F, transfer to the fermenters and put them in a fermentation chamber to cool down to pitching temperature. While they're cooling I clean up the kettles, hoses, etc. and have something to eat and a beer. By the time I pitch the yeast the brewing gear is cleaned and put away.

 

[LittleRiver]

I use a water transfer pump to first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of tap water. When the wort & water temps equalize I cap off that bucket of hot water to save as my wash water during cleanup. I move the hoses to recirculate from a cooler filled with 20lb of ice and 5gal of water. Reaching pitching temps is never a problem, and I save the resulting warm water to use as rinse water during cleanup.

I get 20lb of ice for $2 at a local discount grocery store. For that price I'm happy to let them make the ice and store it. Heat transfer with ice is dependent on surface area, so it's best to use cubed or crushed ice. Home made big chunks of ice don't work very well.

I like the easy cleanup of an immersion chiller. There's no worries of an infection from something growing inside a plate or counterflow chiller.

 

[jack13]

@CascadesBrewer same here using a counter-flow chiller. To save time and water year round I cool the wort to 80-85F, transfer to the fermenters and put them in a fermentation chamber to cool down to pitching temperature. While they're cooling I clean up the kettles, hoses, etc. and have something to eat and a beer. By the time I pitch the yeast the brewing gear is cleaned and put away.

+1 to this^

Just comes down to preference. On the one hand, recirculating with ice water gets you to pitching temp and you're done. On the other, you don't need to bother with any of that if you don't mind pitching a little while later.

 

[balrog]

I do same as @bwarbiany
Tap water, outflow to 8gals for cleanup, hits about 100F, sw to pond pump recirc cooler w 16# ice.
Chill time 12-15m, lowest I go is for WY1007, 60°F, more typically chill to 64-66.