Counterflow chillers - are they worth it?

[Ashman]

Ok. I currently use an immersion chiller with a split coil of 2x5m 10mm od copper. It works well but in lockdown I thought maybe I should build a counterflow chiller.

The reason is partly if I’m honest because I read recently that a 15mm tee compression is likely to have the compression ends attached on 1/2 inch bspp threads. I’ve never tested this but I think it would make building a counterflow chiller easier (atleast for me). I would get a 15mm compression tee and make one compression end 15mm to 10mm reducer, add a garden connector on one end of the tea for water in (water out on the other) and then put a female 1/2 x 15mm Barb on the other end while feeding the 10mm od copper pipe through the barb. Then not too sure what I’d use for the outer hose but would be on the barb. Should be able to build it all from local screwfix, toolstation ?

So is the counterflow chiller worth it? (Does the time saving pay for itself) I watched a few YouTube videos an opinion seems divided. The water usage also looked immense!

Edit: discard my build idea too if the 15mm tee idea will not work!

 

[fury_tea]

I just bought a 15mm compression fitting with a washing machine thread on, which is pretty much the exact same thread as an outside tap, which if I'm not wrong is 3/4" BSP, if that helps?

IF YOU NEED 1/2" fittings I'm sure you can find those easily in screwfix or failing that eBay

I've given up on cooling in place of no chill. You have to wait a bit longer before you pitch your yeast but it is loads quicker and saves about 30 mins to an hour on brew day, A 20L Jerry can is about 8 quid.

I've heard no cold break can.affect clarity but my beers end up clear as day, I've seen no quality drop in finished product at all.

 

[LeeH]

Well that depends on how much your time is worth I guess!

They can be quicker, but some immersions are quicker than some counter-flows. Also you can argue that counter-flows are more difficult to clean as you can throw an immersion in the dish washer.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Immersion chillers are great up to about 50 litres as long as you can be bothered to jiggle them around while chilling - the moment they or the wort stop moving the chilling efficiency drops off massively. If you have an IC with multiple parallel flows (see the Hydra) then they work even better. But they are easiest to sanitise and clean and don’t need pumps for either.

I think that counterflow or plate chillers become a requirement at larger volumes where immersion chillers aren't practical. At 50 litres or less they make sense more if you want a hands off approach, and plan to circulate lots of cleaning product through them with a pump.

 

[itry]

my next job is to invent some thing to deal with this problem. wasting the water just dosnt sit well for me. my idea is a coil in a vessel of chilled water. then the hot beer will pass through the coil.
Currently at the moment i was able to use my GF counterflow chiller and 70l of tap water (10 degrees ish) to drop a 20l batch using the vessel water to pump through the chiller.

 

[GeorgieV]

my next job is to invent some thing to deal with this problem. wasting the water just dosnt sit well for me. my idea is a coil in a vessel of chilled water. then the hot beer will pass through the coil.
Currently at the moment i was able to use my GF counterflow chiller and 70l of tap water (10 degrees ish) to drop a 20l batch using the vessel water to pump through the chiller.

I don't think you need another coil. You can just recirculate the cooling water from a water drum through your counter flow chiller and back to the drum ( or water butt as they call them around here) with a pump. I recon 200 L water butt at 10 C should be plenty to chill your wort to 20 C. Note, it will be slower than the direct tap water cooling because of the decreased delta T towards the end.
BTW, same works with an immersion chiller.

 

[Ashman]

I don't think you need another coil. You can just recirculate the cooling water from a water drum through your counter flow chiller and back to the drum ( or water butt as they call them around here) with a pump. I recon 200 L water butt at 10 C should be plenty to chill your wort to 20 C. Note, it will be slower than the direct tap water cooling because of the decreased delta T towards the end.
BTW, same works with an immersion chiller.

Wow 200 litres. Is that what the maths comes out as ?

 

[Justin Dean]

Counter flow chillers are easy to clean just pump vwp through, rinse. Sanatise with boiling wort for 15mins

 

[private4587]

I just bought a 15mm compression fitting with a washing machine thread on, which is pretty much the exact same thread as an outside tap, which if I'm not wrong is 3/4" BSP, if that helps?

