Stirring Whilst Using Wort Chiller

[suttonbrewer]

I have now done half a dozen or so successfull all grain brews after moving from kits but have a question about chilling the wort.
I am using a copper coil wort chiller and I stir the wort whilst chilling to help even out the temperature drop, but in doing so the nice clear wort is going cloudy again because the clumped break material is being stirred up.
Will the chiller work o.k. if the wort is just left alone and not stirred?

[Totem]

It will work, just wont as quick. Why dont you stir for the first part then leave it to settle out for about 20 mins after.

[keith1664]

It won't be as efficient if you don't stir and your wort will soon clear once you've finished.

[guypettigrew]

Stirring is OK!

It should cool the wort from boiling to about 25C in not much more than 10 minutes.

Once it's cooled, leave the wort for 30 minutes or so before running it off. This allows the hops to settle and most of the trub to settle with them. Your hop filter will then give you nice clear wort ready for fermenting.

Guy

[fego]

+1

[Eric]

Water is a bad conductor of heat and beer little better. Remember the experiment at school? An ice cube wrapped in wire sunk in water in a test-tube, with a bunsen burner heating the top level of water until it boiled while the ice remained intact?
Consider moving the cooling coil slowly around the boiler to minimise disturbance then allow time to settle before recirculating the first runnings using a sterilised jug.

[vacant]

Consider moving the cooling coil slowly around the boiler

Yes, I find moving the coil is more effective than stirring. I believe the reason is that stirring won't disturb the wort inside the coil much so the cooling efficiency goes down. Just lifting the coil slowly up and down is enough. You can feel the temp of the outlet pipe to see what works best.

Having said that, I just left yesterday's brew to cool overnight. First time I tried that.

[fego]

I stir inside the coil as well as around it.

Works well for me.

[guypettigrew]

I stir outside the coil, and also lift it up and down occasionally.

My coil can't move round the boiler, as the copper pipes leading from it are bent into an inverted "U" shape to hook over the side of the boiler. So I stir for a bit, then lift the coil up and down a couple of times, then stir again. Drops the temperature really quickly!

Guy

[crookedeyeboy]

Stirring is not good if you are using copper finings as its a waste of time putting them in.
If you stir you are breaking up the flocs created by the carageenan, this will also reduce the effectiveness of the filtering action created by the flocs sitting on the bed of hops as the boiler drains.

[Skittlebrau]

Are you sure? I used nearly a whole protofloc tablet on my first brew and got giant flocs, which seemed just as giant every time I stirred them back up again...

[crookedeyeboy]

Large flocs doesnt always mean the best flocs. If your making 23-25lts try dropping the addition down to about 1g and have a look at the change in size of flocs. I used to use a whole tablet and the result was awful as the flocs were so large it was like a huge cloud of protein that went straight through the hops and filter and into the FV.

[Skittlebrau]

I'm not saying large flocs are good, I reduced to a quarter tablet for the second brew. I just meant to question your point about stirring breaking up the flocs.

[Dave S]

I don't bother stirring or moving the chiller, either round the FV or up and down and my wort cools to around 20 C in about 30 mins, and I'm fine with that.

[suttonbrewer]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I will take all the advice on board.