This file is a collection of articles concerning wort chillers

from the Homebrew Digest from May through August of 1992.  Thanks

to Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu> for assembling and

contributing this file.



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HOMEBREW Digest #884		             Tue 19 May 1992 

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Date: 18 May 92 13:00:03 U 

From: "Rad Equipment" <rad_equipment@rad-mac1.ucsf.EDU> 

Subject: Water use 

 

Subject:  Water use                             Time:8:21 AM     Date:5/18/92 

Darren Asks: 

 

>Sparge water amount: 

> 

>I'm planning a brew using 15lbs of pale malt.  Using 1 qt/lb of grain, 

>I'll be using 4 gallons of water in the mash. Do I still sparge with 

>5 gallons?  Less?  More? 

 

First, 4 gallons is not 1:1 for 15 lbs of grain, so perhaps you didn't tell us 

the whole story. 

 

I use the same water to grain ratio (1:1) and I find that about 25% of my 

strike water is lost to absorption in the mash. I sparge with the intent of 

collecting between one and two gallons in excess of my final batch size. So in 

this case (assuming your 4 gallon figure is accurate) you'll get 3 gallons out 

of the mash without sparge. If you want 10 gallons after the boil you'll need 

to collect 11, or sparge with 8. For smaller batches just work it out. 

 

I can also calculate it as a 10% loss of water over the total water used in the 

mash and sparge, but I suspect this is tied to batch size. For example, this 

weekend I brewed a batch using 20 lbs of grain. I put a total of 13.5 gallons 

of water through the grains and collected a little more than 12 gallons (by 

running the grains "dry") for the kettle. This I boiled down to 10.5 gallons. I 

got a yield of 31.5. 

 

In a related area: 

 

I did some rough calculations while I was waiting for the boil to finish. I 

figured I use about 70 gallons of water to make and serve 10 gallons of beer.  

That means when I brew I exceed my daily allotment (that's for San Francisco). 

I use a lot of boiling water to clean my kegs, stainless fermentor and wort 

chiller. I try to recycle as much water as I can by cleaning the equipment with 

the hot stuff and rinsing with left over coolant water from my chiller. 

 

I'm curious as to the water consumption that the  rest of you experience. 

 

RW... 

 

      Russ Wigglesworth              CI$:      72300,61 

|~~|  UCSF Medical Center            Internet: Rad Equipment@RadMac1.ucsf.edu 

|HB|\ Dept. of Radiology, Rm. C-324  Voice:    415-476-3668 / 474-8126 (H) 

|__|/ San Francisco, CA 94143-0628 

 



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HOMEBREW Digest #891		             Fri 29 May 1992 

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Date: Thu, 28 May 92 22:09:40 MDT 

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) 

Subject: Wort Chiller Lengths 

 

 

In response to the query about wort chiller lengths, I decided 

to work out an answer (my specialty is thermal hydraulics). It 

is rather more complicated than one might think. In fact, my 

entire response is about 200 lines long! I'm thinking about 

submitting it to Zymurgy (does anyone have any experience with 

submitting articles that they would like to share?).  

 

Anyway, since it is so long, and since I may submit it for  

publication, I have decided not to post it right now. I will  

probably post it eventually. If anyone would really like to  

see it now and will promise to me that they won't usurp my 

rights to it, I will send it by email. 

 

Dr. Michael L. Hall 

hall@lanl.gov 

 

 

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HOMEBREW Digest #895		             Thu 04 June 1992 

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Date: Wed, 3 Jun 92 21:54 CDT 

From: fjdobner@ihlpb.att.com 

Subject: Wort Chillers 

 

Some practical questions about using immersion-type wort chillers: 

 

1. How does one go about cleaning a wort chiller? When I say clean 

I mean making sure that any solid or liquid foreign matter are removed 

from the inside of the coils? Initially, I am concerned because I have 

new equipment (1/2" copper coils and hose) and want to get rid of any 

possible mnufacturing debris or oil present.  

Would you really want to use detergent 

(for the same reasons as not using detergent for beer glasses)? If 

not, what? 

 

2. As far as cleaning on an ongoing basis, would you just do the same 

thing as recommended for 1) or a reduced instruction set. 

 

There is no thrill greated than making beer from new equipment and drinking it. 

I almost underwent a full collapse of both lungs standing in my basement 

and sucking through 15feet of vinyl hose and 35 feet of copper coil 

from a pot of boiling water in the kitchen above. I have improved the 

siphon process (luckily on a trial run with no real batch at stake) 

and gave my wife a good belly laugh all at the same time. Up until that 

my only experience of siphoning was from gas tanks and from primary and 

secondary fermentation vessels with a meek 4 or 5 feet of hose. The 

key with these larger scale siphoning jobs is to ensure that the hose 

has no air pockets of significant size. I would have not relaxed, and worried 

plenty had this been a full production batch.   

 

Frank Dobner 

 



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HOMEBREW Digest #896		             Fri 05 June 1992 

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Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1992 09:00 PDT 

From: BOB JONES <BJONES%NOVAX@NOVA.llnl.gov> 

Subject: Immersion chillers and long siphons 

 

In response to Frank Dobner questions : 

 

Twice this month I have heard similar concern about cleaning the inside of 

an immersion cooler. After further questioning, I discovered that some brewers 

wrongly think you should place the cooler in a bucket of ice water and flow 

the hot work through the inside of the cooler. Listen up brewers, you immerse 

the cooler IN the hot wort and run the cool city water through the INSIDE of 

the cooler. That way you don't need to worry (assumming any of REALLY worry) 

about cleaning the cooler. I ask the first person who was doing this if he had 

a hard time connecting up to the 3/4 inch hose fiitings and he said. yeah. I 

ask if he stopped to think about why there were garden hose fitting on the 

cooler to start with? He had no comment, just this pie in the face look. 

  On you other problem, Frank, of long siphoning. Why don't you just start 

the siphon close to the brew pot, through a short piece of hose. Then just 

connect that hose to the long hose that leads to the basement or wherever. 

Gravity will do the rest of the work for you. Also you should be cooling with 

your immersion cooler in your brew pot BEFORE you transfer to your fermentation 

vessel to avoid hot side aereation problems. 

 

Milwaukee dreamin, 

 

Bob Jones 

 

 



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HOMEBREW Digest #897		             Mon 08 June 1992 

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Date: Fri, 5 Jun 92 11:29:53 EDT 

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West) 

Subject: What goes through an imersion chiller?  

 

Bob Jones says: 

>...some brewers 

>wrongly think you should place the cooler in a bucket of ice water and flow 

>the hot work (sic) through the inside of the cooler. Listen up brewers... 

 

Bob, ease up, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It has its 

advantages and its disadvantages just as any other method. I depends on 

what you want/need to do. 

 

Advantages: 

 - the wort is cooled very quickly like in a counterflow cooler, giving 

   a good cold break. 

 - it's a sure thing that the wort is not exposed to infection during 

   its most vulnerable time ( 170F < wort > 70F ) 

 - the materials are mostly easy to get (a pot, ice, a coil of copper 

   tubing) and there's not alot of permanent`construction' to be done 

 

Disadvantages: 

 - you need to concern yourself with the cleanliness of the inside of 

   the tubing 

 - you have to jockey yet another pot of water 

 - you have to come up with an intake tube that will stand up to boiling 

   wort 

 - you have to figure out how to plumb the whole thing together 

 

 

Carl 

 

When I stop learning, bury me. 

 

 





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HOMEBREW Digest #898		             Tue 09 June 1992 

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Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 13:55 CDT 

From: korz@iepubj.att.com 

Subject: Re: immersion chillers/Wyeast lag time 

 

Carl writes (regarding the "coil-in-icewater" chillers): 

> 

>It has its 

>advantages and its disadvantages just as any other method. I depends on 

>what you want/need to do. 

> 

>Advantages: 

> - the wort is cooled very quickly like in a counterflow cooler, giving 

>   a good cold break. 

> - it's a sure thing that the wort is not exposed to infection during 

>   its most vulnerable time ( 170F < wort > 70F ) 

> - the materials are mostly easy to get (a pot, ice, a coil of copper 

>   tubing) and there's not alot of permanent`construction' to be done 

 

Also: 

 - uses a lot less water than either an immersion chiller or a traditional 

   counterflow (some use a closed loop with icewater on the chiller side) 

   -- very important in drought-stricken areas! 

> 

>Disadvantages: 

> - you need to concern yourself with the cleanliness of the inside of 

>   the tubing 

> - you have to jockey yet another pot of water 

> - you have to come up with an intake tube that will stand up to boiling 

>   wort 

> - you have to figure out how to plumb the whole thing together 

 

Also: 

 - the cold break ends up in the collection vessel -- you need to siphon 

   off the trub again, this time at 70F (increased risk of infection) 

> 

> 

>Carl 

> 

 

I'd also like to point out that it's the head (the weight of the column 

of liquid above the level of the source vessel of the siphon system) and 

the 50 feet of tubing that make starting the siphon so difficult not the 

10 feet of hose running down to Frank's basement.  Starting the siphon in 

the kitchen with a short length of hose would not help much.  What would 

help is lowering the chiller.  How about putting the chiler in the 

basement?  Once you see the wort in the tubing, you can let gravity 

fill the chiller.  I suggest PE tubing for the hot side -- it stands up 

to heat *much* better than the clear tubing. 





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HOMEBREW Digest #904		             Wed 17 June 1992 

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Date: 16 Jun 92 22:06:40 EST 

From: Ruth Mazo Karras <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> 

Subject: Technique; Chillers; Kegs 

 

Thanks to all who responded to my post on brewing technique and 

suggestions for improvement.  The leading suggestions were to use a wort 

chiller rather than the block of ice made from brewing water.  This change 

would allow a full boil (with its better hop utilization)--more on this 

later. 

 

Although several respondents recognized the difference of views 

expressed in this forum from time to time, the consensus was that a plastic 

primary fermenter was fine.  I do rack to a glass secondary and that won 

approval.  No one thought that using oxygen to aerate the wort prior to 

pitching was sufficient bang for the bucks and a one liter starter was thought 

to be little better than the 750 ml starter I now use (although I suspect 

that I should be giving the starter more time to get to high krausen). 

 

At least two repsondents thought that keggin WOULD improve the brew, 

providing better conditioning.  Several more agreed that it would make 

brewing easier.  More on this later, too. 

 

And of course just about everyone noted the benefits of going to all 

grain.  If I can collect the additional materials, I plan to give that a 

first go this weekend in celebration of Father's Day (but my daughter has 

opted to feed my computer hobby so no wort chiller there).  Finally, one 

respondent noted the inadvisability of doing more than a 60 minute boil for 

extracts, something I now recall seeing here some time ago but had not 

remembered. 

 

Wort Chillers.  OK, I am ready to take the step.  The immersion 

variety seems more practical from a sanitation standpoint.  I like the idea 

of keeping it clean, but sterilizing it just before use by inserting it into 

the boil for a few minutes before turning the water on.  The most detailed 

description I have found here of making an immersion wort chiller was by 

Patrick Volkerding (volkeri@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu) on 3/26/92.  He used 25 

feet of 3/8 inch outside diameter (O.D.) copper tubing with compression fitting 

s to 

connected to a garden hose.  His tips included using a snap-connect fitting for 

easy connections.  Washing machine hoses can be used for connections.  The 

plumbing supply stores I talked to today say that the 3/8 inch O.D. tubing 

has a 1/4 inch inside diameter, and comes in two varieties, the one that I 

would want for easy bending being the soft variety.  $1.05 per foot in 

Philadelphia.  Patrick used 25 feet--should I use the same? 

 

Kegs.  My wife brought back form England a couple of weeks ago a copy of 

_Home Brewing--The CAMRA Guide_ by Graham Wheeler (Alma Books, Ltd. 1990). 

It is a 172 page cross between the books by Miller and Papazian, but with an 

English bent that I found really useful (for example, I just never 

understood before that copper finings were fining agents added to the 

brewpot, which is called a copper in England due to its historical 

construction material).  As the book describes all grain only, I have 

certainly not digested it, but I am intrigued by the plastic barrels used in 

England for kegging.  They have a tap set into them and can take a carbon 

dioxide charger to protect against oxidization.  Can anyone compare 

them to the soda kegs used by many homebrewers here? 

 

Thanks again for the help of this Digest.  Next year I hope even to 

go to Portland! 

 

Chris Karras  (RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.edu) 

 





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HOMEBREW Digest #905		             Thu 18 June 1992 

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Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1992 08:22:43 -0800 

From: sami@scic.intel.com 

Subject: Homemade Wort Chiller 

 

In answer to Chris, we made a wort chiller following the directions from an 

article published in Zymurgy that we heard about in the Beer and Wine forum 

on Compuserve. A rough summary of that article is as follows: 

 

Go down to your friendly home handy-man supply center and buy the 

following:15 to 20 feet of 3/8" o.d. coiled copper refridgerator tubing. 

