efficient wort chillers for kettle with no tap

[kwazulu]

Hi folks, hope this is the right place for this sort of question, apologies if not....

managed to get my first AG done last weekend (NICE!), but don't have a wort chiller yet (Not so nice!) so this step was a bit of a pain. I want to go for the most efficient chiller possible as I am uncomfortable with the amount of water "wasted" while cooling; as such, am thinking about a plate chiller or counterflow chiller. problem is, my kettle doesn't have a tap fixed to it, has anyone got any good workarounds for getting the wort through either of these two devices? suggestions for siphoning? or am I going to have to put a tap on my kettle to use either of these chillers?

appreciate your help.

Gian

 

[graysalchemy]

No you need to fit a tap if you want to use a CFC or plate chiller. :thumb:

 

[Fil]

Even with a syphon you will need at least one tap to close off the suck and divert the syphon thru your chiller solution, and to avoid accidents with off the boil wort i think the tap on pot solution would be the safest and easiest to live with..

How do u decant now? you could decant into a 2nd vessel with a tap and chill from that?

if its a problem cutting a hole, if your local to a brewer already tooled up, it may not be a biggy,, ?


Pipe CFC chillers have proven very efficient, i made one with 10mm ss tubes carrying beer thru a 1" pvc tube water jacket, capable of chilling 23l down in less than 10 mins, copper is even more efficient. the benefit of a straight pipe chiller is the ability to clean and inspect the beer transport easily.

 

[Runwell-Steve]

I think putting a tap in your boiler is the most sensible option.

It would also make getting the wort out of the boiler at the end of the boil a lot easier as well.

The pipe counter flow chillers do seem very efficient, I'm not sure if they are available commercially though so a bit of DIY may be required.

Plate chillers are also very efficient but you need a good filter as you can't let any little bits like hop seeds in as they can get stuck between the plates and go mouldy. Get the biggest plate chiller you can afford for the best efficiency. I have a 125kW chiller and it cools 50 litres in approx 10 minutes with a steady flow of tap water.

 

[kwazulu]

No you need to fit a tap if you want to use a CFC or plate chiller

Even with a syphon you will need at least one tap to close off the suck and divert the syphon thru your chiller solution, and to avoid accidents with off the boil wort i think the tap on pot solution would be the safest and easiest to live with..

Rats! I suspected as much.

How do u decant now? you could decant into a 2nd vessel with a tap and chill from that?

I ended up having to start off with a sanitised jug through a sieve, then pour once I could easily handle the pot and pour. A second vessel with a tap is certainly an option, I have a spare fermenter I have considered putting a tap on. I'll mull that one over a bit more now.

Pipe CFC chillers have proven very efficient, i made one with 10mm ss tubes carrying beer thru a 1" pvc tube water jacket, capable of chilling 23l down in less than 10 mins, copper is even more efficient. the benefit of a straight pipe chiller is the ability to clean and inspect the beer transport easily.

Thanks. Ill see if I can find some instructions on how-to make one.

 

[kwazulu]

my major concerns with putting a tap on my kettle are 1) doing it properly, and 2) keeping the tap clean. I am still considering the 2nd vessel with a tap, but I am probably leaning more towards fitting a tap on the kettle if I'm honest.

If there is anyone near Oxford who is tooled up and wouldn't mind giving me a hand with the drilling the hole, I would be really grateful and would arrive with beer. :

thanks all

 

[Fil]

HA! ox4 close enough .. pm me..

 

[djcorbetto]

What pot are you using as a boiler?

 

[kwazulu]

What pot are you using as a boiler?

33l stainless from Bergland Handels GmbH

 

[TheRtHonorable]

My immersion chiller takes 23litres of wort from boiling to 30C in about seven minutes. It runs water though a manifold into three 4" diameter coils of 8mm copper pipe, with each coil being about 20cm tall... That's 8 metres of pipe per coil. It's a DIY job though and is considerably harder to make than the hole you'd need for a tap. That said, I think it's great!

 

[Fil]

My immersion chiller takes 23litres of wort from boiling to 30C in about seven minutes. It runs water though a manifold into three 4" diameter coils of 8mm copper pipe, with each coil being about 20cm tall... That's 8 metres of pipe per coil. It's a DIY job though and is considerably harder to make than the hole you'd need for a tap. That said, I think it's great!

Very impressive for an IC.. sounds like an optimum design.

 

[kwazulu]

+1 for what Fil said. :thumb:

 

[TheRtHonorable]

Yeah I'm very pleased with it... I think I've got enough posts now to stick a picture up...



I know it looks really over the top, but I'm handy with a blowtorch and I don't want to make it twice! Hoping it'd still work well if I scaled up to bigger brews.

 

[morethanworts]

Yeah I'm very pleased with it... I think I've got enough posts now to stick a picture up...



I know it looks really over the top, but I'm handy with a blowtorch and I don't want to make it twice! Hoping it'd still work well if I scaled up to bigger brews.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Bloomin' 'eck!

Are you the bloke who designed Spaghetti Juntion?

 

[kwazulu]

whoa! :shock: have to admit, am suffering from a slight case of DIY envy. nice job! :thumb:

 

[Vossy1]

I see your tripple IC and I raise you for a quad :twisted:

 

[TheRtHonorable]

Are you the bloke who designed Spaghetti Juntion?

Haha! No, I do drive through it quite often though so maybe thats where I got the idea...

In fact, I got the idea after seeing Vossy's while searching for efficient IC coolers. There was another guy on one of the forums who made one with four coils in a similar arrangement to mine, but that would have cost more and possibly been too big for my 50l pot.

Anyway, I didnt mean to take over the thread, just wanted to show another way of doing things. My chiller cost me about £50 in materials which is a lot for an IC, but a lot cheaper than a plate chiller, and easier to clean...

 

[evanvine]

I see your tripple IC and I raise you for a quad :twisted:

All the wonderful kit, but NO brews! :whistle:

 

[sometime]

hi guys great looking chillers...im just getting the kit together for my BIAB set up i've got a 70l pot and i'm a bit scared of making the tap hole :? ,i have a newbie question -when the wort is chilled can the yeast be pitched in the kettle & lid on let it do its thing in there..is that silly or not ....cheers

 

[graysalchemy]

You are best transferring it off the tub and into a clean FV. :thumb: