The wort chiller, is simply that, a piece of equipment to cool your wort down from boiling temperatures low enough to pitch your yeast. They come in many different configurations, and can cost a bundle. The simple way to cool your wort is an ice bath, just put your brew pot into the sink with ice water, and wait. This method while effective, is quite time consuming. When extract brewing, and only boiling a partial wort, it can work just fine. When doing full boils however, it really doesn’t work all that great. Thus the need for a chiller. There are simple copper coils, you immerse them into your hot wort, and run cold water through them. Probably the simplest of the chillers we will talk about. There are plate chillers, your wort passes through a series of metal plates that can be externally or internally chilled. These are very effective, but hard to clean and sanitize, and can be pretty expensive. There are counter-flow chillers, where cold water passes through a copper line inside a length of tubing , and the wort is circulated through the tubing itself. Another very effective set up, but again, it can be difficult to clean, and it’s expensive. All these chillers can be purchased either on line, or at your local home brew store.

If you have a little time, you can fashion a very effective imersion type chiller yourself. Simply buy some 1/4″ or 3/8″ copper tubing, Length depending on budget and chiller size, 12′ to 15′ minimun. (the longer the more effecient) And a couple fittings. Bending the copper can be difficult, it tends to crimp easily. You can buy a bender or If you bend it carefully around something hard and round, say a 3# coffee can, you can make coils without crimping the line. The fittings should be compression type, with standard male hose connections. Look at a photo of one, and you will get the idea. Make one, and you can save a few dollars, Purchase one and you won’t be sorry. A wort chiller can make brew day a lot shorter and easier.