($20), 2- 3/4" pipe clamps ($.75 ea.), 1- 1/2" i.d. garden hose (50ft was 

the shortest I could get, $8), and I'll assume you have 3/8" i.d. plastic 

hose already. If not, you'll need about 2 inches of the stuff. Now, take 

the 3/8" copper pipe and start to carefully bend it. Make a J type bend, 

much like a racking tube, at one end. This will hook on to the side of your 

boiling kettle. Then allow a straight length to any depth you might desire 

(mine's about a foot). Then start to coil the pipe to fit inside a 5 gallon 

pot. You can customize the size to your situation. After coiling, leave 

enough pipe left to come back up to match the first J bend. Be careful 

thoughout not to kink the pipe! When you are done, you should have 

something that looks like the guts of a commercially available wort 

chiller. The J type bends at the two ends allows it to hook on to the side 

of a pot or bucket and keep the hard to sanitize garden hose completely out 

of any possible contact with the wort. Now decide how much garden hose you 

want on the end. I used 10 ft.Measure from the female fitting end and then 

cut the hose there. Now take about and inch of 3/8" i.d. tubing and shove 

it on to one of the ends of the copper pipe. This will act as a spacer to 

interface with the garden hose. Now slide a hose clamp onto the hose and 

then put the cut end of the hose over the 3/8" plastic hose spacer. The 

1/2" i.d. garden hose should fit perfectly over the 3/8" plastic tubing on 

the copper pipe. Simply tighten the hose clamp on the joint. Now cut 

another 10 feet of hose and repeat on the discharge side of the wort 

chiller. Voila you have a wort chiller. Now if you want, buy a new female 

fitting for the 30 ft hose you have left over (about $1.50) and you also 

have a perfectly good 30 foot garden hose! The female hose fitting works on 

my kitchen sink. This contraption will bring 5 gallons of wort to pitching 

temperature in about 20 min. The chiller is very easy to make (took me 

about 20 min.).  

Sam Israelit 

Engineer, Businessman, . . . Brewer 

Portland, OR 

 

 

------------------------------ 





 

Date: Wed, 17 Jun 92 17:37:48 -0400 

From: djt2@po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton) 

Subject: Copper tubing lengths 

 

 

Chris... here's a data point on the immersion chiller. 

 

I made one recently with 16 feet of 1/4 copper tube (that's the longest  

piece they had in  stock).  There are probably 14 feet in the wort. 

 

This will chill a 6 gallon boil to pitching temp (probably 80 degrees;  

I have been loath to put in a thermometer) in 25 minutes. 

 

The water flow rate is about a gallon a minute; even at this low flow the  

water coming out is pretty cool.  It warms considerably if you move the  

tubing or swirl the pot.  I get the idea that the liquid immediately around 

the tube is chilled quickly and that the limiting factor is mixing. 

 

Were I to do it again, I'd use 25-30 feet of 1/4 inch, and I think the chill 

time would be closer to 15 minutes.  I don't see the advantage of 3/8 inch 

tubing since the effluent is not fully warmed.  I think maximizing surface 

area (small tubing) is more important than total flow (large tubing).  

 

good luck, 

 

dennis 

 





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HOMEBREW Digest #907		             Mon 22 June 1992 

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Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1992 09:00 EDT 

From: KIERAN O'CONNOR <OCONNOR%SNYCORVA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> 

Subject: Wort Chillers and Kegs 

 

Regarding wort chillers.  I'm a high school teacher and I paid (with 

Brew) our district plumber to make mine.  I bought 50 feet of copper 

tubing @ 37$.  I also bought all the fittings as decribed in Tuesday's 

HBD.  Two thoughts: 

 

1) Becuase I have more tubing, mine cools a lot faster.  I can get 

wort from 212 to 50 degrees in 18 minutes. Thats a little faster than 

what I have read. 

 

2) I have these quick connect garden hose connections (bought from my 

friend Dwight's suggestion).  You hook then to the hoses and to the 

chiller.  Then you dont have to worry about twisting the hoses to 

connect them to the chiller and to the faucet.  I would get the brass 

ones, they are more expensive, but i would figure more durable too. 

 

3) You might think aobut a cvounter flow chiller.  It is better in 

that you chill parts of the wort to 50 degrees or whatever, and the 

rest of the mass is at 200 degrees, prenting infections. However you 

have to deal with filters, and sterilization etc. 

 

On Kegs: 

 

1) Go to a restaurant and see if they will sell them to you for a 

meager price.  Dwight went to a local joint and they would be happy to 

part w/em for 10$/keg.  You may be able to do better/worse, but its 

cheaper than new ones. 

 

Kieran O'Connor 

 

oconnor@snycorva.bitnet 

 





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HOMEBREW Digest #908		             Tue 23 June 1992 

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Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:45 EDT 

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> 

Subject: Sterilizing counter-flow chillers 

 

 

 

>:Wort Chillers.  OK, I am ready to take the step.  The immersion 

>variety seems more practical from a sanitation standpoint.  I like the idea 

>of keeping it clean, but sterilizing it just before use by inserting it into 

>the boil for a few minutes before turning the water on.   

 

Oh, well.  Thought I'd do my part to dispel the ever-present notion  

that counter-flow chillers are impractical or difficult to keep sterile.   

 

When I finish using my counter flow chiller, I drain the chiller body  

of water and siphon boiling hot water through the coils to cut the  

malt sugars.  I then follow with some of my clorox sterilant solution  

and let it sit for about 30 minutes.  Drain and store. 

 

Before using the chiller for the next brewing session, I fill it with  

sterilant again and let it sit for 30 minutes.  As if this isn't  

enough, before I actually start chilling the wort, I siphon the  

boiling hot wort through the copper coils until the wort runs boiling  

hot out the bottom.  (If boiling hot wort is good enough to sterilize  

immersion chillers, it's good enough to sterilize the counter-flow  

chillers or else I'm missing something.)  I then fill the chiller body  

with water, return the collected wort back to the boiler and proceed  

with the chilling procedure.  I've used counter flow chillers for  

eight years and have never had problems with contamination.  

 

Add to this the fact that copper is used to sterilize swimming pools  

because it has anti-bacterial properties (or so I'm told) and I've  

never worried an iota about contamination with my chiller. 

 

The following points are somewhat technical but I might add that  

counter-flow chillers have several things in favor of them over  

immersion chillers.  (1) Shocking the wort cool produces better cold  

break.  (2) Since you can start siphoning immediately after finishing  

the boil, it's a time saver.  And finally (3) I'd argue that there is  

less chance of bacterial infection with the counter-flow chiller  

because any one drop of wort is going to go from boiling to pitching  

temperature in about 6 seconds.  

 

The down-side, of course, is that counter-flow chillers are both more  

difficult to make and, if you buy one, are more expensive.  

 

>From a purely technical point of view, I think counter-flow chillers  

win out.  But from an economic perspective, immersion chillers are the  

winner. 

 

But whatever the case, use one or the other.  Wort-chillers are  

essential to any homebrewery.   

 

The AHA conference was indeed a blast.  As mentioned by others, it was  

great putting faces to email addresses.  There must have been ten  

times the number of online brewers at this conference compared to last  

year so there's no way I can make disparaging comments about those I  

met like I did last year.  So count your blessings. :-)  

 

Still I'd be remiss if I didn't say thanks to Martin Lodahl and Mike  

Sharpe for their outstanding lambic beer tasting and the information  

they provided to us regarding this most unusual of all beer styles.  I  

thought Mike's framboise was remarkably close to style.  Thank you,  

thank you, thank you for sharing that with us.  It was nectar of the  

gods as far as I was concerned and feel privileged to have gotten a  

chance to taste some of it.   

 

Cheers, ya'll. 

 

Kinney Baughman                  |   Beer is my business and 

baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu   |   I'm late for work. 

 





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HOMEBREW Digest #910		             Thu 25 June 1992 

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Date: Wed, 24 Jun 92 08:05 PDT 

From: Bob_Konigsberg@3mail.3com.com 

Subject: Homebrew Digest #909 (June 24, 1992) 

 

I've been using an immersion chiller for a while now, and I don't feel  

that they're too hard to clean. 

 

Prior to use, I run hot tap water (~180 F) through it from the tap for  

about a minute (full 60 seconds) after it's hot at the far end at a  

fairly high flow rate.  Then I fill it (with a funnel) with a  

Chlorinated TSP solution, and let it sit in there for about 30 minutes.   

Then the hot water rinse is repeated again for another full minute. 

The chiller is then stored with the copper tube left full of water. 

 

I always check the first rinse water out of the tubing (smell, then  

taste) prior to the full first hot water rinse, and I've found no  

problems with it.  A friend goes a little further and uses live steam  

from a pressure cooker to really sterilize the inside of the copper  

tubing.  He's had no problems either. 

 

On the rubber hose surrounding the tubing, I recommend the use of a hot- 

water rated hose. 

 

I've made up a diagram and condensed instructions for a friend or two  

for making one of these, and since it's done, anybody who wants a copy  

can send me a self-addressed stamped envelope, and I'll send it back out  

with a copy of the instructions.  Only 1 stamp, since it's only 1 page.   

 

Send the envelope to: 

Bob Konigsberg 

418 San Benito Ave. 

Los Gatos, CA 95030-9305 

 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 16:55 EDT 

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> 

Subject: Chillers, extract beers, & hopbacks 

 

>Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> writes in the HBD: 

>> 

>> But whatever the case, use one or the other.  Wort-chillers are 

>> essential to any homebrewery. 

 

>I'm an extract brewer (with occasional specialty grains), on my 16th 

>batch in about 1 year.  Will a wort chiller help my brew? 

 

>My current procedure is to boil only about 2 gallons of wort (from 

>extract/H20), adding hops/grains as necessary, and then dumping this 

>into the fermenter with 2-3 gallons of cold H20.   

 

If this is what you're doing then no, they aren't essential.  But this  

does bring up the issue of whether or not one should boil just 2  

gallons of wort and dump it into 3 gallons of cold water.  Sure it  

works.  But I think conventional wisdom is that you're more likely to  

brew a better extract beer by reconstituting the wort, that is, by  

bringing the wort back up to 5 gallons.  By reconstituting the wort  

you're beginning to treat the extract more like grain-sparged wort.   

Following Fred Eckhardt here, extract beers are already a "cheat", if  

you will.  In order to approach the quality of scratch beer, one  

should treat extract beers, as much as possible, as if they were  

scratch beers.  Therefore one should attempt to (1) reconstitute the  

wort, (2) use fresh hops, and (3) use at least some specialty grains,  

especially crystal malt.  

 

Because of these concerns, I recommend that beginning brewers get a 6  

or 7 gallon boiling pot as soon as possible.  When deciding on  

recipes, don't get bent out of shape trying to find a can of Northern  

Nowhere Amber Malt Extract.  Cue in on the fact that you need amber  

malt extract and make your own.  Amber malt is just pale malt with  

some crystal malt added to it.  If you buy only pale malt extract, you  

can make your own amber or dark extract with ease.  Here are some  

rules of thumb.  Adjust quantities according to taste.  Assume 5  

gallons of beer.  

 

Amber Malt       1-2 cups of crystal malt.  2 cups will add a  

                 significant sweetness to the beer.  You will barely  

                 be able to taste 1 cup but you WILL taste it. 

 

Dark Malt        At least 1 cup of crystal and 1/2 to 1 cup chocolate  

                 malt for a decently strong chocolate/bock tasting 

                 beer.  More chocolate and crystal for porter-ish 

                 dark beer. 

 

My other advice is to skip extract recipes altogether and look at the  

all-grain ones, substituting 2 cans of pale malt extract for 8-10  

pounds of pale malt and adding specialty grains as recommended in the  

recipe.  Treat the specialty grains as follows:  

 

Grind the grains and place them in a mesh bag and throw them into the  

boiler as the water comes to a boil.  Lift and plunge the grains into  

the boiler water as often as you wish to simulate a sparging action.   

When the water reaches 170 or 180 degrees F., toss the grains. 

 

When the water comes to boil, cut off the heat source, add the pale  

malt extract, stir into solution, then resume heating.  As the wort  

comes to a boil a fine, creamy head will form on the surface of the  

wort.  Skim this creamy head and you'll never suffer from boil-over  

again.  The head is composed mostly of proteins that will later form a  

big protein bubble when steam escapes from the liquid at the onset of  

the boil.  The dreaded boilover!!  Haven't you noticed how boilover  

only occurs in the split second between the last time you looked at  

your non-boiling wort and the horrified realization that it's already  

started boiling?! 

 

And, of course, hop as advised with fresh hops, plugs or pellets. 

 

Assuming this is the way you make extract beers then (and now we're  

back to the original question...whew!) you should be using a wort  

chiller because you have 5 gallons of beer to cool down in a hurry.   

And this was what I was assuming when I said wort chillers were  

essential to any homebrewery. 

 

Then Russ sed: 

 

>Subject: Re: sterilizing counter-flow chillers 

 

>This comes up every so often, but at caveat for those making or 

>purchasing a counter-flow chiller.  Make sure the inside of the 

>tubing is free of machining oils.  Chemical cleaning is not 

>sufficient in many cases...requiring actual physical scouring 

>of the inside of the tubing before you bend it into a coil. 

 

>If you want to test your tubing for oils, swab a q-tip soaked 

>in rubbing alcohol around the inside.  If it comes out dirty, 

>you've got a problem....if not....no problem... 

 

>Mike Zentner, who has tried to clean oil out by running 20 

>batches of boiling water, rubbing alcohol, beer, bleach, soap water and 

>even lysol through an already constructed chiller...to no avail. 

 

The above is well worth mentioning.  Mike had a helluva time cleaning  

up some copper tubing he found or bought from somewhere.  At the same  

time, if you buy refrigeration grade copper tubing from a hardware  

store you shouldn't have the kinds of problems Mike had, at least I  

never have and I've made several hundred wort chillers.  It's my  

understanding that silicon oils are used in the extrusion of that kind  

of copper and are easily removed with several soaks in clorox or a  

couple siphonings through of boiling hot water laced with B-Brite or  

beer line cleaner.  Where did you get that copper tubing after all,  

Mike? 

 

>And now, a homebrewing question.  Darryl Bock-man ;-) said he sanitizes 

>his plastic with boiling water, reasoning that the heat will kill the 

>nasties in any cracks.  I've been thinking of using a zapap lauter tun (bucket 

>in a bucket) as a hop-back, but have been concerned about exposing my chilled 

>wort to the plastic buckets.  But, if Darryl's assumption is true, then pouring 

>the *hot* wort through the lauter-tun/hop-back would eliminate sanitation 

>concerns about the plastic.  It would oxidize the wort, but at this stage it 

>would mostly just darken it.  Correct me if I'm wrong on that.  I'd also be 

>concerned about handling a brewpot full of hot wort, but I can imagine a way 

>to be careful about that.  Am I forgetting anything?  Any holes in my thinking? 

 

I just finished writing an article for the special issue of Zymurgy  

that describes how to make a hop-back that avoids the issue of  

oxidation when using a hop-back altogether.  I could post the article  

here in the HBD if anyone is interested and if Charlie P. doesn't  

mind.  But for the moment, suffice it to say that my hop-back design  

uses a mason jar connected inline between the boiler and a counter- 

flow chiller.  The mason jar lid is drilled with two holes, each  

containing a length of copper tubing, the bottom of the outlet tube  

wrapped in the infamous copperwound pot scrubber in a fine mesh hop  

bag.  Stuff about 3/4 oz of the gummiest aromatic hops you can find  

into the jar and start a siphon.  The hot wort passes into the jar of  

hops, picks of the aromatics, leaves the jar and enters the wort  

chiller where it is immediately cooled down.  Having been cooled to  

water temperature, the hop aromatics aren't volatilized to the  

atmosphere and instead enter the wort where they belong.  The  

resulting beer will have the same kind of hop character we've all  

grown to know and love in Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or some of the ales  

made by Hart's Brewing Company in Washington state.  

 

And now for the new sig... 

 

 ___  ---------------------------------------------------------- ___ 

|   |                   Kinney Baughman                         |   | 

|   |            baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu                 |   | 

 \ /                                                             \ / 

  |        "Beer is my business and I'm late for work"            | 

   --------------------------------------------------------------- 

 



=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #911		             Fri 26 June 1992 

=============================================================



 

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 14:23:30 MDT 

From: Rick Myers <rcm@hpctdpe.col.hp.com> 

Subject: Immersion Chiller usage! 

Full-Name: Rick Myers 

 

In HBD #910  Bob Konigsberg writes: 

> I've been using an immersion chiller for a while now, and I don't feel  

> that they're too hard to clean. 

>  

> Prior to use, I run hot tap water (~180 F) through it from the tap for  

> about a minute (full 60 seconds) after it's hot at the far end at a  

> fairly high flow rate.  Then I fill it (with a funnel) with a  

> Chlorinated TSP solution, and let it sit in there for about 30 minutes.   

> Then the hot water rinse is repeated again for another full minute. 

> The chiller is then stored with the copper tube left full of water. 

 

Er, ah, I don't really want to tell you this Bob, but you're not using 

your chiller correctly.  There is no need to clean the inside of an immersion 

chiller...the cold water runs through it, and you dip the whole mess down 

inside your kettle.  Thus, the name "immersion"...the only thing you need 

to clean is the OUTSIDE, not the inside. 

 

Don't feel bad, you're not the first person to do this, I heard some people 

even bought pre-manufactured ones, only to have to change all the fittings 

to get it to work like they thought it was supposed to.  I'm posting this 

to the digest directly because there are more people than I realized doing 

this... 

 

Rick 

rcm@col.hp.com 

 





=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #912		             Mon 29 June 1992 

=============================================================

 

Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 11:37:52 EDT 

From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West) 

Subject: re Immersion Chiller usage! 

 

Rick, 

 

This has already been discussed this month, check out the digests from 

the 5th and 6th. You can run either wort or water through an imersion 

chiller, both work, neither is _wrong_.  

 

Ease up. 

 

 

Carl 

 

WISL,BM. 

 





=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #913		             Tue 30 June 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date: 29 Jun 92 11:21:11 EST 

From: Ruth Mazo Karras <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> 

Subject: First Mash 

 

     Well I did my first mash yesterday.  It was surprisingly 

easy, considering that I needed to fabricate my mash/lauter tun 

and wort chiller.  Here is what I did. 

 

     For a mash/lauter tun I used a five gallon cylindrical water 

cooler, Rubbermaid Gott brand.  These are available at Sears and 

home center stores and maybe K-Mart.  I got mine in New Jersey, 

but they are available closer to Philadelphia.  About $20.  I did 

not get the squarish Coleman brand, though, because it would not 

work as well with my sparge system described below.  I also got a 

plastic drum tap from Home Sweet Homebrew (HSH) in Philadelphia 

for a couple of dollars.  Then I unscrewed the push button tap on 

the Gott cooler, using a pencil soldering iron I melted a larger 

opening in the outer wall of the cooler where the tap is inserted 

and scraped away the insulation from between the walls.  I had to 

enlarge the opening in the inner wall of the cooler, but much 

less than the outer wall.  The drum tap then screws into position 

with the two washers supplied and a bit of formable washer (a 

thin strip of sealing compound used to pack leaky faucets).  The 

washers may be enough, but my inner hole was not quite circular 

and I feared a leak during the mash.  I may seal the whole thing 

with silicone sealant if I ever get a leak, but for now the tap 

is removable. 

 

     To complete the mash/lauter tun setup, I set into the bottom 

of the tun a vegetable steamer of the sort that opens like petals 

of a flower.  It is designed to hold vegetables in a pot of 

boiling water about 1/2" off the bottom of the pot.  It costs 

about $10 at HSH, but got mine on a whim at Ikea in Plymouth 

Meeting a while ago for about $2.  It is made of stainless steel. 

Finally, I got a nylon grain bag at HSH for about $10 that fits 

inside the tun. 

 

     The wort chiller was really easy.  I got 20 feet of L 3/8" 

O.D. refrigerator copper tubing at Hechingers in Narberth for 

about $12 and, for about $2.50, a compression fitting that takes 

the tubing to 1/2" threads and an adapter that then goes to 3/4" 

garden hose size (which connects to the adapter on my kitchen 

faucet that I got with my bottle washer).  Before installing the 

fittings, I re-coiled the tubing around the outside of a pot that 

was smaller than my brew kettle and then bent the ends up into an 

inverted "J" so drips from any fittings fall outside the brew 

kettle.  On the intake side I used a spare washing machine hose 

and on the discharge side I stuck some old siphon hose over the 

tubing (it was a tight fit). 

 

     I then dumped 7-1/2 lbs. of my pre-crushed British 2-row 

grain and 1/2 lb. of 40 L. pre-crushed British crystal malt into 

the grain bag in the tun (which sits on top of the steamer), 

turned the tap off, and put in two gallons of 170 F. water.  (I 

used the water charts for a single step infusion mash from 

Papazian's book.)  Stirred vigorously and checked that my mash 

temperature was between 150 and 155 F. (I hit about 151 F.)  I 

did an iodine test (it worked!), screwed the top of the tun on 

and let it work for about 90 minutes. 

 

     After mashing, I drained the first runnings from the tun and 

added 4 gallons of boiling water, stirred again, and let sit for 

30 minutes.  I then drained off the second runnings and proceeded 

as I have with extract brews.  This simple "mash out and sparge" 

technique seemed to work well, although I have not calculated 

efficiency.  I will try to measure that next time when I have a 

better idea what I am doing and do not need to make up the tun 

and the like.  George at HSH suggested that to sparge in this 

setup a colander could be set over the top of the tun to spread 

out the sparge water as it is poured in.  I hope the easy 

"sparge" will be sufficient, and not release too many tannins 

from the hulls of the grain.  Since I read about this technique 

in HBD, I would be interested to hear about your experiences with 

it. 

 

Chris Karras  (RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.edu) 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Mon, 29 Jun 92 11:37 CDT 

From: korz@iepubj.att.com 

Subject: chillers 

 

The original poster, accidentally wrote "immersion" instead of "counterflow" 

in his post, but that's it.  For the record, there are basically two major 

types of wort chillers used by homebrewers: 

 

1. Immersion -- run cool water (usually tapwater) through a coil of tubing 

which is immersed in the kettle of hot wort.  A water-saving option is to 

use a pump and recirculate icewater through the coil.  Some immersion chillers 

have an pre-chilling stage in which the tapwater runs through an additional 

coil first which is submerged in a tank of icewater. 

Advantages are: lower cost, most cold break left in kettle, easier to hit 

pitching temperature, and the surface that touches the wort is visible and 

thus easily cleanable. 

Disadvantages: entire volume of wort (simultaneoulsy) cools slowly, efficiency 

dependent on tapwater temperature (i.e. not efficient in say, Florida, where 

the tapwater is not cold), and there is a slightly higher risk of infection 

since the wort spends more time between boiling and pitching temperatures. 

 

2. Counterflow -- tube-in-hose chiller.  Hot wort is siphoned or pumped through 

a tube which is surrounded by a hose carrying cool water (usually tapwater). 

Again, a water saving option is to recirculate icewater through the hose. 

Another option, which is based upon the same principle, is to substitute a 

bucket of icewater for the hose -- basically siphoning or pumping hot wort 

through a coil submerged in a bucket of icewater.  The plate chiller which 

many brewpubs and micros use is a version of this type (some also use glycol 

for coolant). 

Advantages: wort cools (serially) suddenly (better cold break), higher 

efficiency even with warmer tapwaters, and slightly less chance of infection 

since the wort immediately goes from boiling to pitching temperature. 

Disadvantages: higher cost, cold break separation requires additional siphoning 

or filtration, wort outlet temperature more difficult to predict and adjust, 

and (unless you use a pump) requires you to siphon boiling wort. 

 

For more information, see Zymurgy - "Brewer's and Thier Gadgets" and Jeff 

Frane's paper in the 1992 AHA Conference Proceedings.  There was also an 

article on Wort Chillers in one of the last two issues of Zymurgy. 

 

I use an immersion chiller mostly because I, personally, don't like the idea 

of siphoning 200F wort and feel its easier to use. 

 

NOTE: From Jeff's session at the Conference I learned that cold break really 

begins at 65F, which is a little colder than I would like for pitching temp. 

What I plan to start doing, is to cool down to 60F and then turn on the 

hot water to bring the wort back to 70F.  Try *that* with a counterflow chiller! 

 

Al. 

 



===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #925		             Fri 17 July 1992 

===========================================================



 

Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 17:12:30 -0600 

From: 105277@essdp2.lanl.gov (GEOFF REEVES) 

Subject: There are 2 types of immersion chillers 

 

 

> From: korz@iepubj.att.com Subject: chillers 

>  

> The original poster, accidentally wrote "immersion" instead of  

> "counterflow" in his post, but that's it. For the record, there  

> are basically two major types of wort chillers used by homebrewers: 

>  

> 1. Immersion -- run cool water (usually tapwater) through a coil  

> of tubing which is immersed in the kettle of hot wort.... 

>  

> 2. Counterflow -- tube-in-hose chiller. Hot wort is siphoned or  

> pumped through a tube which is surrounded by a hose carrying cool  

> water (usually tapwater).... 

>  

 

I think some of the confusion here is because people forget (3). 

 

3. Immersion -- run hot wort though a coil of tubing which is 

immersed in a bath of cold water. 

 

I started out using (3) but found that I had some problems with 

blockage of the tubing by hops - especially hop pellets. Other than 

that the technique works great. You get most of the advantages of 

a counter-flow chiller without all the plumbing and yet you don't 

have to use as much water as you do with (1).  

 

All that not withstanding a blocked chiller is a really difficult 

thing to unclog so I converted my (#3) to a (#1) by ataching fittings 

to connect it to a garden hose. (This also went along with my move 

from the kitchen to the garage for brewing.) 

 

I don't have any suggestions on how to clear up the ambiguity of 

what gets immersed in what but let's not jump on someone for being 

stupid (as some - not the above poster) have done. 

 

See ya 

Geoff Reeves 

 

P.S. I was wrong about HBD #921. It only had 25 messages which brings 

the total to 95. It will be #922 for sure :-) Also I'm relieved that 

I can post stuff without looking like I'm out for a grain mill. I'm 

sure I won't be in the first 5 tomorrow. It just happens to be  

Friday afternoon on a slow day and I happened to have 7 digests 

backed up in my mail directory. 

 







===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #926		             Sat 18 July 1992 

===========================================================



 

Date: Sat, 11 Jul 92 21:48:19 MDT 

From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> 

Subject: Counterflow chiller plans, killer sparge gadget 

 

I realize this has been asked before, but, like everyone, I didn't save 

the discussion because I didn't need it at the time. 

 

Does anyone have plans they can [e]mail me for a counterflow wort 

chiller?  The concept is pretty straightforward, but it isn't obvious 

how to build some of the fittings. 

 

Thanks in advance.  As payment, here's a handy tip for you all-grain 

brewers out there. 

 

Tonight we just tried out some new lautering hardware that beats the 

Zapap lauter tun hands down (Charlie, how could you have lead us astray? 

:-).  Build a sparge "manifold" out of 1/2" copper tubing with slits in 

it that goes in the bottom of the mash tun.  When you're done mashing, 

simply siphon off the sweet wort and pour the sparge water over the top 

of the grain.  No need to transfer the mash to another container or 

drill holes in you mash pot. 

 

The manifold is made with about 5 feet of tubing, 4 tees, 5 endcaps, one 

elbow, and one step-down for matching the size of the plastic hose.  We 

mash in a round pot, so it looks something like (attempted silly ASCII 

graphics follow): 

 

				   _ 

                                   | 

                                   +----] 

                            [------+ 

                                   +------] 

                              [----+ 

                                   | 

                         90 deg up \========----->to hose 

 

The horizontal arms have 4-6 slots cut in them, 3/4" apart, facing 

downward, and sit in the bottom of the tun.  Then the elbow turns up the 

side of the tun and connects to the siphoning hose.  Standard copper 

fittings are tight enough you don't even have to solder.  Just cut the 

pieces of tubing so that the manifold fits snugly in the bottom of your 

tun. 

 

It sparges just as well as the Zapap unit, and is easier to use, and 

cost only $5 to make.  Oh, make sure you put the manifold into the 

tun *before* you add the grain, not after. 

 

- -- 

Jeff Benjamin                               benji@hpfcla.fc.hp.com 

Hewlett Packard Co.                         Fort Collins, Colorado	 

"Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium." 

					    - T.S. Eliot 

 







===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #938		             Thu 30 July 1992 

===========================================================



 

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 10:48:20 PDT 

From: thomasf@deschutes.ico.tek.com (Thomas D. Feller) 

Subject: Siphoning and Wort Chillers 

 

Thanks to everyone how sent me mail about my Cooler Lauter Tun. Once 

I get the thing built I will post what I learned. 

 

Now for my on the the subject, 

 

Due to water restriction here in Portland I decided to change the way I used  

my Wort chiller. Instead of putting the copper coils in the hot wort and passing 

cold water inside the chiller I put the chiller in a bucket of ice water and  

run the hot wort inside the chiller. I made a siphon rod out of 3/8 copper pipe 

with a cap in the end and a hole drilled about 3/4 in above the end so I would  

not pick up too much stuff off the bottom of the pot. Here the problem I got the 

siphon started OK but it never had a good flow. Yes I did pick up some hops but 

I stoped and cleaned everything out and still had bad flow. It took almost a  

hour to siphon about 4 gal.(I pour the rest in through a funnel and screen). 

 

Does anyone use this method? Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it flow 

better? Any better ideas on how the cool wort with the least amount of wasted 

water? 

 

 

Thanks 

 

Tom Feller 

 





===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #939		             Fri 31 July 1992 

===========================================================



 

Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 09:22:35 -0700 

From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com 

Subject: re: chillers 

 

 

I may be strange, but I really enjoy the wort chiller debate. 

 

I need to understand how the "immersion chiller as makeshift  

flow-through chiller" actually works.  I like to get my beer  

down to about 50 degrees (F) as quickly as possible.  To do  

this, my calculations show that do drop my just-after-boiling  

five gallons of wort down to fifty degrees, I need to "mix" it 

with at least 42 gallons of ice water: 

 

    Vc = (VbTb - VbTt) / (Tt - Tc) 

 

where Vc = chilled water volume, Vb is wort volume, Tc is chilled 

water temperature, Tb is wort temperature, and Tt is target  

temperature.  Now, I don't have a 42 gallon bucket, and I don't 

know many people who do, so I just don't see how I could possibly 

use this setup to chill my wort.  Now, if you're happy with chilling 

down to 80 degrees, you can do that with much less chilled water 

(about 12 gallons at 32 degrees).  I don't have a refrigerator, so 

all my chilling has to be done with the chiller. 

 

For some time I've been using a sump pump to circulate water from a  

bucket of ice water through the chiller.  I don't use much water this 

way, and I get the wort cold in about 45 minutes.  Of course, I have 

to keep refreshing the ice in the bucket, and I find that about 4 

7 pound bags from 7-11 do the trick.  (When I'm not lazy I freeze the 

ice myself, but I'm usually lazy.) 

 

What temperatures do people normally shoot for when chilling?   

 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

Mike McNally                                           mcnally@wsl.dec.com 

Digital Equipment Corporation 

Western Software Lab 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 10:11 PDT 

From: ALTENBACH@CHERRY.llnl.gov 

Subject: Wort Chilling Water Wastage 

 

In HBD938 Tom Feller was concerned about wasting water during wort chilling. 

There is no need to waste any water while chilling your wort if you save the 

cooling water and recycle it for other uses. I use a counterflow chiller and 

collect 30 gallons of cooling water from a 10-gal batch, saving it in 5-gallon 

plastic water carboys. Then I use that water during the week for soaking 

fermenters, landscape watering, spa makeup, and other household chores. None 

is wasted. I also keep some filled carboys around as an earthquake  

emergency supply (recommended for CA brewers) in case my homebrew bottles 

are broken and I run out of beer. So chill out your wort with all the water 

you want, then recycle and relax. 

                                   Tom Altenbach 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 14:43:00 PDT 

From: Mark N. Davis <mndavis@pbhya.PacBell.COM> 

Subject: Re: Saving water with wort chiller 

 

 ...deleted talk about wort chillers wasting water 

>  

> Does anyone use this method? Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it flow 

> better? Any better ideas on how the cool wort with the least amount of wasted 

> water? 

>  

 

I too use an immersion chiller, running cold tap water through copper coils 

immersed inside a bucket of hot wort. In addition, I live in the SF bay area, 

where water rationing has become a way of life (you easterners don't know 

how much you can take tap water for granted). To do my part, I no longer 

wash my car, I take shorter showers, and I've trained my blatter to hold its 

contents longer, for fewer flushings - except during homebrew quaffing >:-). 

But I'm talking brewing here. My solution for conserving water, while also 

cooling my wort rapidly, is to do the whole cooling process on the front 

lawn/desert. This is the only time that it gets watered at all (besides the 

semi-annual rainfall) so I don't at all feel guilty about letting the water 

run for 15-20 minutes. Look at it this way: 

  If you don't force cool the wort and get an infected batch, then it goes 

  down the drain anyhow, and you've wasted at least 5-7 gallons right there! 

 

In case anyone was wondering, aren't you afraid of having hot wort sitting 

out there in the great outdoors, with all those wild and crazy yeasties 

dancing in the air? My solution is to dump my brew kettle's contents into 

a 6 gallon plastic fermenter bucket, drop in the immersion chiller, and then 

to seal the lid on over the top, leaving only tiny cracks where the chiller's 

I/O tubes stick through. The plastic tops for these buckets are rather flexible 

making this an easy task. I also leave my wooden spoon and thermometer sealed 

inside, so that I don't have to sanitize them each time I want to stir and 

check the temp. 

 

What, there's no water for the Californian's to drink? Let them drink homebrew! 

                                 Mark 

 

 





===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #940		             Tue 04 August 1992 

===========================================================

 

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 09:08:00 CDT 

From: pmiller@mmm.com 

Subject: Malto dextrine, wort chiller filter 

 

Greetings all! 

 

Does anybody know how much malto dextrin to use in a 5 gallon batch of beer? 

I remember seeing this question raised in the HBD before, but I don't remember 

if it's ever been answered. 

 

I used some in a brown ale recipe to add a little sweetness.  The guy at the 

homebrew store didn't have much experience with malto dextrine and told me to 

add the whole 8 oz bag.  I chickened out and only added 4 oz, but the beer was 

still a little sweeter than what I was looking for.  (Of course, I also added 6 

oz of crystal malt to the same batch which probably added to the overall 

sweetness...  Why only change one variable when you can mess around with 6 or 7? 

;-) 

 

So, what's the scoop?  Anybody else out there ever use this stuff?  Charlie says 

that malto dextrine will also add body to the beer, but Miller basically 

pooh-poohs that idea and claims that it will add sweetness only.  From the 

limited conversation I've seen about malto dextrin here on the net, I get the 

impression that most homebrewers look down their noses at the stuff and would 

be less likely to add it to their brew than stink-bait (or even silicone 

caulking ;-). 

 

 ............... 

 

The other day, Tom Feller asked: 

 

> .....Instead of putting the copper coils in the hot wort and passing 

>cold water inside the chiller I put the chiller in a bucket of ice water and  

>run the hot wort inside the chiller....[T]he siphon started OK but it never had 

>a good flow. Yes I did pick up some hops but I stoped and cleaned everything 

>out and still had bad flow. It took almost a hour to siphon about 4 gal.(I pour 

>the rest in through a funnel and screen). 

 

>Does anyone use this method? Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it flow 

>better? Any better ideas on how the cool wort with the least amount of wasted 

>water? 

 

I've used the copper-coil-in-a-bucket-of-ice-water method to cool my wort a few 

times.  I use a technique gleaned from this very digest to strain the hop 

leaves:  jam the end of your racking wand into a copper choreboy scrubbing pad. 

I take the added precaution of threading some wire through the choreboy and 

twisting it around the racking wand so the darned thing doesn't fall off in the 

middle of the transfer.  (Anybody ever had a choreboy slip off or am I just 

making extra work for myself?) 

 

This method has worked pretty well for me so far.  The choreboy has only gotten 

completely blocked with hop leaves once and that was near the end of the 

transfer anyway.  FWIW, I'm probably going to switch over to hop pellets 

exclusively next fall; I found out that one of my favorite beers (Summit Extra 

Pale Ale) is made with hop pellets and having used both, I find hop pellets 

easier to use than flowers/plugs.  The upshot being that I won't need to use the 

choreboy anymore. 

 

BTW, if you use one of those plastic racking canes like I *used* to, you'll find 

that the nearly boiling hot wort will soften the plastic and make it curl 

slightly.  Then if you try to heat it back up to straighten it out, it will snap 

in two.  (Gee Rocky, I guess I don't know my own strength...) 

 

Phil Miller 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 10:24:03 PDT 

From: thomasf@deschutes.ico.tek.com (Thomas D. Feller) 

Subject: Chiller and Sparging 

 

>From the replies to my question about saving water it seem to me that some sort 

of recirculation is the best idea. I also think my flow problems will be helped 

by some more height from the brew pot to my primary. I have had a number of  

replies about holding 30 to 50 gal. of water and using it later but I just don't 

have that kind of room or that many buckets. 

 

A question here, 

 

Why does Mike McNally want go to 50 deg.F this seem to be overkill to me unless 

he is making lagers. I cool to about 70-75 deg.F and then ferment in by basement 

which in the summer stays at 70-75 even on the hottest days. With my last brew, 

running hot wort through the chiller in bucket of ice water, I used three bags  

of ice. The resulting wort was at 70 deg.F. I have had some replies on counter- 

flow chillers and for the same final temp we are looking at about 40 gal. of  

tap water. 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: 31 Jul 92 13:38:00 EST 

From: "CMD 2NDLT ALBERT W. TAYLOR " <S94TAYLOR@usuhsb.ucc.usuhs.nnmc.navy.mil> 

Subject: Wort Chilling, Some chilling thoughts... 

 

Before making my immersion chiller, I advocated using a 2.5 gallon jug of 

bottled water at near freezing temp to cool the wort down to pitching temp. 

This worked very well for about 10 batches.  I now use my new toy, which will 

cool 3 gallons of boiling wort to 80 degrees F in about 15 minutes while using 

only 15 gallons of tap water (at ~65 deg F).  BTW the whole thing only cost 

me $25 to build.  I then add the same bottled water, but at room temp. to bring 

to 5 gallons.  I seems to me that combining the two techniques would easily 

allow for cooling to a reasonable lager pitching temp. 

 

Another idea, though much more elaborate, is to send the cooling water through 

a copper coil submerged in an ice bath before it gets to the wort.  This would 

cool the water down to around 40 deg, based on my crude measurements of the  

heat exchange of my chiller.  This idea may best be described as a flight of 

fancy, but I always did like the t.v. show "MacGyver". 

 

I'm interested to hear comments on my ideas, in public or private :-) 

Al Taylor, MS-III 

Uniformed Services University, School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD 

 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date:         FRI, 31 Jul 92 14:33:36 EDT 

From: "Deborah Poirier" <POIRIER@INRS-ENER.UQuebec.CA> 

Subject:      chilling temperatures 

 

From: Deborah Poirier 

 

Mike McNally asked: 

>What temperatures do people normally shoot for when chilling? 

 

It depends on the yeast I'm using, but I usually gun for 18-20 C. That was 

with a flow-through chiller. (Beer in coils, coils in partially plugged 

kitchen sink with cold water running). The output temperature depended on how 

quickly I let the wort drain through the tubing: faster=hotter output. But 

tonight I'm debuting a new counterflow chiller that I made yesterday. Can't 

wait!!! I'll still adjust flow rates to get about 20C, though. 

 

Deb 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 15:16:50 MDT 

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) 

Subject: Re: Ice in Wort Chillers 

 

 

Mike McNally writes: 

 

>I need to understand how the "immersion chiller as makeshift  

>flow-through chiller" actually works.  I like to get my beer  

>down to about 50 degrees (F) as quickly as possible.  To do  

>this, my calculations show that do drop my just-after-boiling  

>five gallons of wort down to fifty degrees, I need to "mix" it 

>with at least 42 gallons of ice water: 

> 

>    Vc = (VbTb - VbTt) / (Tt - Tc) 

> 

>where Vc = chilled water volume, Vb is wort volume, Tc is chilled 

>water temperature, Tb is wort temperature, and Tt is target  

>temperature.   

