Beer Forum

So, I purchased a new 15 gallon kettle from morebeer and new burner (I had been brewing all grain on an 8 gallon turkey fryer). I had planned to build a planispiral chiller until I got to looking at copper prices. I just can't afford it now. I thought that I will just continue using my current 25 foot chiller. Well, the kettle showed up on my doorstep today and it is HUGE! It will swallow my current chiller. What methods would you all recommend I use to make my meager chiller more effective in this monster kettle.

Convert your chiller to a counterflow chiller.... of sorts. Immerse the chiller in a tub of ice water and use a pump to recirculate the wort through the chiller back into the kettle until the entire kettle is at pitching temperature. At that point begin pumping wort into your fermenter. If your pump won't handle boiling temperatures, put it in line after the chiller so it pulls the wort through the chiller instead of pushing it. This way the pump will see somewhat cooler wort.

I have done this type of recirculation with a regular counterflow chiller when the water temperature was too high to allow chilling to pitching temperature on the first pass.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

Keep telling yourself that it is not the size of your chiller, it's your technique....

Well, you can stir your wort with your chiller - and that will speed things up. I think that might be all you can do for now.


Mylo

Or buy a cheap trash can and submersible pump, fill trash can 1/2 full with ice and water, recirc back to trash can and stir the wort lightly to keep it moving around the chiller.

How expensive are these pumps?

Expect to pay 130 or so for them. You can find them a little cheaper on eBay - but they won't have the mounting flanges.

Tip - don't use ice until you absolutely have to. Knock down as much as you can with hosewater - then switch to ice.


Mylo

With that big of a kettle you will need a lot of copper surface area to cool it down. So you may want to go with 1/2" tubing.

I just built a 50ft 3/8" immersion chiller for about $48 and I use my old 25' one as a pre-chiller once I get the wort below 80 degrees.

use this site to order the copper:
http://www.coppertubingsales.com/

1/2" 50ft. refrigeration tubing is $49 plus shipping, it is probably $80 at lowes or HD

It only took about five minutes to bend mine. Use a corny keg and just put the whole roll around the keg then start forming the copper to the shape of the keg, it was easy with the 3/8", may be harder with 1/2".

you can see mine here:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9039

I bought all my fittings at home depot for about $7, find one of the guys that works the aisle and they will find it all in a few min.

My next purchase is a march pump so I can make a Jamil-o-whirly chiller:
http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php

March pump (running wort through the copper) runs around $140ish, a submersible pump (running water through the copper) runs around $60-$70ish at hardware stores.

Agree with Mylofore on the ice, your mileage with vary though. Up here in the north I can knock down the wort to 100F in less than 10 minutes in the summer with ground water running in the low 60's, use ice after 100ish just to lower faster if I want to (freeze qt bottles of ice in the freezer for ice.) Keep moving south and your groundwater temp increases. Though in the winter I have all the snow I need for cooling, can drop the temp for ales to 65F in less than 10 minutes.

Also agree with 1/2" copper tubing over lesser sizes (should run about $2.50/ft at the hardware store). I went to a 20 gal kettle and designed my own 50' long 1/2" tubing design for the kettle (a lot wider than my 9 gallon kettle) and the cost was worth the customization, with ground water in the mid-60's I can cool 12 gallons to 65F in less than 15 minutes using ice water after hitting 100F with some stirring.

I'd rather have cold water running through the copper than wort, plus I water the yard with the excess water, before recirculating with ice water. With the pump you don't need a pre-chiller, so the cost of the pump would be about the same to 50ish foot of 1/2 copper tubing with faucet connections with compression fittings (at least at ACE hardware where I work for now.).