Cooling the wort pipe?

[vanillabrewer]

If i go to the local hardware store and buy a normal garden hose pipe and zip tie it together nicely and everything will it be able to handle the heat to cool the brew down? or will it let off something to ruin the beer?

[Ó Flannagáin]

It will get ruined in the heat of the wort and probably provide some very strange off flavors.

You will need a bit of copper tubing. A 20 to 25 foot coil will work. Then you hook up a hose to the end of it and push the cold water through the copper. You can also hook the copper up to your sink if you are brewing in doors.

[Tankard]

I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you talking about an immersion chiller?


Oh I get it now. Damn Flanny, you're fast.

[vanillabrewer]

oh ok, thanks.
Will take a trip down to da hardware store and check it out. thanks

[MrMarbleHead]

You really won't want your beer at any point in the process to touch a garden hose. everything that your wort (or beer) touches should be copper or stainless steal, or sanitizable plastic.

What Flanny is talking about is a Counter Flow Wort Chiller (CFC), here is a picture of mine:
http://www.homebrewchatter.com/board/picture.php?albumid=4&pictureid=21

The copper pipe you see sticking out on the ends runs all the way through the red garden hose. the wort flows one direction (through the copper pipe) while the water flows the other, through the garden hose (hence the counter flow part)

This is an immersion chiller:
http://www.brupaks.com/images/products/WORT%20CHILLER%20BRUPAKS.jpg

That one you would put in your boil kettle about 15 minutes before the end of your boil to sanitize it and them you would flow cold water through it to cool the whole boil kettel at once.

I posted both of these cause i am not sure what type you are looking to build

[Ó Flannagáin]

I was actually trying to describe an immersion chiller. I failed to mention all the hookups needed though. Immersion is way easier and cheaper if you are just starting out.

[Barley-Davidson]

If you're going to do the small batches you asked about you can just put your kettle into an ice water bath to cool the wort. When you boil a full 5+ gallons you need a heat exchanger like the chillers mentioned here, but for 3 gallons and under you can make due without.

[Ó Flannagáin]

Yep, when I was just doing small extract batches I just put the kettle into an ice water bath after the boil. Worked great. Even if you step up to 20liter (5gallon) batches, if you are doing extract you only need to boil around 2 gallons of wort and then top off with water. Then you don't really even need to cool it because topping it up with cold water makes it cool automatically.