 

You're close, but you're missing one very important thing. Your solution would 

be right *if* you were mixing zero degree water with your wort. However, you're 

not just mixing zero degree water (and getting the cooling power of the water), 

you're also mixing ice, which has additional cooling power. [Note 1] The cooling 

power of water is referred to as the specific heat, C_p, which is 

 

    C   = 1 cal / g C 

     p 

      

In other words, it takes one calorie to raise the temperature of one gram of 

water one degree Celsius. [Note 2] The cooling power of ice (at 0 C) is referred 



to as the heat of fusion, H_ls, which is 

 

    H   = 80 cal / g 

     ls 

      

In other words, it takes 80 calories to melt one gram of ice at 0 C into one 

gram of water at 0 C. In addition, ice can exist at different temperatures, and 

supercooled ice has a cooling power of roughly 

 

    C   = .5 cal / g C 

     p 

  

How about an example for clarity. First of all, let's assume that the specific 

gravity of water, wort and ice is roughly constant. That lets us work in terms 

of volume instead of weight and doesn't add significant error. Then, assume 

that we have five gallons of hot (100 C) wort and a tub full of 3 gallons of 

ice at -10 C and 2 gallons of water at 0 C. Further assume that the specific 

heat of the wort is the same as water, and calculate the final temperature of 

the collection after it has come to a thermal equilibrium.  First let's do an 

energy balance: 

 

Wort                          Water                        

 

(1 cal/g C) (100 - T) 5 gal + (1 cal/g C) (0 - T) 2 gal +  

 

Subcooled ice                  ice 

 

(.5 cal/g C) (-10 - 0) 3 gal + -(80 cal/g) 3 gal + 

 

Melted ice water 

 

(1 cal/g C) (0 - T) 3 gal   =  0 

 

Multiplying out gives: 

 

Wort       Water  Subcooled ice   ice    Melted ice water 

 

500 - 5T - 2T     - 15            - 240  - 3T               = 0 

 

and... 

 

245 = 10 T 

 

T = 24.5 C  

 

Since we dropped some units along the way, we don't know what the number of 

calories each contributed is, but we can determine the relative amounts of heat 

transferred: 

 

Wort       Water  Subcooled ice   ice    Melted ice water 

 

377.5      -49    -15             -240   -73.5           = 0 

 

You can see that the water helped, and the melted ice water and the subcooled 

ice helped some too, but the majority of the cooling was done by the melting of 

the ice itself. In fact, let's calculate just how much ice melting (not

considering 

the melted ice) it would take to cool 5 gallons of wort to room temperature 

(about 20 C): 

 

5 (100 - 20) + X (-80) = 0 

 

X = 5 gallons of ice. 

 

In fact, that's a good and easy thing to remember: you need as many gallons of 

ice as you have wort in order to cool your wort 80 degrees C (and have 0 C ice 

water left over). If your final water temperature is higher, or your ice was  

colder than 0 C, then you need less, of course. 

 

Therefore, I think that the answer to all the water shortage problems is to trade



water for energy. Namely, freeze your water to increase its cooling power. Here's



a tip: Use old milk/OJ/whatever cartons to freeze blocks of ice for cooling. Then



rip off the cardboard for a good chunk of ice. It's not sterile, but if it

doesn't 

touch your wort, who cares? 

 

Michael L. Hall 

Thermohydraulic nut :^) 

 

[1] - It's not strictly correct to refer to the "cooling power" of something. 

There's no such thing as cold, only lack of heat. Heat moves from hotter spots 

to cooler spots. I just use the term "cooling power" as an aid to understanding. 

 

[2] - A Calorie (capitalized, used in dietary stuff) is equal to one kilocalorie.





------------------------------ 

 

Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 18:31 EDT 

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> 

Subject: Blue stuff, pick-up tubes, o-rings, etc. 

 

Some of this is dated.  Sorry.  The posting glut of a couple of weeks  

ago knocked me out of synch.   

 

As for the thread on the blue-stuff in copper wort chillers: 

 

Mike sez: 

 

>Based on my world-class understanding of chemistry, I'd guess that the 

>blue stuff that forms on your copper wort chiller is copper sulfate. 

>If I'm right, then you definitely want to get rid of it; it's toxic. 

>You might try rinsing with a little vinegar and salt in boiling water. 

 

Hate to butt heads with your world-class understanding of chemistry,  

Mike, :-) but the blue stuff ain't copper sulfate.  Copper sulfate  

is formed from trying to sterilize the copper with sodium  

metabisulphite and that's why treating copper with sodium met is  

generally discouraged.  And you're right.  You would definitely want  

to get rid of that stuff.   

 

In another post, Jeff speculates: 

 

>Glenn asks about little blue flakes coming out of his wort chiller. 

>Sounds to me like verdigris--and it sounds like time to bring in 

>the chemists.  According to the dictionary, verdigris formed by the 

>action of acetic acid on copper is poisonous, while a deposit of 

>copper carbonates is not. 

 

Well, since clorox doesn't contain acetic acid, I would doubt it's  

verdigris.  This does raise the question of whether cleaning copper  

with vinegar is a good idea since it IS acetic acid.  

 

I've noticed it in my chillers down through the years and have never  

worried about it.  I figured that since it was particulate matter that  

it settled out with the yeast and never made into a bottle of beer  

anyway. 

 

Still I guess it is time to call out the chemists.  What is that stuff?   

Could it be the cause of my curly hair?  :-) 

 

Dennis writes in response to the best way to connect slotted  

copper tubing to the opening of a cooler tun: 

 

>To connect the two, I used a polypropylene (working temp to 250 degrees) 

>3/8 inch tube-to-tube bulkhead union that fit precisely in the cooler hole. 

>Once the bulkhead is tightened, the gasket that comes with the cooler seals 

>well. If you take the bulkhead out you can still use the cooler. 

 

>This part comes from US Plastics Corp (800)537-9724 (part number 61123, $1.20) 

>It's worth getting their catalog, as they have a full line of valves, vinyl 

>tubing, and tanks too.  Minimum order is $10 I think. 

 

I use this same part in the construction of the BrewChiller.  I'll go  

out on a limb and sell these to anyone who wants them if you'll send  

send me a dollar bill, a 29 cent stamp and a self-addressed stamped  

envelope.  That'll save some of you from having to buy $10 worth of  

parts to get one.  

 

Donald Oconnor writes concerning the o-rings on kegs: 

 

>let me explain why this business of dirty o-rings ruining the flavor 

>profile of homebrew has never made any sense.  Beer is essentially 

>water with a little alcohol.  If you soak o-rings in water and/or 

>alcohol and the stuff won't come out, then why in the hell would 

>it ever come out in your beer which, i'll repeat myself,  is 

>water and alcohol?  Secondly, if you can smell the pop on the 

>o-ring, then it is coming out.  that's why you can smell it.  Third, 

>o-rings are not very large.  Unless you believe there are little 

>elves making soda pop in there, it's hard to imagine getting enough 

>of anything out of them to ruin 5 or as some claim, 20 gallons of 

>flavorful, malty brew. 

 

That may be all well and good, Donald, and it makes a nice  

intellectual argument but all I can say is that you should have   

tasted that nice Coca-cola lager I made about 8 years ago when I  

switched over to kegs.  Buy new O-rings.  And don't think twice about  

it.  It is definitely NOT a myth.  You can go ahead and put your next  

batch of all-grain into a keg with old o-rings.  But don't say that I  

and several others of us haven't warned you.  (I'm not trying to be a  

smart a**.  But you seem adamant about this and I don't want you to  

ruin a batch of beer.) 

 

Tom Feller asks: 

 

>I made a siphon rod out of 3/8 copper pipe 

>with a cap in the end and a hole drilled about 3/4 in above the end so I would 

>not pick up too much stuff off the bottom of the pot.Here the problem I got the 

>siphon started OK but it never had a good flow. Yes I did pick up some hops but 

>I stopped and cleaned everything out and still had bad flow. It took almost a 

>hour to siphon about 4 gal.(I pour the rest in through a funnel and screen). 

 

>Does anyone use this method? Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it flow 

>better?  

 

Don't solder the end of the tube closed.  Cut the end cap off and  

solder an inverted 3/4" copper cap on the end of the tube.  In effect,  

it does the same thing the little orange caps do on the plastic siphon  

canes.  It causes the wort to be sucked from above instead of from  

below.  Tie a copper wound, Chore-Boy pot scrubber to the bottom of the  

tube to filter out the hops.  In addition you can tie some mosquito  

netting or a fine-mesh hop bag around that to further improve the  

filter action.  

 

And finally, Mike asks: 

 

>What temperatures do people normally shoot for when chilling? 

 

Though I'm sure some would disagree, I shoot for 70 degrees when  

chilling.  According to Dave Logsdon at Wyeast, this is a very  

comfortable temperature for yeast and they show a dramatic increase in  

growth compared to even 60 or 65 degrees.  Then I take the fermenter  

to the basement (55 degrees).  By the time the wort reaches ambient  

basement temperatures the yeast have had a chance to bask for a while  

in 70 degree wort and are up and running.  To me, it seems to be the  

best of both worlds.  

 

Cheers! 

 

+------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

| Kinney Baughman                     Appalachian State University | 

| baughmankr@appstate.bitnet                       Boone, NC 28608 | 

| baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu                     (704)963-6949 | 

|                                                                  | 

|             Bush/Quayle '92      "Just Say Noe"                  | 

+------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

 

 



===========================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #941		             Wed 05 August 1992 

===========================================================



Date: Mon, 3 Aug 92 9:42:41 EDT 

From: Joe Rolfe <jdr@wang.com> 

Subject: Counter Flow Chillers 

 

hi all, 

 

i have a problem with the volume of water required for utilizing 

counter flow - i know of no other way around using one, so i need

to 

try and minimize the amount of water used. 

 

what i have is 2 25 foot (1/2" copper inside 1" plastic hose) 

 

	to cool the batch to 80 F - i have been typically using 1.5

times 

	the wort in water.  the water is at approx 65-70 F. the hot

water 

	coming out is at approx 120 - 130 F.  Wort in at 200 - 210

F. i would 

	like to use less water and get the temp of the wort lower.  i have 

	seen other posts regarding water usage in the 3 times range.  

 

what i would like to know  

 

	1) would adding another 50 feet of chiller help get temp down to 

		65-70 F range (water in) and also would it cut down the water 

		usage?? i am assuming with the current set up the performance 

		is a little low - hot water out is prehaps to cold?? 

 

	2) does anyone have the "rocket science" part - formula for modeling 

		the flows(wort and water), lengths, temps.... etc??  

 

 

 

thanx in advance 

 

joe rolfe 

 



------------------------------ 

 

Date: Mon, 3 Aug 92 11:44:05 EDT 

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak) 

Subject: Re: Chilling Temperatures 

 

In HBD939 Mike McNally writes 

 

 

> I need to understand how the "immersion chiller as makeshift  

> flow-through chiller" actually works.  I like to get my beer  

> down to about 50 degrees (F) as quickly as possible.  To do  

> this, my calculations show that do drop my just-after-boiling  

> five gallons of wort down to fifty degrees, I need to "mix" it 

> with at least 42 gallons of ice water: 

> 

>     Vc = (VbTb - VbTt) / (Tt - Tc) 

> 

> where Vc = chilled water volume, Vb is wort volume, Tc is chilled 

> water temperature, Tb is wort temperature, and Tt is target  

> temperature.  Now, I don't have a 42 gallon bucket, ..... 

 

On this issue I have good and bad news to Mike, but good news to 

everyone else using the "immersion in ice" type chiller where 

the wort is siphoned into a copper coil which is  

immersed in ice water.  The bad news is that when phase changes 

occur (solid ice to liquid water) the formula that Mike used, 

which he derived from the averaging formula 

 

    Vc*Tc + Vb*Tb = (Vc + Vb)*Tt                    (1) 

 

is no longer valid.   

 

The good news is: the actual target temperature will be much lower 

than prediced by (1) due to the latent heat required to change (melt) 

32 degree F ice into 32 degree water.  For example, if you "mix" 

equal amounts (by weight) of boiling water at 212 degrees (F) and 

ice at 10 degrees (F) (a typical temperature inside a freezer) you 

get water in equilibrium at about 52 degrees (F).  The formula 

for computing the equilibrium temperature (assuming the equilibrium 

state is liquid and the wort has the same thermal properties as water) 

is  

 

   Tt = (Tb*Vb + (0.453*Ti - 73)*Vi) / (Vi + Vb)     (2) 

 

 

where Vi and Ti are the volume and tempurature of the ice. 

In this formula, 0.453 is the ratio of heat capacities  of ice to water, 

and 73 is the value for the latent heat required to change ice 

to water divided by the heat capacity of water.  

Of course, for equation (2) to have some validity, the ice will have 

to be constantly stirred so that the equilibrium temperature 

approximates what is actually occuring in the wort chiller. 

Also, if you initially add water to the ice in your bucket, you 

can approximate the effects by first modifying the volume and  

temperature of the "boil" (as if the water was added to it) using (1), 

and then apply (2) with the modified values for Vb and Tb. 

The bottom line is that you need only about 6  gallons of ice 

to reduce the temperature of boiling wort to 50 degrees F.  

 

Bill Szymczak 

 



------------------------------ 

 

Date: Tue, 04 Aug 92 08:34:54 -0700 

From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com 

Subject: chilling to 50 degrees 

 

 

I've gotten several pieces of mail about chilling to 50 degrees.  Most 

think I'm nuts. 

 

I chill to a low temperature because I want a good break and I want to 

let the break settle for several hours (overnight).  The low temperature 

improves the cold break *and* reduces the probability of contamination. 

