The 8 Best Wort Water Chiller for Rapid Cooling

If you’ve spent any time full batch brewing, you probably have some idea about the advantages of using a wort water chiller. Even newbie brewers know the hassles of trying to cool wort fast using low-tech methods such as an ice bath.

Rapid Cooling Equals Better Beer

First, as wort temperature falls below 140°F (60°C), susceptibility to wild yeasts and bacteria increase dramatically. Your goal should be to get the wort down to pitching temperatures as fast as possible and minimize the time your wort spends between 80°F (26°C) and 140°F (60°C) because that is the sweet spot for bacteria to thrive.

When you consider that the optimal pitching temperatures for ale yeast are in the 60°F (15°C) – 70°F (21°C) range and 40°F (4°C) – 50°F (10°C) for lager yeasts, you realize what a challenge it is to bring a hot batch of wort down to these temperatures as fast as possible, and why a wort chiller is a smart investment.

Additionally, allowing your wort to stay too long in the temperature danger zone of 80°F (26°C) – 130°F (54°C) produces DMS (dimethyl sulfide), which is known for the unpleasant, canned-corn flavor it contributes to the beer.

Lastly, cooling wort rapidly down to optimal pitching temperature improves cold break, maximizing the amount of proteins and tannins that precipitate out of the wort. If break materials don’t coagulate and fall out of solution during cooling of the wort, then it remains in the beer leading to chill haze and cloudy beer.

Types of Wort Chillers

For this to be work, there has to be a difference in the temperatures of the two substances. And, the water has to be moving.

Therefore, when looking for a wort chiller, keep in mind your water temperature. If you live in a warm climate, you may need to use a pre-chiller in combination with your wort chiller to get down to pitching temperatures, though a wort chiller alone will still save you time and allow you to get down 80°F (26°C) or below pretty easily.

Now for the lowdown on how each type of wort chiller works, its advantages and disadvantages and a few recommendations for manufacturers.

Immersion Chillers

Unlike other water chillers, immersion wort chillers don’t require a pump to feed it, or hoses and clamps. With a simple adapter, you can hook up an immersion wort chiller to a kitchen faucet and be ready to go.

Cleaning is easier because you only need to wash the outside, unlike with counterflow chillers and plate chillers where you’ve got to get inside passages clean. Additionally, putting the immersion chiller in the wort for the last 15 minutes of the boil makes sanitizing easy.

Some downsides to immersion chillers are: they use a lot of water, and they don’t cool as fast as other methods. Also, with an immersion chiller, you’ll need to work in a clean and draft free environment, keeping your wort loosely covered to prevent contaminants from finding their way into the wort. However, many experienced brewers still favor them over their higher dollar alternatives.

Keep in mind when buying an immersion chiller that the longer the coil, the faster the wort will be chilled, because of the increase in surface area. But, choose a size appropriate for your batch size so that as much of the coil is in contact with the wort as possible. Typically, a 25′ coil is adequate for a 5-gallon kettle.

Immersion chillers are usually made with 3/8″ or 1/2″ diameter copper or stainless steel tubing. Bigger diameter tubing is more efficient at cooling than smaller but more expensive. And while stainless is less heat conductive, the differences are pretty minimal. A stainless immersion chiller is cheaper and easier to clean as well. Copper develops a verdigris but can be cleaned with a little vinegar and some scrubbing.

3 Top Choices For Immersion Chillers

The King Cobra consists of three, 25′ – 3/8″ chillers running in parallel. According to the manufacturer, the King Cobra takes only 3.5 minutes to chill 5 gallons of wort to 68°F degrees using 58°F degree tap water!

2. Silver Serpent

3. NY Brew Supply High Efficiency 3/8 x 50′ Copper Wort Chiller

The 12′ of vinyl tubing is shipped in a continuous piece for ease of cutting to the desired length of your input & output hoses.

Counter Flow Chillers

Unlike the immersion chiller, a CFC sits outside the kettle, making it usable for any size brew pots or kettles. However, you’ll need a way to get the wort out of the kettle to the chiller hose intake. Having a kettle with a ball valve is ideal in this scenario. Some CFCs allow you to let gravity feed the wort into the coils by keeping the chiller below the level of the kettle, although many brewers use a pump.

Counter flow chillers are a step up in terms of how fast they will chill your wort, and they use less water in the process, though they tend to be more expensive than immersion chillers.

And while not complicated to use, they do have 2 sets of connectors. One for water flowing in and one for the wort. Also, because the wort is flowing through a coil and is enclosed there is less risk of exposing the liquid to contaminants.

The downside to this is that the wort comes in contact with the interior of the coil. You’ll need a way to keep hops out of the glycol water chiller in order to prevent clogging. Whirlpooling and hops screens are two common options.

Here are Brew Cabin’s choices for counterflow wort chillers:

4. NY Brew Supply Deluxe Counterflow Wort Chiller with Copper Tubing

Heavy duty brass fittings attach to your cold water tap with a garden hose connector. Easily adjust the angle and position of the input and output hoses unlike soldered copper designs.

5. Kegco’s Stainless Steel Counterflow Chiller

This stainless steel chiller cools your wort twice as fast as a standard immersion wort chiller. Constructed of 12′ of 5/8″ stainless steel with an addition of 7/8″ stainless steel makes this one of the most durable and heavy duty CFCs on the market.

Plate Chiller

Plate chillers are typically the most expensive option when it comes to wort chillers, but they are very compact, cool wort rapidly, and use the least amount of water.

However, because the small spaces can become easily clogged and are difficult to clean, you’ll want to make sure hops is fully strained out before going through the chiller. Whirlpooling and use of a hop blocker or screen are recommended.

One other criticism, as pointed out by Tom Ayers in his article “Why I Switched to an Immersion Wort Chiller,” is that your cold break happens in the plate chiller and then ultimately winds up in the fermenter.

He goes on to say that “while some break can be good nutrition for your yeast, too much can contribute to off flavors and be detrimental to the delicate flavor of lagers.”

Nonetheless, many brewers still swear by plate chillers.

As with counterflow chillers, pumping your wort through the chiller will be more efficient than using gravity to feed it, though most manufacturers for the plate chillers below indicate they will work with a gravity-fed system. And as with all chillers, if your tap water isn’t very cold, you may not be able to get your wort temperature down much below 80°F.

Here are three of our top recommendations for plate chillers:

6. Blichmann Therminator

The ½ inch MPT fittings for the wort in and out makes it easy to sanitize and fits most common hose-connector types. The ¾ inch MPT garden hose thread connections for the water in and out, means there’s no need to buy extra adaptors.

7. DUDA B3-12A 30 Plate Brewery Water Chiller

Ideal for 5 to 10 gallon batches of wort. While it can be gravity-fed, it works even better with a pump.

8. HFS Plate Chiller

This plate chiller gets high marks amongst users and is made of high-grade 304 stainless steel and is very compact. The HFS is offered with either 20 and 30 plates. Can be gravity fed or used with a pump. Wort in and out connections are 1/2″ NPT fittings. Select either ½” or ¾” water in and out fittings depending on your needs.

HFS backs their plate chillers with a 1-year manufacturer warranty and a 30-day money back guarantee.

If you are a beginner to intermediate brewer making 5-gallon and 10-gallon batches an immersion chiller will likely be the best bet in terms of cost and ease of use.

For more advanced setups and larger batch sizes, a counterflow or plate chiller will likely be your ticket. And though it’s not a small an investment, it’s worth the reward of clearer and better-tasting beer.