Imerssion chillers vs other types

[jambop]

I was watching a youtube video yesterday where the brewer was slating imerssion chillers andsaying he finds his plate or counterflow chillers to be far better for cooling the wort. I use imerssion chillers and find them to be really quite effective at cooling my wort. I have three chiller and can use two of them at one time depending on which kettle isused. I also use a grainfather wort stirring paddle when I chill and find that my wort is cooled to pitching temp in about 15 mins even less in winter. I am going to stick with my coolers I think they do a good job and the first load of hot water leaving the chillers is use for cleaning up at the end of the brew day. The down side to this method is I have to let the wort stand for about 45mins to let the trub settle before I transfer the upside is the wort has plenty of oxygen to start the yeast off. What type of chillers do others use and what would you say are the pros and cons of your choice.
edit
One the point about letting the trub settle something I always do. I read an brewing article done by a brewer at Grainfather where he made two identical brews. One brew he tried his hardest to make sure the trub in the boil kettle stayed there when transferring to the fermenter and with the other he deliberately transferred all of the kettle contents to the fermenter. When the beers were ready he did a blind testing session with half a dozen experienced beer drinkers and ALL of the testers preferred the beer from the trubby frementation. All of the testers said the beers had a much more clean crisp hoppy flavour... make you think?

 

[MashBag]

A bigger copper chiller is the runaway winner. Its all about surface area. Boiling to pitch in 6-8mins.

Google "Jaded brewing"

Better still is the zero input chiller.

 

[DuncR]

I like the efficiency of my counter flow chiller but I always feel it’s an act of faith that I have cleaned, sterilised and rinsed sufficiently after use and rely on running through with boiling wort before chilling as an insurance policy.

 

[Sadfield]

Copper immersion chiller, here. I find trub drops quickly once 19°C is reached. Fine tuning kettle fining additions for your own setup helps greatly.

This might explain the results in the experiment.

https://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/1986/Abstracts/tq86ab10.htm
Also the reason why open fermentation, in shallow FV's is still practiced. Less CO2 in solution and a healthier fermentation, than in conicals.

 

[jambop]

A bigger copper chiller is the runaway winner. Its all about surface area. Boiling to pitch in 6-8mins.

Google "Jaded brewing"

Better still is the zero input chiller.

Interesting that is like me using my two chiller set up. At the moment for example I would put my chillers in 20 min before flame out and then after my final hops were finshed it take about 10 mins to get to 20C, in the summer though ground water here can be 20 + C so it takes about 15 mins to get to 26 ish I have to put it in the brew fridge for 2 hrs longer before pitching.

 

[jambop]

Copper immersion chiller, here. I find trub drops quickly once 19°C is reached. Fine tuning kettle fining additions for your own setup helps greatly.

This might explain the results in the experiment.

https://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/1986/Abstracts/tq86ab10.htm
Also the reason why open fermentation, in shallow FV's is still practiced. Less CO2 in solution and a healthier fermentation, than in conicals.

I am seriously tempted to try this out. I use conical fermenters though but the trub would eventually settle at the bottom and I could bottle the clear beer off the top of that. I do not fine my beer but I find that irish moss to be a help ... I do not know if that is why my beer is clear though. I also boil for 90 mins

 

[Agentgonzo]

You'll always be able to find youtube videos and forum posts where people rant about one thing or another. Take them all with a pinch of salt.

Immersion chillers are easier to make than CFC/plate chillers, hence can be made 'bigger' (ie, more surface area as Mashbag says) easier/cheaper. That's why Jaded can make such quick chillers - they contain way more surface area than CFC/plate chillers. Plate chillers are more efficient when measured by surface area and use less water to drop the wort by the same temperature drop.

CFC/Plate chillers also have the advantage that you can chill the wort whilst transferring it into your fermenter, making it 'simpler' to use. YMMV.

If any of them 'didn't work', then no-one would use them. Plate/counterflow/immersion chillers are common, hence they all work. Pick your favourite

 

[MashBag]

Imo conicals are a fashionable item, not necessary one.