I don't have any means of refrigeration other thatn the chiller which 

will drop the temperature so effectively. 

 

I like to ferment at 60-65 degrees anyway.  I've had mixed results with 

the beers I've fermented warmer than that. 

 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

Mike McNally                                           mcnally@wsl.dec.com 

Digital Equipment Corporation 

Western Software Lab 

 



------------------------------ 

 

Date: Tue, 4 Aug 92 10:41 CDT 

From: korz@ihpubj.att.com 

Subject: Re: Chiller 

 

Thomas writes: 

>Why does Mike McNally want go to 50 deg.F this seem to be overkill to me 

>unless he is making lagers. I cool to about 70-75 deg.F and then ferment 

>in by asement which in the summer stays at 70-75 even on the hottest days. 

>With my last brew, running hot wort through the chiller in bucket of ice 

>water, I used three bags of ice. The resulting wort was at 70 deg.F. I 

>have had some replies on counter-flow chillers and for the same final temp 

>we are looking at about 40 gal. of tap water. 

 

In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most 

enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins 

at 65F.  Wow!  Since then, I've been chilling down to 60F with my immersion 

chiller, waiting a half hour or an hour for the cold break to form and then 

running very warm water through the chiller to bring the wort back to 

pitching temperature.  Note that this is also possible with a counterflow 

chiller and the coil-in-bucket chiller, but you must siphon twice.  I need 

to use only very warm water because although my chiller outlet hose is 

PE and can withstand a lot of heat, the inlet hose is only PVC and melted 

once when I ran 140F water through it (it buldged out and then burst like 

a bad radiator hose). 

Al. 

 







=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #942		             Thu 06 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1992 08:25 PDT 

From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov> 

Subject: Wort cooling 

 

I use a immersion chiller placed in my kettle to cool the wort. During the 

summer months the tap water is warmer and I will use another immersion 

chiller to pre-cool the water by placing this cooler in a 5 gal bucket of 

cracked ice. It does seem to help some. I always keep a few milk jugs in 

the freezer for this purpose. I have wondered if it would help to add salt 

to the water before it freezes. This works to lower the temperature when 

freezing ice cream, so why not in cooling wort? 

 

Bob Jones 

 

 



=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #944		             Mon 10 August 1992 

=============================================================



 

Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 09:57:27 -0700 (PDT) 

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu> 

Subject: Re: Counter Flow Chillers <rocket science> 

 

In HBD #941, on 3 Aug 92, Joe Rolfe asked about cutting down on water 

usage and getting a lower output temperature from his counterflow chiller. 

 

Here is the Rocket Science part. 

 

My source is 'Cryogenic Engineering' by Russel B. Scott, D. Van Nostrand 

Co. Inc.  1959.  Heat exchangers are important to cyogenics because they 

form a very important part of the refrigerators used to liquify gases.  It 

really is "rocket science", since you need lots of LOX and other gasses to 

"make der rockets go up."  Other engineering books on steam power, oil 

refining and thermo-hydrodynamics will provide similar information. 

 

I'm not going to go into the mathematics, but try to explain everything as 

empirically as possible.  Heat transfer equations are very heavy on 

differential equations.  This stuff is not only hard to type without a 

mathematical typesetting system, but it isn't very accessible to most people. 

 

Joe's questions get right to the nub of the tradeoffs involved in heat 

exchangers.  In the best of all worlds, you would use as little water as 

possible, get the biggest temperature drop, and do it as quickly as 

possible.  Unfortunately, all three of these factors work against at least 

one of the others.  All of these factors are expressed in the 

heat-transfer coefficient. 

 

This coefficient is expressed as: 

 

watts / [(cm**2)(deg K) in CGS   Watts per square centimeter-degree Kelvin 

 

That's how much heat flows into the wall of the heat exchanger tube from 

the liquid in contact with the tube wall.  The formulas assume that the 

tube is straight, cylinderical, and smooth, and that the flow of the 

liquid inside of it is turbulent (i.e. the tube is small enough that the 

flow doesn't channel in the center.)  The factors that determine the heat 

transfer coefficient are: 

 

The specific heat of the fluid - This is a measure of heat (as opposed to 

temperature) and empirically is measured by how much ice is melted by a given 

mass at a given temperature.  Beer wort has a higher specific heat than 

water.  The concept of specific heat supposedly came from Count Rumford 

burning his mouth on some apple sauce.  The apple sauce was at the same 

temperature as his tea which didn't burn.  He had just got his first 

thermometer and was measuring everything in sight. 

 

The mass velocity of the liquid: g / sec cm**2  How much mass is passing 

through a given cross section each second.  For a given tubing size, this 

is strictly determined by the available pressure and flow.  For your water 

supply this is effectively limited by the maximum pressure available. 

 

The thermal conductivity of the liquid.  Suprisingly, this is quite low 

for most liquids.  Water is nearly an insulator, if all convection is 

supressed.  I assume that wort has a low conductivity as well.  Things 

like mercury and sodium metal have high conductivity. 

 

The diameter of the tube.  For tubes that don't have a circular cross 

section, this is replaced by the "hydraulic radius" which is defined as 

the cross-sectional area divided by the wetted perimeter. 

 

In designing a heat exchanger, there are only a few of these things that 

we can influence.  We can alter the mass velocity by turning up or down 

the flow on the faucet or altering the siphoning height.  We can pick the 

diameter of the tube that we use. 

 

Remember that we are looking at maximizing the heat-transfer coefficient 

at one point of the tube in one direction (wort to tube or tube to water). 

 We are only dealing with a slice, so that if the tranfer coefficient is 

maximized, then we will get the most heat transfer out of a given length 

of tubing.  The transfer coefficient will also set an upper limit on the 

in/out temperature differential for a particular length.  If the tube was 

infinitely long then the water out temp and the wort in temp would be 

equal, and the wort out temp would be the same as the water in.  The 

drawback with an infinitely long tube is that you would collapse both your 

lungs before you could get the siphon started.  Also for an immersion type 

cooler, it would not be possible to fit an infinite amount of tubing in 

your brew pot, no matter how tightly you coiled it. 

 

At any rate, you want the coefficient as high as you can get it.  It is 

maximized when the tube is small (or the hydralic radius is small) and the 

mass velocity is big.  This has several implications: 

 

1) better heat transfer means using more water (faster flow). 

2) Smaller tubes are better than bigger ones.  This makes sense, since 

there is more surface area for the same amount of copper.  It is limited 

by the ratio of cross sectional area to wall thickness.  The very small 

tubes have a problem with this, in that their inside area is small 

compared to the relative thickness of the wall.  Heat transfer is 

inversely proportional to wall thickness, so there is a limit to how small 

is small enough. 

 

Well, we don't want to use more water, so that's out.  Joe is already 

using 1/2" tubing in his cooler, so it would be rude to tell him to get 

smaller tubing.  Wasteful too.  What we can do is decrease the hydralic 

radius of his tube.  A circular cross-section has the lowest possible 

ratio of area to perimeter.  This is why bubbles are round.  So how about 

making the copper tubing not round.  There are some very high efficiency 

florescent light tubes that have a rippled surface to increase the surface 

to volume ratio.  The tubes look pinched, the pinches alternating 90 

degrees from each other.  Maybe this could be done with a pair of 

vice-grip plyers so the tube doesn't get pinched too much. 

 

This high ratio of surface are to volume is why the breweries use flat 

plate coolers, the transfer coefficient is quite high if you get away from 

using tubes.  Multiple small tubes in parallel are also used for high 

efficiency heat exchangers. 

 

If you are building a cooler, here are some things to consider: 

 

* for the same price, more feet of small tube are better than fewer feet 

of big tube. 

 

* The coefficients in a counterflow exchanger need to match.  The water 

side will have to have a larger flow to match the lower specific heat of 

water compared to wort. 

 

* If you have a choice, thinner copper tube is better since heat flow is 

equal to conductivity / thickness. 

 

* When using an immersion chiller, stir the wort.  This will raise the 

mass velocity on the wort side and improve the heat transfer.  Remember: 

water and wort are poor conductors, heat transfer takes place by convection. 

 

To get into the true "rocket science" of counterflow wort chiller design, 

the specific heat, conductivity and viscosity of hot beer wort need to be 

known.  Can anybody help? 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 14:42 PDT 

From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov> 

Subject: Mashers & Coolers from Micah Millspaw 

 

 

 

	Wort chillers and igloo coolers.  

Unless I misunderstood, several HBers are useing the round vertical 

type ice chests as lauter vessels,that is something to sparge in.  

Since these industious brewers have gone to the trouble of putting 

a false bottom in the cooler why not use it as you mash tun as well, 

these things are certainly well insulated. 

Also I have seen 10 gallon metal coolers of this type at hardware stores 

for around $50 they are galvanized on the outsie and have a food grade  

coating on the inside. A fellow in my homebrew club made a mash\lauter 

tun from one of these coolers and is very happy with it. 

 

	On to wort chillers, I am planning to build a newer, and I hope 

better immersion chiller. The basis of my idea is that with a 1\2 inch 

copper line with tap water running thru it picks up from the wort about as  

much heat as is possible in the first nine feet. And  so I intend to  

build a chiller that uses 4 circuts each 12 ft long in parallel  made  

of 1\2 inch copper. I will have to use a manifold on both the inlet and  

outlet and will probably add some temperature sensors and water pressure  

guages, in hope that these may give some way to optimize the delta T by  

varing the flow rate. Anybody try anything similar? If so please post  

the pluses and minuses. Thanks 

 

                                          Micah Millspaw 

                                                8/6/92 

 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 20:24 EDT 

From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> 

Subject: Yeast reproduction and cold break formation figures 

 

 

Now let's see if I can get in a post without being flamed... 

 

HBD regular and Fidonet Zymurgy leader, John de Carlo asks: 

 

>Can anyone point me to a reference that describes the typical 

>yeast reproduction activity for homebrewers?   

 

This may not be exactly what you want, John, but I finally found this  

table when cleaning off my miserable excuse for a desk this past week- 

end.  Dave Logsdon gave it to me about 6 years ago as he was getting  

Wyeast off the ground. 

 

                 Yeast Reproduction Time 

 

TEMPERATURE             ALE                     LAGER 

 

104 degrees F.          4.0 hr.                 no growth 

 95   "                 2.0                     4.8 hr. 

 91                     1.4                     1.8 

 82                     1.6                     2.0 

 68                     3.2                     3.7 

 50                    11.0                     9.0 

 45                    42.0                    24.0 

 

As I understand this table, it effectively gives us a report on lag  

time.  The smaller the hour figure, the shorter the lag time.  Clearly 

both lager and ale yeast reproduce at faster rates at temperatures of  

between 82 and 91 degrees.  The reproduction rate is still vigorous  

but starts falling off at temperatures between 68 and 82 degrees. 

 

These are not recommended fermenting temperatures.  I assume they  

speak to the respiration phase when the yeast is/are reproducing and  

have yet to start fermenting the wort.  At least that's my  

recollection of the conversation I had with Dave.  (Yo, Jeff.  If  

you're listening, correct me if I'm wrong.) 

 

It's as a result of this table that I've advocated pitching yeast at  

around 70 degrees then moving the fermenter to the basement/ 

refrigerator.  The yeast reproduces at a comfortable temperature and  

should be hitting a reasonable population figure by the time the wort  

cools to the ambient temperature of the fermentation room/chamber and  

starts fermenting.  Of course if you're pitching with an up and  

running yeast starter with a sufficient yeast count, the pitching  

temperature of the wort is not as critical.  

 

Alan Edwards notes: 

 

>Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941): 

>| In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most 

>| enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins 

>| at 65F.  Wow! 

 

>Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else?  Anyone's experience 

>bear this one out?  I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to 

>cool below 65F before you start getting cold break. 

 

>Before I started using an immersion chiller, I had maybe half an inch of 

>break material in my primary fermenter.  Now that I chill the wort down 

>to about 70F, I get at least three inches of cold break (after it settles 

>for a few hours). 

 

I decided to check my copy of _Malting and Brewing Science_ on this  

one since I have the highest degree of respect for the opinions of  

both Jeff and Al.  There I found the following chart that may shed  

light on this discussion.  

 

300| 

   * 

   | 

250| 

   | 

   | 

200|     * 

   | 

   | 

150|           * 

   | 

   |                  * 

100|                          

   |                         * 

   | 

 50|                                       * 

   |                                                            * 

   |                                                             

  0|_____|_____|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|       

        10    20     30     40     50     60     70     80     90 

 ^                          Temperature (degrees C.) 

 | 

 |      50     68    86     104   122    140     158   176    194 

 |                          Temperature (degrees F.) 

 | 

Cold break       (I added in the Fahrenheit temperatures -krb)   

(mg/ml) 

                                   

If I may interpolate, trub formation is relatively light, albeit  

measurable, at temperatures above 100 degrees F.  At temperatures  

below 100 degrees the curve begins to steepen significantly.  I also  

think one could read the chart as saying that trub formation is  

minimal until it reaches 64 degrees *Centigrade* rather than  

Fahrenheit, at which point it begins increasing until it reaches 40  

degrees C. where it begins increasing at a moderately faster rate.  

 

Yet again, if you look at the curve at around 64 degree F., it really  

starts taking off.  So perhaps that's what Jeff was trying to say. I  

didn't hear Jeff's talk so I'm not sure what he said or what his  

sources are.  Still, if this chart is to be believed trub formation  

begins, although slightly, once the wort begins cooling,  though  

significant trub formation doesn't occur until wort temperatures drop  

to around 100 degrees F., with exceptionally fast cold break  

formation kicking in at 64 degrees F.  

