How long does your immersion chiller take to get to 23c?

[gobuchul]

I have a pretty standard 10mm copper immersion chiller.

It seems to be very slow to drop the wort down to 23C. Even during the cold weather it took an hour to get the wort sufficiently cooled.

It also seems to be a terrible waste of water, so I am thinking of setting up a water butt and a solar pump and just recirc the water, may take a bit longer but will save a lot of water. Anyone tried this?

[Grumpydev]

I've never actually timed it, but it's around 30minutes. It is a huge waste of water (if you don't collect it) - when I get my brew shed up and running I intend to use three interconnected water butts and an old pond pump for chiller water, dumping bags of ice in if necessary, and seeing how that goes.

[Rhodesy]

When I used an immersion chiller it usually took me around 30/40 minutes to get the temp down which I agree used an awful lot of water. I have since moved to a plate chiller (Therminator), having used this for the past 3 brews it has got my Worts down to pitching temp at super speed which one time when adjusting the flows it came out at 13C which was a good bit under! I then allow the Wort to settle for some time before collecting any trub from my bottom tap on the conical before aerating and pitching.

I collected the water runnings on my last batch to measure and it was around 30L max used. As the water was still warm I then used that to recirc around my system to help wash the chiller/pump etc.

[gobuchul]

So what could I doing wrong?

Mine takes much longer than that!

Do I need to change the flow rate? Or should I fix it so it's at the top of the wort all of the time?

Any tips?

[BenB]

Do you stir the wort with the ic? Is your cold water coming straight out of the tap or are you a shed brewer on a hose?

[gobuchul]

No I do not stir the wort with the chiller. I will try that next time.

I am brewing in a shed and using a long hose, about 30m in length.

[Grumpydev]

Yeah, you need to stir or recirc the wort somehow, that makes a massive difference - I use a solar pump and a whirlpool pipe inside my chiller coil to keep the wort moving.

You can see it on this video, although my current one is a lot larger than this:

https://vimeo.com/116668081

[Blackaddler]

Stirring is a must for this type of heat exchange.

Check out this thread and also this.

[sparky Paul]

I am brewing in a shed and using a long hose, about 30m in length.

That's not going to help either. At the rate you blow water through a chiller, it will be approaching ambient temperature by the time it gets to the shed. Fine in winter, not so good in the summer... although this winter hasn't exactly been cold.

[BenB]

I'm a shed brewer and suffer similar problems. It starts okay but the relatively warm water coming into the shed causes it to slow down. I've now got a recirculating bucket full of ice water for the last 10 degrees or so. Otherwise you can make a pre-chiller coil in line with the water going into the I/c and run it through a bucket of ice water. That will make up for the ground water temp being high in the shed.

[chris2012]

I use a hose pipe connected to an immersion chiller which works fine for me, going to near the shed.

It helps if you give the coil a swirl around the wort bucket, too every now and again.

It probably takes me around 15 mins to get to 23C.

[jack_c]

I have 10m of 3/8 copper pipe, attached to the cold water feed for the washing machine. Last two took 17 and 19 minutes respectively using a medium flow of water. I am a stirrer, and the ground water here is cold.

[lord groan]

I use an IC made of assorted chunks of 6mm and 8mm tube so flow-rate is slooow, I use a little cheapo pump from ebay to push the water from my waterbutt through it and put the hot water back in at the top of the waterbutt, as Grumpydev says stirring is a must, I have cooled in around 40mins this way, it would be faster if I had a 10mm ic tube. A good check is to see if you burn your hand on the output pipe! (Do be careful here) If the flow rate is high enough the water will be coming out below the temp of the wort, which means it hasn't been in there long enough to extract the maximum heat, turning the water flow down until the output is as hot as the remaining wort means you'll waste minimum water and get max heat extraction

[Monkeybrew]

I have a pretty standard 10mm copper immersion chiller.

It seems to be very slow to drop the wort down to 23C. Even during the cold weather it took an hour to get the wort sufficiently cooled.

It also seems to be a terrible waste of water, so I am thinking of setting up a water butt and a solar pump and just recirc the water, may take a bit longer but will save a lot of water. Anyone tried this?

I am using a similar setup, apart from my shed being about 15m from my outside tap.

I too find it a very frustrating hour of cooling to get to pitching temperature, and with a Bock lager planned next I'm following this thread with interest.

I had avoided stirring the cooling wort because I didn't want to disturb the settling trub, maybe I'll give this a go on my next brew.

Cheers

MB

[setmash]

IC are not the best form of chillers.

The GOAT chiller is the way forward. Uses a fraction of the water of an IC (and slashes the chill time) and costs about the same. Fully inspectable. Loads of fun to build :

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=69638