Making a counterflow wort chiller

Bending the pipes

I like making things myself, so why not attempt to make a counterflow wort chiller.

It works by having one pipe inside another. The outer pipe will flow with cold water, while the inner pipe will have wort flowing in the opposite direction. This is quite smart because it will maximize the temperature difference the hole way through the the pipe.

Coiling done

So what did I do. I got hold of two normal copper pipes used for pluming. One 15 mm and one 10 mm. The pipes I got was 2 meter long. I would have liked to use longer ones, but I couldn't get find any, unless I was willing to buy 25 or 50 meters glowed copper pipes.

Then take one pipe and put it inside the other. Then comes the tricky part. Make a coil out of them. The only reason for doing this is to save space. And also if you want to sterilise/sanitize it using your oven.

End piece soldered on

I had to make a contraption to hold it down so I could force it around a mould. This was not easy. Two stiff copper pipes like this is NOT easy to bend.

One end fitted with a stopper,
this is just for testing it.

Then you will have to fit a t junction on the end, so you can lead the water out and leave the inner tube sticking out on the end. The wort will then go through one clean copper pipe, and nothing else.

Hefeweizen, first all grain batch

Programing the Braumeister

Ingredients

• 2,5 kg (Pale Ale malt 1kg 7 EBC - Weyermann)
• 2,5 kg (Hvetemalt Blond 3 EBC - Weyermann)
• 2 x WLP380 - Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast
• 55g Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 4.5%

Adding the grain,
start mashing at 50°C

The malt was pre crushed from the shop, the problem was that I had to order 3 kg of each. Leaving me with lots of the finest crush left in the bag. Maybe this contributing to low OG as you will see later.

Three days earlier I started making a Yeast starter. I started the brew day by taking it out and decanting it. Just leaving me with a yeast slurry. I left it on the bench with the lid on to adopt pitching temperature.

Just after the pump
has been turned on

Mashing

Mashing steps I used.

1. 50°C - Start
2. 52°C - 0 min
3. 63°C - 15 min
4. 73°C - 35 min
5. 78°C - 15 min

Draining the grain

Everything went in at 50°C and I just had to press start, and the machine just sat there and went through the different steps.

After the mash program ended, I had to lift up the malt pipe as shown in the picture. And probe it with a wooden spoon to make the wort drain better. I decided to skip rinsing the grain, maybe not the smartest thing to skip.

Boiling

Adding hops

When boil started the foam built up, but settled before it boiled over. I just read about a tip to prevent boil over, and it was to have a water spray bottle handy, to spray on the foam to make it collapse. The foam should be reduced as soon as we are done with the hot break.

I was going to boil for 80 minutes. With hops added at 15g when 60 minutes remaining, and 15g when 10 minutes remaining.

Cooling

Cooling the wort

Now it was time to test out my submersible chiller that I described in this post. I almost had an accident here, the water coming out of the chiller was very hot, close to boiling temperature. And the cheap tube I had used for leading water through it was collapsing on me and blocking the water flow. This resulted in high pressure on the garden host system, and on the poor quality tubes. Next time I think I will dip the chiller inn slower.

Checking OG 1.040

The wort was cooled down very quickly, and I actually got it to drop a bit too low.

I left the wort in the boiler for a little bit, to let the sediments and proteins from the cold break fall to the bottom.

Next step was to let it free flow down into the fermentation bucket.

I swirled my yeast slurry around a bit before dumping it all into the fermenter.

I had tested aeration using a compressor from my workshop. This worked great since I was able to adjust the pressure on the compressor. I aerated the wort for 30 minutes.

Last bit was to put the airlock on. Filling it with Star San.

Fermenting

Testing aeration

The fermentation was visible after just a few hours. And FG ended on just below 1.010. This should give us a Alc/Vol% close to 4. 


Making yeast starter

I am going to attempt my first all grain batch. It is going to be a Hefeweizen. I will make a small starter using DME (Dried Malt Extract) and two tubes of WLP380.

What I did:



- Take the yeast out of the fridge and leave it to acquire room temperature.
- Boil up 1 litre of water
- Add 100g of DME (This should give us 1.040 gravity)
- Boil it for about 15 minutes.

Make sure the Erlenmeyer flask is clean. (Sanitized) as well as we can. You can boil water in it for a while, or live it in the oven for a bit. I will boil some water in it, since it takes a long time to get the same effect when it is dry in the own.

- Poor the wort into the Erlenmeyer flask, and put a lid on it using aluminium foil. Spray the foil well down with Star San Sanitizer before putting it on.
- Cool the wort down to room temperature (about 20°)
- Add the yeast.

Since I do not have a magnetic stirrer, I will shake the flask as often as I can, to get air into it.

- Leave it at room temperature for about 24-48 hours, until the yeast is finished with the sugar in the wort.
- Move it to a cool place (fridge) and wait for the yeas to settle on the bottom.

The starter is now ready for use. When you are ready, carefully pore off the used wort, and leave the yeast in the flask as shown in the picture. (decanter)

Swirl the yeas slurry around and pitch it when you are ready. Make sure it has time to reach the same temperature as the wort you are pitching into.

Making a submersible wort chiller

In the background you can see the
paint bucket I used to coil it around.

Bought a 15 meter long glowed copper pipe with diameter 3/8" (9.5 mm) and thickness 0.8 mm. It was already coiled up, so it was easy to gently force it into the right shape using a bucket of paint.  One of the ends was then pulled up through the middle.

Since 3/8" isn't really a standard size for pipes used for pluming in Norway. I used a 12 mm copper pipe and soldered it on. Then I could easily connect a 90 degree compression coupling, and then some normal fittings to connect the garden hose.

Just finished testing it for the first time.

Since glowed copper is really soft, I attached a copper string to the bottom ring of the coil, to be used when lifting it into the boiling pot.