 

The text goes on to say,  

 

"During the cooling of wort, cold trub progressively precipitates.  It  

is impossible to remove all the potential precipitate because the trub  

continues to form during fermentation and subsequent beer cooling.  

However, many breweries, especially those concerned with lager  

fermentation, remove much of the cold trub...  

 

A recent survey has shown that in Swiss breweries, the cold break  

content of beers varied over a wide range...The effects on  

fermentation, maturation and beer clarification were not significant.   

Druing the course of successive fermentations, the preference of  

tasting panels shifted from beers where cold trub had not been removed  

to beers where partial removal had been practiced.  The overall  

impression from other studies is that the presence of cold trub may  

stimulate the rate of fermentation, possibly by providing nuclei for  

carbon dioxide release; on the other hand, with more delicate beers  

there seems to be more possiblity of having unacceptable sulphury  

aroma and taste. 

 ..... 

 

The production of cold trub has received little biochemical study.   

Many years ago,it was claimed that to get maximum trub production it  

was necessary to cool slowly over the range 120-80 degrees F., at  

least 30 seconds being required, and mechanical agitation being  

desirable.  Later results described worts where the best cold trub  

formation occurred when cooling from 140-70 degrees F. took place in 3  

seconds or less." (pp. 523-524)  

 

So there you have it according to Hough, Briggs, Stevens and Young.   

Some cold trub is formed as soon as the beer begins cooling, with  

significant trub production beginning around 64 degrees F.  Not only  

temperature but also the speed at which the wort cools appears to be a  

factor according to some.  Its removal seems to be more important when  

brewing delicately flavored beers than with heavily flavored ones.  At  

least that's the way I read it.   

 

Trubles on my mind, 

 

Kinney Baughman 

baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu 

 





------------------------------ 

 

Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 21:19 CDT 

From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) 

Subject: Cider Yeast, Coldbreak 

 

  

 To: Homebrew Digest 

 Fm: Jack Schmidling 

  

  

 Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 10:14:26 CDT 

 From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss) 

 Subject: yeasts/grain bag source 

  

 >I have an apple tree outside my apartment and I was wondering how to make a  

 hard cider.  A friend has one of those juicer machines and I was thinking  

 that would be a good way to get the juice from the apples but where do you go  

 from there. 

 > 

 >If anyone has some recipes or suggestions please help and THANKS. 

  

 <don't use red star champagne yeast (ale yeast will 

 make a sweeter product). 

  

 That advice depends on a few variables not the least of which is the sugar  

 content of the juice.  Most juice needs to have sugar added just to get  

 enough alcohol to preserve it and the high tolerance of champagne yeast would  

 not even enter the equation of most straight juice.  It would run out of  

 sugar before even ale yeast got tired. 

  

 Secondly, one can always add sugar to adjust the sweetness after fermenting. 

  

 Thirdly, one usually will add lots of sugar to make a higher alcohol apple  

 wine and ale yeast would produce an undrinkably sweet wine. 

  

 >From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov> 

  

 >Subject: Wort cooling 

  

 >I use a immersion chiller placed in my kettle to cool the wort. During the  

 summer months the tap water is warmer and I will use another immersion  

 chiller to pre-cool the water by placing this cooler in a 5 gal bucket of  

 cracked ice... I have wondered if it would help to add salt to the water  

 before it freezes. This works to lower the temperature when 

 freezing ice cream, so why not in cooling wort? 

  

  

 It will just make your freezer work harder freezing it.  You should put the  

 salt in the chiller with the ice to lower the temp of the water but the ice  

 will melt faster so you will need more.  You just can't get nothing fer  

 nothing no mo. 

  

 >From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards) 

 >Subject: Cold Break Temperature 

  

 >Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941): 

 | In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most 

 | enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins 

 | at 65F.  Wow! 

  

 <Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else?  Anyone's experience  

 bear this one out?  I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to cool  

 below 65F before you start getting cold break. 

  

 I have neither heard it before nor does it match experience nor do I believe  

 a word of it.   I think it can safely be identified as a MOMILY until further  

 evidence is offered. 

  

  

js 

_ 

 





=============================================================

 HOMEBREW Digest #945		             Tue 11 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date:         Sun, 09 Aug 92 13:13:55 EDT 

From: "Mr. Pete" <ENM09857%UDELVM.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU> 

Subject:      Wort chillers revisited 

 

Fellow Brewers----- 

   Just a quick note on chillers.  If you're interested in being very 

efficient (thermodynamically speaking), and want to save water, what 

about making the best of both worlds? 

   Here's what I'm thinking:  Instead of connecting your counter-flow 

chiller to your faucet, why not invest a few bucks in an inexpensive 

submersible (sump) pump and a big bucket.  Use the bucket to serve as 

a reservoir of ice water (use the milk carton trick) in which the pump 

is placed.  Circulate the chilling water for a few minutes to cool the 

tubing before starting the wort through.  It is probably a good idea to 

have a pinch-clamp on the wort outlet and plenty of extra ice handy to 

get the wort cooled to the desired temp (20-25 deg C). 

   So anyway, that's my contribution to the continued progress of happy 

home brewers all over, for whatever it's worth (my contribution, that is). 

And don't forget, A.I.E. 

   Mr. Pete 





 

=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #946		             Wed 12 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date:    Mon, 10 Aug 92 08:43:33 CDT 

From: smith%8616.span@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov (Vote Libertarian in '92!) 

Subject: heat transfer properties of wort 

 

 

hey-- 

 

After checking my fluid-mechanics textbook (Intro. to Fluid Mechanics, 

Janna, 2nd ed.), it appears that beer wort's viscosity is going to be 

within 1% of that of water at a given temperature.  A good initial 

value to use is that of water at 100 degF, which is approximately 

1.4 x10^-5 lbf*s/ft^2.  Density is within 1% as well, but you can be 

exact with that since you have a hydrometer.  I would expect specific 

heat to be about 1-5% higher than that of water, which is 1 Btu/lbm/degF. 

Since few heat transfer correlations are accurate to within 20%, I would 

not worry too much about the exactness of wort measurements. 

 

One thing to remember in wort-through-a-tube chillers is that the 

viscosity is going to increase as cold break forms, causing a reduction in 

flow rate.  By how much?  Good question.  If people send me accurate 

measurements of flowrate, temperatures, tubing sizes/configurations etc., 

I will make a stab at producing an empirical calculation of The Wort 

Chiller, but no promises.... 

 

James Smith 

smith%8616.span@fedex.msfc.nasa.gov 

"Someone let the dogs out, they'll show you where the truth is" 

 

p.s.  Would you bickerers keep it in email?  We don't care if you 

      count coup or not.  Better yet, save the NSF some dough and 

      chill out.... 





------------------------------ 

 

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 15:56 CDT 

From: korz@ihpubj.att.com 

Subject: Re: mashtuns/chillers/lipids 

 

Micah writes: 

>Unless I misunderstood, several HBers are useing the round vertical 

>type ice chests as lauter vessels,that is something to sparge in.  

>Since these industious brewers have gone to the trouble of putting 

>a false bottom in the cooler why not use it as you mash tun as well, 

>these things are certainly well insulated. 

 

Some do, however, this system lends itself only to single-step infusion 

mashes or decoction mashing, unless you've got an immersable heating 

element.  Upward-infusion (i.e. temperature-controlled) mashing is 

usually done in a Bruheat-type masher or stovetop and then transfered 

to the lautertun.  Note also, that "round" is not a pre-requisite.  I've 

seen many square ice chest lauter tuns. 

 

>	On to wort chillers, I am planning to build a newer, and I hope 

>better immersion chiller. The basis of my idea is that with a 1\2 inch 

>copper line with tap water running thru it picks up from the wort about as  

>much heat as is possible in the first nine feet. And  so I intend to  

>build a chiller that uses 4 circuts each 12 ft long in parallel  made  

>of 1\2 inch copper. I will have to use a manifold on both the inlet and  

>outlet and will probably add some temperature sensors and water pressure  

>guages, in hope that these may give some way to optimize the delta T by  

>varing the flow rate. Anybody try anything similar? If so please post  

>the pluses and minuses. Thanks 

 

I think the idea is sound, except I would offer that you should use a 

smaller diameter tubing (I used 3/8" OD) and see how many feet have 

efficient heat transfer.  Apparently, you have the math or patience to 

determine this and I would like to know what the efficient part of the 

length is on a 3/8" OD tube.  However, I think Paul's post earlier in 

HBD944 supports your multiple tube theory. 

 

Since I've got your attention, Micah, could you post some references 

for your early June post regarding lipids in beer.  I was facinated and 

want to read more about them.  Thanks. 

 

Al. 





------------------------------ 

 

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 18:35:41 EDT 

From: Pierre.Jelenc@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu 

Subject: parallel chiller 

 

In HBD #944, Micah Millspaw mentions planning to build a parallel 

immersion chiller with four 12ft lengths of 1/2 inch tubing, and asks 

for comments. 

 

I made something similar, with two 20ft pieces of 3/8 inch copper 

tubing. The tubing was first held together with string and tape, so as 

to be coiled side-by-side , then it was shaped so as to bring both 

inlets and outlets to two T compression fittings, the inlet one going 

to a quick-disconnect fitting to the tap, and the outlet to a similar 

quick-disconnect to the sink. The advantage is that the construction 

is all metal up to the joints, and thus can be boiled thoroughly for 

sanitizing. The in and outflow plastic tubings are then connected and 

the water started in seconds, without heat damage to them. 

 

This construction allows me to cool 5 full gallons to water-temperature 

plus 5 degrees F in a bit less than 15 minutes. The wort must be 

stirred slowly to optimize heat transfer. 

 

Pierre 

 

 

Pierre Jelenc                        pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu  

                                    Columbia University, New York 

 







=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #947		             Thu 13 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 16:23:31 -0500 

From: devenzia@euler.jsc.nasa.gov (John Devenezia) 

Subject: Re:Wort Chilling, Some chilling thoughts... 

 

Al Taylor writes in HBD #940:  

 

> Before making my immersion chiller, I advocated using a 2.5 gallon jug of 

> bottled water at near freezing temp to cool the wort down to pitching temp. 

> This worked very well for about 10 batches.  I now use my new toy, which will 

> cool 3 gallons of boiling wort to 80 degrees F in about 15 minutes while using 

> only 15 gallons of tap water (at ~65 deg F).  BTW the whole thing only cost 

> me $25 to build. I then add the same bottled water, but at room temp. to bring 

> to 5 gallons.  I seems to me that combining the two techniques would easily 

> allow for cooling to a reasonable lager pitching temp. 

 

> Another idea, though much more elaborate, is to send the cooling water through 

> a copper coil submerged in an ice bath before it gets to the wort.  This would 

> cool the water down to around 40 deg, based on my crude measurements of the 

> heat exchange of my chiller.  This idea may best be described as a flight of 

> fancy, but I always did like the t.v. show "MacGyver". 

 

I have devised just such a device.  I got it in my head that I wanted to bend  

some copper tubing one night, so I went out the local hardware store. They 

were having a sale ($21us) on pre-packaged 50' coils of 3/8" tubing for a price 

lower then 25' of the regular bulk tubing. So I got the coil figuring 

I could make two and give one away.  Well as I was contemplating said copper 

tubing I had a brainstorm (ok maybe a brainshower).  Knowing that Texas 

tapwater (or more specificly hosewater) was downright warm in the summer I 

pulled my two-liter bottle soda bottle of ice out of the freezer and wound 

about seven feet of coil around it.  Then I left about two feet staight and 

wound the rest (except for a straight bit at the end) into a double coil.  

 

Volia, I had created WortChiller-zilla(tm). The thing is ugly I'll admit, but 

it cooled down my last batch (~4 boiling gallons of wort) in a much 

shorter time then my usual ice batch (didn't think to measure said time, 

it being the end of a long home-brew/drink day). I had put a frozen two-litre 

soda bottle inside the small coil and put the coil in a small pan with  

ice cubes.  Added a water to the ban and had a pre-chiller.  I then put the 

wort chiller in the pot (I had boiled it a short time in the wort to sterilize 

it) and turned on the tap water.  

 

On the observation of a brewfriend next time I will omit the seperate pot 

with icecubes and use my washtub/icebath around the pot as a pre-chiller.  

That way I'll get the best of both worlds, ice bath for outside of pot 

and wortchiller inside the pot. 

 

> I'm interested to hear comments on my ideas, in public or private :-) 

> Al Taylor, MS-III 

> Uniformed Services University, School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD 

 

John D. 

devenzia@euler.jsc.nasa.gov 

 



------------------------------ 

 

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 22:20:14 -0700 (PDT) 

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu> 

Subject: RE: chillers 

 

Michael Hall has written a very good paper on the calculations required 

for a counter-flow type chiller.  I believe that Mike mentioned that he was 

preparing to submit it to Zymurgy.  I searched the last two months of 

archives for it, but came up dry.  John Palkovic kindly sent me a copy.  

There is a rights reservation at the top, so I'm retroactively asking 

Mike's permission.  My system's mailer keeps bouncing Mike's address.  I 

believe I can reply if he contacts me. 

 

That being said...  Mike's calculations suggest that a siphoning 

counter-flow cooler would need to use a length over 30' if it was made of 

1/2" copper tubing, but that 25 - 30' of 1/4" tubing would give a good 

heat exchange efficiency.  The interesting part of Mike's results is that 

there is a minimum length for any tubing diameter.  Using a longer length 

does no harm, but you are buying more tube than you need.  