Irish moss is a fining. Your beer is clear, 'cos you are doing an the right things (except conical but we can forgive that )

 

[MashBag]

You'll always be able to find youtube videos and forum posts where people rant about one thing or another. Take them all with a pinch of salt.

So well put.

 

[jambop]

Imo conicals are a fashionable item, not necessary one.

Irish moss is a fining. Your beer is clear, 'cos you are doing an the right things (except conical but we can forgive that )

Yes so many things in brewing are fashion. I call brewing gear new HiFi With regard to the Irish moss yes but I never regard my beer made until after it is fermented so I don't fine my beer

 

[Agentgonzo]

Imo conicals are a fashionable item, not necessary one.

Absolutely. The benefit of conicals is that you can dump the trub (which you shouldn't need to do anyway if you transfer properly) or dump yeast during fermentation (which you shouldn't need to do at all) or harvest yeast to pitch into another batch (OK, this may be of use to some people, but very very few homebrewers do this because we don't brew frequently enough/in parallel to use this).

I will confess I have a stainless steel conical fermenter. It's absolutely not necessary and I brewed just-as-excellent beer with my old plastic setup. But stainless is easier to work with/clean and the dump valve at the bottom of the cone makes it much easier to clean. Plus I wanted it. Ferrari's aren't 'necessary' but people 'want' them .

As for the multiple-thousand-dollar homebrew pressure-fermenting-conical-fermenters... wow.

 

[The Baron]

"You'll always be able to find youtube videos and forum posts where people rant about one thing or another. Take them all with a pinch of salt."

This is so true usually the people with more money than sense so have to slag other users of different systems to justify the cost.
Then there are the true reviewers who will give you a balanced opinion so that you can evaluate if the extra cost is worth it for you.
So easy to slag off we are all brewers and not one of us has the same opinion on equipment we use or methods of brewing - what suits one does not suit another

 

[Clint]

I made an immersion coil out of a copper tube from Wickes,bending it round a 6" cardboard tube. It's ugly as sin and leaks a bit on the connections but they hang outside the kettle so not bothered.
This time of year when the tap water is very cold it works very well. During the warmer part of the year 30c is realistic then I put the fv in thd brew fridge to finish off.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Early on I had an expensive, hefty plate chiller. Hated it.

Never knew whether it was clean inside, even after pushing cleaner and sanitiser back and forth through it for ages. There's just too many narrow channels for stuff to get stuck in.

Bought a second hand copper immersion chiller off a forum for £5 and three brews later I sold the plate chiller. Eventually after a few years I switched to a steel immersion chiller as I was always a bit wary that my copper chiller would go in to the wort dull and come out shiny (I know where the oxide layer went). The steel chiller chilled even faster as it was a better geometry for the kettle.

The key thing is keeping the wort moving over the coils. If you do that then it'll cool in minutes. If you let it sit still then you might be waiting 45 minutes to chill.

If I had a bigger system I'd consider a counter flow chiller, as at least there's little chance of stuff getting stuck in one, making it much easier to clean.

 

[Sadfield]

Imo conicals are a fashionable item, not necessary one.

Depends what you are brewing. It's about picking the most appropriate tool for the end result.

If I was mostly brewing ultra modern, hop forward American styles, I'd have one. For most European styles that lean heavily on esters, they're the last thing I'd use. It's not what most European yeasts have selectively evolved to ferment in.

 

[Twostage]

Interesting about double chillers. I'd spotted that my existing chiller would fit inside the one I got with the BZ and I'd toyed with the idea of either daisy chaining them (out from one and into the other) or rig up some fittings so they ran in parallel. Might try daisy chaining first.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Daisy chaining will be more efficient in terms of water use. Parallel will cool faster but use more water

 

[Twostage]

Daisy chaining will be more efficient in terms of water use. Parallel with cool faster but use more water

That's what I'd thought. The water is so cold at the moment I think daisy chaining will be quite effective.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I chilled my brew today in 15 minutes ss coil chiller, as Clint said in summer it's in the fridge

 

[Clint]

I think the chap in charge of Keg That,who used to be on here,will make you a custom immersion chiller.