Wort Chilling

[Motorbikeman]

Would it be worth keeping the old copper chiller.      Dropping it into a bucket of  ice water to get your wort below 20c. As a kind of prechiller..  How effective is this method?   

I nearly always have to refrigerate my vulnerable wort to get it to pitching temp..   Which is a bit of a pain as sealed buckets are hard to open when chilled..  And hard to pitch into while in a small fridge. 

Edit: Split from Bulldog Brewer thread

[BrewDorg]

Would it be worth keeping the old copper chiller.      Dropping it into a bucket of  ice water to get your wort below 20c. As a kind of prechiller..  How effective is this method?   

I nearly always have to refrigerate my vulnerable wort to get it to pitching temp..   Which is a bit of a pain as sealed buckets are hard to open when chilled..  And hard to pitch into while in a small fridge.

Should definitely work. Unless you have piles of ice, I'd chill to below 30-40 with just one because it should go down quick enough, and then connect the second one in the ice bucket to get it nice and low.

[SkiBeagle]

Never done it, but I believe that's exactly what our American friends do to get down to pitch temps especially in their hot summer. Trick would be to use normal water to get down to the twenties, then bring the prechiller into play to get down further. Copper would be ideal for this job.
My cold water comes from a surface pipe, so it's quite warm in summer (16º or so), perhaps 7º in winter. My freezer is too small to make ice realistic for me. ("Dearest, the reason your veggie burgers are melting in the sink is ... global warming??") I was thinking of putting a corny or some other vessel into the fridge, and chilling it down to <2 and use that to get the final push. If you had say 20L of wort @ 20º and 20L of chilled 2º water recirculating through your chiller, you'd end up close to 12º. It does take a good few hours to drop 10º in the fridge, and wort would be vulnerable. I'm a fan of blast-freezing the wort as quickly as possible after flame-out, to get the protective shield of yeast going.

[Motorbikeman]

This and a bucket..    http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=258961797   

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

This and a bucket..    http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=258961797   

And this http://m.tesco.ie/mt/www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254880449

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

This and a bucket..    http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=258961797   

And this http://m.tesco.ie/mt/www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254880449

The salt will lower the freezing point of the water allowing it to drop as low as  -6C



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[SkiBeagle]

Could we ask you guys who have done this before to kindly give a brief outline of how you use the ice, how much ice is needed, what wort temp you achieve? This is very interesting. I always considered lagers out of my range, but this could work. Perhaps a separate thread? Thanks.

[Motorbikeman]

I have never done it, but I would think it would be as simple as using all that salt and all that ice in 10L of water . 

In this bucket..



Maybe the Mods could move this to its own prechilling thread..   

[irish_goat]

Good call. 

[nigel_c]

I've used that method for brewing in the summer.
I picked up one of these smaller chillers and run it as a pre chiller.
http://www.geterbrewed.ie/copper-wort-chiller-for-10-litre-batches/

My water was coming about 20c from the tap and made chilling a right pain. Wouldn't get below 25c. Even running through this small chiller in ice water  I was getting about a 10c drop below mains temp. This got me right down to ale pitch temps and I recon will reach lager pitch temps in the winter.
A real handy cheep fix to an annoying temp problem.

[fobster]

Definitely going to get this up and running. Anything that cuts chilling time!

[Leann ull]

All sounds like a lot of trouble guys, the most effective method, even after using a beer chiller, I have of getting Pilsner wort down to Lager pitch temps 10-11 in 3-4 hours from 22 is in the fridge and to have a strong computer fan blowing air ideally the ones that come out of servers.
Try and direct the fan against the cold plate at the back of the fridge.
Word of warning it will run the compressor for 3-4 hours and put it under higher than normal working load.

[nigel_c]

Wouldn't say it's a lot more trouble then hooking up a standard wort chiller. It's just another thing to plug in.

[fobster]

Extra few tubes and any old bucket. No more hassle than rigging up a computer fan 

[Leann ull]

The fan is a permanent feature you only install it only once, it will cut your refrigeration elecky costs by 50% and beats the hell out of water sloshing around everywhere without looking like a plumbers merchants