Beer Forum

I was thinking about making a counter flow chiller to cut down on the brewday time. I have found plans for a counter flow chiller online and have thought about making it. What are the Pros and Cons of the counter flow??

That is what I use. The two big cons are that they are a little difficult to sanitize and that all your cold break material ends up in the fermenter. To major pros are that they are pretty efficient and you can get your wort down to the temp of your water fairly quick. I cool a whole 5 gallon batch from a boil to 66F in less then 10 min. I also reserve the wasted water in my mash tun for clean up purposes.

I do think I am going to purchase a pump soon and use it to pump the wort through the chiller and then back into the kettle. I will recirculate until it's cool then run it to the fermenter. This way all the break material will stay in the kettle.

Did you make your chiller or buy one??? I have seen several plans online to build your own...

I am, personally, a bigger fan of an immersion chiller. It may be a little slower, but I think that the benefits exceed the drawbacks. The things that are most important to me are the fact that I can see what is touching my wort, I can leave all (or most) of my break material in the kettle, and I get all of my wort under DMS producing temperatures faster.
I think that for the cost, you could buy a submersible pump (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=98342) you could start recirculating ice water through your immersion chiller and finish up as fast (if not faster) than a counter flow.
I’m sure that you will find as many people that love their counter flow chillers as much as I do my immersion, and they’re definitely right. Consider all options.

ddgbrewing wrote:Did you make your chiller or buy one??? I have seen several plans online to build your own...

I built mine. They are fairly easy to build, it only took about 20 min. or so. The hardest part is getting the copper through the garden hose.

If I was doing it all over again I would probably build or buy a bad ass immersion chiller instead. But at the time, I had parts and hose and just went for it. I did not use any plans, just went to the hardware store and bought the pieces I was missing and put it together.

The Therminator is a nice compact unit, but a little pricey at $195.00. I built mine for approx $50.00 and about 8 hrs labor.

Disadvantages are (as stated) sanitizing the thing, not being able to see if there's any crud in the tubing, and trub in the fermenter.

Advantages: I don't have to cut a hole in the lid of my expensive Blichmann BK!

You can see the construction details of my counterflow and the numbers I got in actual brewing at;

http://maltmunchingmashmonsters.com/diy/chiller.html

I like BadRock's idea of recirculating from the counterflow back into the BK to dump the trub. You can also run the output from your counterflow into an immersion chiller, get a little additional cooling and some really hot water at the other end .

So whirlpool through the counterflow. Hmmmm................

Charlie

Charlie wrote:
I like BadRock's idea of recirculating from the counterflow back into the BK to dump the trub. You can also run the output from your counterflow into an immersion chiller, get a little additional cooling and some really hot water at the other end .

So whirlpool through the counterflow. Hmmmm................

Charlie

Too slow. The majority of your wort will be above SMM -> DMS temps for a while. You will also loose hop aroma volitiles from late hop additions with all that heat still in there. I used to recirculate a CFC back in. It takes a LONG time to get below 140. With the JZ immersion chiller, I am below 120 in 5 minutes - and another 10 to get to ale temps (assuming a < 70 degree source). In the summertime, I have to switch to ice when I get down to 90. Still only takes a half hour with my 90+ water.

I sold the CFC over a year ago.


Mylo

So, question for all of you counterflow people... I built a CF last year and used it for 6 or 8 batches, and it worked great. Then I noticed a different taste in those beers that wasn't in my immersion chiller beers. I guess I would describe the taste as extra maltiness or sweetness, and the beers also seemed to have more body. It wasn't a BAD taste, but it didn't work well with pale ales. In some beers (like decoction beers), it actually made them seem REALLY malty. It didn't seem to match the "cooked corn" description of DMS, but I don't know what the deal is.

Anyone know what this taste/body difference could be caused by? DMS, too much cold break, etc...?

Thanks,
-Luke