Wort chillers

[Mudcrab]

Morning,

I recently purchased a copper immersion chiller and while they are fairly fool proof, I feel it isn't working as efficiently as it should be. From the videos I've watched on YouTube, it seems like most brewers are able to get their wort to pitching temp within 15-20 minutes. Mine takes closer to the hour and I struggle to get below 30C. Has anyone else had any issues with the copper coils? 

My connections aren't the tightest i.e. there is a little leak on the cold water going in, but I wouldn't think it would impact it significantly. I could be wrong though. 

Cheers

[Tom C]

Keep the coil moving in the wort to improve the efficiency, otherwise you end up with a zone of cooler wort around the coil and you're not transferring heat from the rest of the kettle. If you feel the temperature of the exiting cooling water (not while it's scalding hot) you can feel the temperature rise when you change from stationary to moving, showing the heat being removed.

I rock mine back and forth and get down to 25C in around 10mins.  Alternatively leave the coil still and stir/whirlpool the wort around it.

[Mudcrab]

Thanks. I think I'll have to stir the wort around the coil as the leak on the in pipe could affect the wort. Great advice. 

[zxr400]

I found it took over an hour to cool my wort down when I first used my immersion chiller.  I just left it to do its thing. 

The next time I made sure I gently stirred the wort through out the process and it chilled down to 23c in about 25-30 minutes.

getting it from 23c to 18c takes forever though, so I just put mine in the temp controlled fridge and leave it for an hour then pitch.

[Mudcrab]

Seems like stirring moving the coil is the way to go. Agree - over Summer, the water temp is around 20C at my place, possibly hotter so getting it cooler than that is difficult. Do you set your fridge to lower than 18C to get there quicker or just wait until it is has been in there for the hour or so? 

[zxr400]

I have the fridge set to max cold and its hooked up to an stc-1000. so it will cool as fast as possible until what ever temp I set it to. 

[Mudcrab]

Cheers. I'll just use temp control in the fridge to get it cooler. I'm looking forward to the next brew - it has been painful waiting the hour or so to get it to 30C! 

[Samuel Loader]

remember it is summer and that the water temperature is higher than then what it can be in other areas at other times in the year. what i can suggest is getting a fish tank pump and some ice. cool your wort as you do currently to about 30C using tap water then recirculated ice water in a bucket to drop the last 10-15 C 

[James Guilford]

How long is the copper coil? Im using a full 25m roll in my chiller and its about 30-40 minutes. Our ground water is artesian so seldom is above 20C.

[Mudcrab]

I'm using a 25ft according to the website of the shop I got it from. 30-40mins sounds reasonable but when I heard of people doing it in 15-20 I thought there was something wrong. 

[James Guilford]

3.3ft to the meter so you might be light on surface area.

[JumpR]

If you have any copper left over or even some extra standard hosing, you could create a pre-chiller to cool the water down before it enters the immersion chiller.  I have a tub which I fill with ice and water - I coil my hose up in that ice bath about 30 mins before the end of the boil.  I leave the hose coil in there when running the immersion chiller to help cool the temperature of the tap water before it enters the IC.