 

An immersion cooler will have a higher velocity, since the water is being 

driven by the mains pressure, rather than a siphon.  Since heat transfer 

is proportional to velocity, the tubing lengths would presumably be 

shorter.  In a parallel tube immersion cooler, smaller would be better.  

The length of the cooler tubes would be determined by the number of tubes 

in parallel, the I.D. of the chiller tubes, the water supply pressure and 

the diameter of the supply line at the tap.  Most outdoor hose bibs are 

1/2" pipe, while sinks are usually 3/8". 

 

FWIW, my 25' x 3/8" immersion cooler has an outlet temp near the wort 

temp, but only if I stir pretty fast.  Also pipe is measured by I.D, but 

bendable tube is O.D.  This means that tubing sizes are bigger than the 

fluid cross-section.  The difference is considerable for the smaller sizes. 

 

Paul de Armond 

paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu 

 

 

 





=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #948		             Fri 14 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date: 13 Aug 1992 10:06:09 -0500 

From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott@draper.com> 

Subject: RE^2- chillers 

 

 RE^2: chillers 

In #947, Mr de Armond says: 

 

> That being said...  Mike's calculations suggest that a 

> siphoning counter-flow cooler would need to use a length 

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

> over 30' [...] 

> An immersion cooler will have a higher velocity, since the 

     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

> water is being driven by the mains pressure, rather than a 

> siphon.  Since heat transfer is proportional to velocity, 

> the tubing lengths would presumably be shorter. 

 

First, the siphoning in the counter-flow chiller, under standard operating 

procedure, refers to the siphoning of the wort through the inner tube of the 

chiller, not the outer tube through which tap water is driven.  So in both 

cases the coolant is being driven by pressure.   Aside, with a long enough 

siphon you can develop some pretty good pressure.  Ever empty a waterbed, on 

the fourth floor, with a garden hose dropping all the way to the ground? :-) 

 

Second, I beleive that the velocity in question is the velocity of the wort 

relative to the coolant, or cooling element.  This leads me to beleive that the 

wort being siphoned through the counter-flow would have a greater velocity than 

the wort in which the immersion chiller is immerged.  And since the heat 

transfer rate is proportional to velocity, the tubbing length of the immersion 

chiller would have to be greater.  Of course if you stirred very vigorously, 

the wort in the pot (immersion) may have a greater velocity. 

 

I am the proud owner of a counter-flow chiller that works extremely well (read 

fast), though I admit is a water hog.  I think that each type of chiller has 

its own points.  I love the fact that mine works so fast, but on the other 

hand, I don't like that it can't leave all that cold-break in the brew-pot, 

instead of my primary, like an immersion chiller would. 

 

While beer will give you that magical bliss, the more you drink the more you 

 ... 

_ 

Christopher K. McDermott       Internet:  mcdermott@draper.com 

C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.   Voice:     (617) 258-2362 

555 Technology Square          FAX:       (617) 258-1131 

Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA) 

 

 

 

=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #949		             Mon 17 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date:     Fri, 14 Aug 92 14:34:00 EDT 

From: William Boyle (CCAC-LAD) <wboyle@PICA.ARMY.MIL> 

Subject:  Wort Chilling 

 

This is for people who need or want to save water.  You can 

put your wort chiller in line with your hot water heater. 

What you will need is three valves, two "T"s, a short length 

of pipe, and some garden hose.  During normal use you open 

valve 1 and close valves 2 & 3, during chilling you open 

valves 2 & 3, and close valve 1. 

 

You don't want to put this into your whole house water inlet 

since you would be heating your cold water also.  All you 

would have to do is plan to do something that needs hot water 

and while you are doing that your wort is cooling down.  You 

can shower, do dishes, do laundry, or anything else that uses 

hot water.  This system not only saves water but it also 

recycles the heat. 

 

 

 

 

                        valve 1 

                         ___ 

                          | 

- ------------------------------------------------------------- 

to heater                 X                 from water source 

----------:   :---------------------------:   :-------------- 

          :   :                           :   : 

          : X :--| valve 2                : X :--| valve 3 

          :   :                           :   : 

          from chiller                    to chiller 

 

 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 15:23:41 EDT 

From: bszymcz%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak) 

Subject: Re: Why bother with yuck? 

 

In HBD 948 in response to someone reporting murky brown 

wort coming out of a chiller (for a pale ale) Jack 

Schmidling responds: 

 

 

>I know the pros and cons of immersion vs counterflow have been beaten to  

>death but I can't resist pointing out that the wort coming out of the kettle  

>after immersion chilling is crystal clear.  I just do not understand why  

>anyone wants all that yuck in the fermenter or the bother of letting it  

>settle and racking again. 

 

One reason is that I've read somewhere that the trub from the cold 

break can assist the yeast in its aerobic phase, and therefore 

adding it to the fermenter, and reracking after 6 to 12 hours 

is actually a good thing to do, (although I agree it may be a bother). 

Perhaps a better reason (for not using an immersion in kettle chiller) 

is that in some parts of the country, e.g. in the D.C suburbs of  

Maryland, the temperature of the tap water is 80 - 82 degrees F in the 

summer and if you want to chill your wort to 75 degrees F, you would 

be out of luck. Of course you could first 

chill the tap water with some pre-chiller, but this is also a bother. 

For this reason, I used an immersion in ice type chiller for my 

first attempt at an all-grain brew, 

and with about 5 or 6 gallons of ice, was able to cool 6 gallons 

of boiling wort to 72 degrees F in 15 minutes.  In the winter, 

or in colder climates, the immersion in kettle may be more 

attractive. 

 

Bill Szymczak 

 

 

------------------------------ 

 

Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 13:25:24 MDT 

From: mlh@cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) 

Subject: Yeast Nutrient, Vitamin C, and Chillers 

 

Jay Hersh writes: 

 

>Umm, this may be a silly half baked idea, but I was under the 

>impression that many commercial yeast nutrients are in fact 

>made from yeast. 

 

Not silly at all. That's what I found in my book-foraging experience of a 

couple of days ago. Actually, it only makes sense that dead yeast would contain 

the things that live yeast needs to grow. I believe that the book I read said 

something about washed yeast hulls being used as a yeast nutrient. 

 

Chuck Coronella writes: 

 

>Has no one used ascorbic acid? 

 

>I can vaguely remember, way back when, a discussion in this forum regarding  

>the addition of ascorbic acid (also known as vitamin C) to a brew for the 

>purpose of preventing oxidation.  Is this done at bottling time?  In what  

>quantities?  I s'pose one could add food grade vitamin C available at any  

>pharmacy or grocery store, right? 

 

I use vitamin C, I just didn't respond because I thought that everyone else 

would :-) Here's my understanding of it: 

 

   1. Add at bottling time, but don't boil it because it destroys the chemical 

      structure. 

   2. Use about .5 tsp per 5 gallons (if I remember correctly). 

   3. It reduces oxidation by grabbing up any available oxygen before it can 

      react with the beer. 

   4. Supposedly it doesn't matter very much, but if it reduces your worry, use 

      it (so I do). 

 

As an interesting side note, I have been recently juicing a bunch of apricots 

(for a wine or mead, or maybe both :) and putting the resultant slush into 

a gallon jar for keeping. This stuff starts out a dull orange color, but turns 

darker brown when exposed to air (oxidation), which happens fairly quickly. 

I managed to get almost a full gallon with little oxidation, so I decided to 

sprinkle some vitamin C on top of what was left before I put it in the

refrigerator 

to retard any additional oxidation. It's hard to sprinkle through a small hole, 

so what I got looked more like a little pile of vitamin C. The next morning, the 

little pile and the area around it (within an inch) looked exactly the same as 

the night before, but the rest of the surface area had turned brown to a depth of



about 1/4 inch. That says something to me about the worth of vitamin C! 

 

About wort chillers: 

 

There have been several posts of late about wort chillers, and a little 

confusion.  First of all, there is some confusion about what to call the 

different types of chillers. I would like to suggest, for the sake of 

discussion, some standard names to use for the different types: 

 

    1. Counterflow chillers - These are the "tube in a tube" chillers, with hot 

       wort in the inner tube and cold water in the outer tube, and the two 

       liquids are flowing in opposite directions. 

 

    2. Immersion chillers - These are the kind that have a coil of tubing (with 

       cold water flowing *inside* the tubing) that is inserted into a pot of 

       hot wort. The wort is on the outside of the tube, and water is allowed 

       to flow through the tube until the wort is chilled sufficiently. 

 

    3. Bath chillers - These are the chillers where the hot wort flows on the 

       inside of a coil of tubing, which is placed in a cold bath of water or 

       ice-water. 

 

and, for completeness, 

 

    4. Simple chiller - This is when you set your entire brewpot (containing 

       hot wort) in an ice-bath or water-bath or even in the snow! 

        

Some of you have seen the little write-up that I did on one of these kinds, the 

bath chiller. It is also roughly applicable to a counterflow chiller, although 

a better (more specific) analysis of that type may be done. As far as the 

status of that goes, I am planning on submitting it to Zymurgy eventually, but 

I want to include analyses of the other types of chillers too and I haven't had 

much spare time recently. 

 

There have been some statements that the heat transfer rate is proportional to 

the velocity of something. Well, this is true and it isn't :-) The heat 

transfer coefficient due to convective heat transfer is 

 

           Nu k            .8   .4  k          ( rho V D ).8   .4  k  

       h = ----  = 0.023 Re   Pr   --- = 0.023 ( ------- )   Pr   --- 

            D                       D          (    mu   )         D   

             

So that h is proportional to V^{.8}. This means that a fluid moving past a wall 

picks up heat faster if it is moving faster. However, since it is moving 

faster, the fluid doesn't have as much time to pick up heat from the wall. 

These effects almost completely cancel each other out, so that given a fluid 

passing through a tube of constant wall temperature, the outlet temperature of 

that fluid has only a weak dependence on the velocity of the fluid. This 

dependence is not linear, but rather about exp(V^{-.2}), depending on the 

correlation you choose. 

 

If you are interested in getting a copy of my write-up, please email me. I am 

doing it this way so that I can keep track of who has it (just to send out 

revised versions) and because it is so long that I am afraid of jamming the 

HBD. 

 

Mike Hall 

hall@lanl.gov 

 

P.S. - I will be out of town next week, so I'll answer any questions/requests 

       when I return. 

P.P.S. - I think I stole this .sig from Guy McConnell, but I really like it :-) 

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again.  

Such hilarious visions clamber through the chamber of my brain --  

Quaintest thoughts -- queerest fancies come to life and fade away; 

What care I how time advances: I am drinking ale today. 

                                              - Edgar Allan Poe 

 

=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #950		             Tue 18 August 1992 

=============================================================



 

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 12:09:11 MET DST 

From: Stefan Karlsson <stefank@math.chalmers.se> 

Subject: Wort Chiller - help requested 

 

I'm about to make myself a wort chiller. 

I think it will be an immersion type.  

 

I first bought some 3/16" copper tubing, but realised that it 

was to narrow, so I found some 30-40' of 3/8" in my father's 

basement. I think it should be better.  

 

Now, what's the best construction? 

If you have a single spiral I guess you'd let the water flow from 

the bottom to the top, because of the wort getting colder at the 

bottom (right?). What if you use double spirals. Should you start 

at the bottom of the inner spiral and then from the top go down 

and let the inner spiral start from the bottom? OK, you who'd been 

building those before, please give me some advise.  

 

Stefan Karlsson  

Dep of Math 

Univ of Goteborg 

Sweden 

 - 

stefank@math.chalmers.se 

 





=============================================================

HOMEBREW Digest #951		             Wed 19 August 1992 

=============================================================





 

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:23:16 -0700 (PDT) 

From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu> 

Subject: Chillers and Labels 

 

This weekend I measured the flow through my 25' x 3/8" (1/4" ID) immersion 

chiller.  It filled a 5 gallon carboy in 1:43 (avg of two runs, 0:01.5 

difference between the two).  This is a flow rate of ~2.9 gal/minute.  

With continuous stirring it takes about 20 minutes to cool 5 gal to 80F.  

My water temperature at the tap is 58F.  So, I'm using about 58 gallons @ 58F. 

 

Mike McNally (HBD 939) gives a formula for minimum water consumption that 

indicates I cannot use less than 27.5 gallons.  I figure that makes my 

immersion chiller ~50% efficient.  I just bought two 20' lengths of 3/8" 

OD tube at a going out of business sale.  Should I hook them in parallel 

or in series to get the quickest cooling with the least water consumption? 

 I'm inclined parallel, but I'd be interested to hear comments. 

 

David Clump asks what other people are using for labels.  I'm xeroxing 

three labels per letter-size (8 1/2" x 11") sheet.  8 1/2" will wrap 

nicely around a long-neck bottle.  I've tried all sorts of adhesives:  

mucilage, Elmer's, rubber cement, and glue sticks.  I like the glue sticks 

best.  It is not messy, soaks off easily, and is easy to use.  Next best 

is mucilage, but there is a lot of difference between brands.  The cloudy 

variety that comes from Mexico is best.  The very clear mucilages can be 

very hard to soak off.  Try a glue stick... 

 

Is there any sort of a forum, newsletter, APA, pen pals club, etc. for 

people who like making and collecting homebrew labels? 

 

Paul de Armond  --- If it tastes good, you did it right! 

 

 

 

