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Wort Chiller
thirsty wrote:
As far as your stirring method, I would be more concerned about HSA, or hot side aeration. It is true you want to introduce O2 into your wort before pitching, however if you do at temps over 140, then you run the risk of HSA and possible oxidation down the road.
And for those of you out there wanting a more technical scoop on HSA, check it:
http://hbddotorg.blogspot.com/2009/12/h … -2009.html
Lot's of interesting, technical, and all around good information in there. My take on it was more of the side of "might as well be careful about oxygen introduction upstream, but it probably doesn't matter much if any".
DT
crabnut
gotta love craigslist...... I buy all my equip there. It's great if you live in a bigish city like Austin Tx. I even make some cash there as well buying and selling brewing stuff.
Anyway back to the thread. I use my big stainless spoon to whirlpool through my chiller coils. Might look into using my cordless drill stirrer in a Crabnut ish fashion once the wort cools a little more. but I'm really happy with the spoon stirrer, chiller, ice bath combo. usually only takes me 10-15 minutes to chill a five gal batch.
Crabnut.... being the homemade equip extordinare that you are..... How would you go about building a plate chiller? Is it a plate with cold water on one side a and hot wort on the other?
thanks
ID
Question about the wort after its chilled. How do you ensure the right temp when the wort cools and when you add the rest of the water in the fermentor. I always worry I'm cooling to much.
You don't have to worry about coolling to much, I usually cool to 60 degrees, but I'll keep the temp at 65 in the room. You might think this is on the low side for ale, but you really get alot of heat from the yeast fermenting that will jack up the temp about 5 degrees from all of their running around in your wort. You can always warm up your yeast later, meaning you can put it in a warmer room, but it's a pain in the ass cooling wort once it's fermenting.
The problem is starting your fermentation at 80 degrees and then putting in a room at about 65 degrees. With the yeast running around in your batch, it will take 3 days to drop to 60, then fermenting at such a high temp your going to get all of these aroma's (phenol's) that you didn't count on. Sometimes this is good, and suits the beer, sometimes it's bad bad bad.
just starting out I would not be to concerned with temps, that is why your doing ales, most strains are very forgiving. Most have a range from the low 60's to the high 70's without affecting the final outcome. You just need to say to yourself do I want a nice malty ale with low aroma (low 60s fermentating), or a nice malty ale with plum apple and fruit notes.(high 70's fermentation). both are good, just up to you.
Bottom line, if you pitch the yeast to cool once it warms up it will be fine you still have control on how the beer turns out. if you pitch to warm (i've actually pitched at 100degrees before) you no longer have control and the yeast does whatever the hell it wants to.
Irondavy wrote:
How would you go about building a plate chiller? Is it a plate with cold water on one side a and hot wort on the other?
thanks
ID
There are actually many plates all fused into a large block. In between these plates are small channels allowing the wort to pass through, and the cold water the other direction, but down 2 seperate paths, so they obviouslt never meet.
This is the drawback to a plate. Because you cannot take it apart to clean, most think you cannot get in there to get all of the crusty wort out. This is true to a degree, however if you back flush as soon as you are done with it, you will blow 99% of the nastiness out. I then dunk the whole thing in a waiting pot of boiling water at the end of the day. (Boil my O2 stone as well) after a 10 minute or so boil, I drain and fill with starsan, where it sits till the next brewday. Every 6-7 batches or so I do the boil with oxyclean and get all the beerstone out of it.
It is a little high maintenance, but because it is after brewday, and it is small and easy, to me it is no big deal, and well worth it for the chill. As far as temp goes, I have a Blichman in-line "thrumometer" and I use the ball valve on the kettle to throttle back the right flow rate so my fermenters fill at 62-64 deg, or 52 for lagers.
After I saw Thirsty's set up in action, I knew this was the way to go. I have never boiled my plate chiller. Right after I use it I back flush and put it in a small bucket with PBW. After 24 hours I back flush again, and all of that caked on stuff comes out.
I just think that the pro's out weight the con's. The ease of the plate chiller, and how fast it chills is mind boggling, in the grand scheme of brewing nothing can replace chilling your wort that quickly, there is nothing out there that will drop your wort from 213 degrees to 60 degrees for the price, (around 90 bucks) and the size ( about the size and thickness of a push broom head). as the Shirron plate chiller, truly a piece of homebrewing genius.
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