wort cooling

brucy

Im just about to move away from kits and do my first extract brew and I had an idea for cooling the wort. I thought I would get some of those blue freezer packs that you put in your cooler box, sanitize them and chuck them in, what do you think?

BeerNut

It'll help, but it's not a complete solution unless you're going to be making very small batches.

rubadub

In hot countries brewing turbo yeast I have heard of them putting in 2L bottles of coke filled with water & frozen. PET bottles will shrink in hot water though. Those blue things are needlessly expensive, I doubt they are much better than normal water ice cooling wise, and they are a much lower volume. Also they usually have poor caps on them, I would be worried about them going soft in the heat and spilling the dodgy blue stuff into the wort.

You can add salt to the water in the bottles to get it below 0C.

ladhrann

brucy wrote: »

Im just about to move away from kits and do my first extract brew and I had an idea for cooling the wort. I thought I would get some of those blue freezer packs that you put in your cooler box, sanitize them and chuck them in, what do you think?

Take a look at this and buy a 10m length of piper from a heat merchant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l-lMKlVFpA&list=TLELEDcxIXGx9FFp3z-57L4KinDfQU1ZtC

jonziepoo

ladhrann wrote: »

Take a look at this and buy a 10m length of piper from a heat merchant

I used the ice packs, total failure. The plastic that covers them does not allow for fast thermal exchange. Frozen clean water is much more effective but still not enough for all grain. A copper spiral is usually the best.

sharingan

The ice packs alone wont do it, you will need an immersion chiller (i.e. copper coil and tap water as coolant).

The ice packs however may make a really good thermal reservoir for getting down those last couple of degrees down to pitch temp. i.e. at about 28C switch from tap water to a bucket of prechilled water. Salinating the water will get that second coolant cold very quickly, however I wouldn't try it unless you know the risks (corrosion of your copper coil, and you cant recycle that water anymore).

brucy

Thanks lads lots of useful advice there as always.