chilling time

[shiny beast]

even at this time of year it is taking about 45 minutes to an hour to cool 5 gallons. i use an immersion chiller(brupaks one) and stir regularly. any hints/tips on how to speed things up?

[shiny beast]

well that's me done brewin for today. just been and checked the temp and its down to 20 degrees. taken an hour from flame out (or should it be plug out?). just got to clear up all the mess now.

[Jim]

Glad your brew went OK, SB.

I use a counterflow chiller myself, and the wort takes about 20-30 minutes to go through (under gravity). However, plenty of people on here use immersion chillers and swear by them.

[bitter_dave]

i've never measured it, but I guess it takes me about 25 or 30 mins to cool 25 litres of wort to 25 C with my brupaks immersion chiller. I do let it sit for a bit though to let hops steep, so it probably cools a bit by itself.

I use water from the cold tap in my bathroom, and this comes out pretty damn cold. I just stir occaisionally but otherwise leave alone.

[shiny beast]

i've been tempted by the idea of a counterflow or even a plate chiller(brouwland are selling one for about 75 euros). but concerns about cleaning them afterwards have so far kept me away. er indoors has been keeping a watchful eye on my spending lately so i've got to be careful.

[shiny beast]

what about the flow rate of the water through the coil? I know it's a difficult thing to quantify wihout a meter of some sort but should it be fast, slow or inbetween.

[Jim]

I've never had a problem cleaning my counterflow chiller. I just let a couple of gallons of hot (tap) water run through it both before and after use.

I sanitize by letting the hot wort run through it briefly before turning on the cooling water.

[Frothy]

I'm with Jim - just flush some boiling water through the system before & after use.

Plate chillers also work by counterflow. The counterflow principal is a much more efficient way of exchanging heat & it's easy to make one using microbore copper pipe & a hose pipe.

Frothy

[Mashman]

Daab, Nice soldering job on the chiller. I have one but haven't soldered on the pipes yet. I got one as I have moved on to 40lt brews to fill 2 cornies with one brew, and my IC wasn't doing to well in the larger copper. what I really want to know is - have you tried it yet?

Mashman

[iowalad]

I just left my kettle outside today with remarkable results! Normally I use an immersion chiller

I have pretty cold water coming out of the tap. I stir regularly. I have never measured how long it takes me to cool 5 gals but would guess 20 minutes. I would guess that I have my faucet flow rate at about 50%.

[deadlydes]

it takes me 10mins to chill 25l using a 10m CFC with a pump
and cleaning/sanitising is easy just flush through with boiling water

[Matt]

what about the flow rate of the water through the coil? I know it's a difficult thing to quantify wihout a meter of some sort but should it be fast, slow or inbetween.

Shiny, I'm getting down to pitching temps in about 30 mins like the other lads (with an immersion chiller). I reckon you might be running it too fast - I usually run mine slowly - slow enough so the output water is too hot to touch at the beginning.

Cheers,
Matt

[shiny beast]

I,ve usualy got it going through quite slowly. As you mentioned, the outlet is too hot to touch at the start. Can't think where i'm going wrong.