Wort Chilling

[Motorbikeman]

Any pics of that set up CH.   Would like to try that also.

[Leann ull]

It's not complicated

My 4 fermentation chambers are all out in the shed and go from 2 (ambient -2)  to 17 (ambient 25)max

This one is glued onto top of fridge blowing down, runs on a 12v supply.


This other one is on my "redneck" ale chamber and just blows the heat around the chamber
The heater bar was mounted on the wall so I could fit 3 carboys in the chamber.

Will be up for one of Davides smart pids when they are released and can also operate a fan afaik




Coming back to the prechill idea, i have seen folks freeze milk or coke bottles and use them.
I went looking on Ali for stainless or copper coils to pre-chill jockey box Esque and found a few sub 40 but shipping was mad, a fan and transformer is less than half that.

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Another alternative would be an inline beer chiller/cooler, if you have one lying around. 

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[Shanna]

I have two immersion coils and a lidl submersible pump. The coils are connected up via garden hose fittings and splitters. The inputs of both coils are fed via a garden hose fed from a water butt. The incoming pipe is submerged in a container of about 10 litres of water that contains 8 freezer blocks. I got best results with putting them in the water about half an hour before use. In the summer it just about gets it to 20 C although the last 10 C is slow. Winter usage I don't need the ice blocks. I did use regular ice once & while it worked better/faster it meant having to source the ice @short notice & it was another hassle/complication. The freezer blocks are an easy compromise. Probably most important thing is to have a large enough supply of water.

Shanna

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

If you're using a garden water butt, I'd suggest adding some food colouring to the butt, if you have a leak anywhere it'll show up easier especially if there's a leak into the beer. Glycol chillers in breweries always have the glycol dyed blue.
If you're using a cross flow chiller add a valve on the beer outlet and throttle it down to create back pressure. That way if you have a leak, then the beer at higher pressure will leak into the water rather than the other way around.

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[Sorcerers Apprentice]

On my first encounter with an immersion chiller, it was a cold dark evening and I had been brewing outside. My phone rang and I went inside to answer it. Aboutp 20 mins later I went outside and from a different angle to where I had been standing I could see a fine jet of water spraying into my kettle from a small pinhead leak on the fitting of the immersion chiller.

[johnrm]

Been there, dumped the batch. And the boil smelled great too, dammit.

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[Leann ull]

Did you not have a big u bend on the pipework?
Not a fan of 90 degrees connections at the top of immersion chillers, drips are always going to end up in your brew

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Twas from back in the day before them fancy ubendy one were invented 😆
Regarding the other points we buy fancy stainless cross flow wort coolers and never check if there's any internal leaks allowing beer to mix with water. Hence the need I think for a valve on the beer outlet, particularly if you're using non potable water as your cooling media 

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[Shanna]

Did you not have a big u bend on the pipework?
Not a fan of 90 degrees connections at the top of immersion chillers, drips are always going to end up in your brew

Never had a problem with that and both my chillers have 90 degree welded bends. I do however have a collar on my boiler that the bends are sitting against so that is probably why. As for the water its a good idea but given the state of the water I reckon the fermented wort would be so rank from what is in the water that it would be immediately obvious (well ranker than my normally is before anybody says it :-)) . Having said that never too big to take a tip on board and will be digging out the blue cake colouring just to be on the safe side.

Shanna