IF YOU NEED 1/2" fittings I'm sure you can find those easily in screwfix or failing that eBay

I've given up on cooling in place of no chill. You have to wait a bit longer before you pitch your yeast but it is loads quicker and saves about 30 mins to an hour on brew day, A 20L Jerry can is about 8 quid.

I've heard no cold break can.affect clarity but my beers end up clear as day, I've seen no quality drop in finished product at all.

Could I ask you did about your hop additions if anything. I read various accounts were some people alter them by 20mins and others do nothing

 

[Manxnorton]

Funny enough pal.
After years of 'Cubing' my beers and fanny on next day, i bit the bullet again and 'de-dusted' my old Grainfather Counterflow chiller and refurb'd it.
In my old 3 tier setup i was able to use my taps n hoses and got an copper chiller.

If you dont have a GF and an other setup.....maybe research putting the wort into cubes (once temp is sorted to do so)
Out of interest, (not plugging my Youtube channel) yous find one on mycounterflow chiller, and laterest Brewday that briefy gives you it does anamazingg job.
Grainfather Counterflow Wort Chiller & Grainfather Wortometer



Grainfather All In System 24l Brewday


hope this helps.
Bri

 

[Bill_g]

On a brewery trip round our local Romsey brewery the head brewer spoke about their plate chiller and said that one major advantage was that the wort spends very little time in the region of 30C where certain off flavours can develop very rapidly. He was also very disparaging about home brewing due to this & other factors, so I took it all with a bit of a pinch of salt.
At some point after this I did invest in a plate chiller plus a pump and pensioned off my home made immersion chiller. I guess the plate chiller is a bit faster than the immersion chiller but not dramatically. The use of water is probably similar. The most successful way to clean the plate chiller I've found is to pump through PBW solution after the brew, then flush with clean water. However the most important thing is to run boiling wort through the chiller with no water flow for at least 10 minutes to sanitise it before chilling starts.
Whether it improves the beer quality is very hard to say but overall I find it a preferable chilling method than the immersion chiller, but there's not much in it.

 

[Neil Whittaker]

One thing you might need to keep in mind is the risk of a blocked pump. I've had this a couple of times in my early days and was thankful for a having a Immersion chiller.

 

[GeorgieV]

Wow 200 litres. Is that what the maths comes out as ?

The theoretical minimum is about 160 litres but you need a substantial margin in order to make it actually work.

 

[Bill_g]

One thing you might need to keep in mind is the risk of a blocked pump. I've had this a couple of times in my early days and was thankful for a having a Immersion chiller.

I'd agree with that, it's happened to me too. I found it was a build up of fine hop debris in the pump. I now blow the system out with compressed air after cleaning and haven't had the problem since. Should a blockage occur during cooling the pump could be blown clear.

 

[AdeDunn]

If you are finding your plate chiller isn't cooling significantly faster than an immersion chiller, well you either had an amazing immersion chiller (mine was naff), your wort flow rate through it is too high, or your plate chiller is to small for the volumes you're cooling (or all of the above...).

I have a quite large plate chiller, and the cooling performance on it is bonkers, and compared to my old immersion chiller I'm using a fraction of the water. It's a 100kw, 50 plate chiller though. Different ones perform differently. I love mine, and yeah pumps can block etc, but the pump on my system is external so I can close the valves, whip it open and clean out any blockages with ease. Shouldn't happen that often though using a hop spider (the time it happened to me was the time I was trying to use up some leaf hops I had, if you're going to do this, bag them! Don't put them in a hop spider... lol).

As lots of folks have said, they're really not that much work to care for, unless you mess up in some way.

 

[dcbrookes]

I also have a large plate chiller, and pump the wort from my Brew Monk boiler. I have an Brewzilla false bottom fitted which stops almost anything getting into the pump. I can't stand hop spiders, so if I am using pellets I make sure I have about 50g of leaf hops to provide a filter bed. I buy 5Kg packs of low alpha hops from Barth Haas (formerly Simply Hops) and just dump in enough at the end of the boil (I am currently using Hallertau Blanc, which cost me less than £30 for 5Kg).

I recently bought a Coolossus counterflow chiller but was very disappointed by it. It was hopelessly inefficient compared with the plate chiller, so has been disposed of via Ebay.