Counterflow vs Emmersion

[eyepah]

Q:

Which is better: Counter Flow Wort Chiller or Emersion Chillers???


Q:

With the CFC, Cold Break precipitates out of the wort in the fermentor. Does anyone out there let it settle and then siphon away from it? Whirlpooling???



The emersion chiller is obviously less efficient causing longer exposure to air, gallons of waste water, and akward handling.

The CFC is expensive, but easy to clean and sanitize, plus its efficient.

[Trogger]

This question has been asked a number of times. Try a search for some of the other threads. I use a CFC. In the past, I let the trub go into the primary, and it mostly cleaned out when I went to teh secondary. Haven't had a major trub issue in any of my beers yet. I did just buy a SS sieve. I plan to let it drop through there after going through the chiller to take out some of the trub/hops.

[HogieWan]

I am pretty firm in my stance in favor of CFC over immersion. The biggest point is that you want your beer to go from near boiling to pitchable ASAP.

With the immersion, the whole batch goes through the temp range slowly, whereas, with the CFC, each bit of beer cools in seconds. This speed leads to better cold break, less chance of infection (not in bacteria-friendly temp range long and in a closed system when it is), etc.

The cons for a CFC are not being able to visually inspect the parts that are touching the beer and the inability to lower the temp if it comes out of the chiller too hot.


AFA cold break, I leave it in. It can help the yeast if they don't get enough o2, but it's presense has been shown to slow fermentation and inhibit ester production (not always a bad thing)

[danno]

it also depends on the size of your batch. 5 gallons you could effectively go either way, but IMO once you go to ten gallons, you should seriously think about a CFC or a plate chiller...

[corkybstewart]

Actually Hogie you can change the temp. I keep my CFC in an old fermenting bucket. On really hot days I'll fill the bucket with water and ice and chill the chiller. It may not work very well if your cfc is made from a garden hose but mine is all copper tubing and I can really chill my wort. Or I use my well water which come out at 66F year round. I chill my 10 gallons in 5 minutes this way.
Consider that cold break in your fermenter as yeast food and don't worry about it.