Overview of the Water, Beer and Wort Chiller

This video describes how to install and use the BREWHA Water, Beer and Wort Chiller to chill wort after boiling is complete, maintain fermentation temperature when making beer, (including lagering beer) and chill beer on its way from the keg to tap. 

Click here to go to the Water, Beer and Wort Chiller product page

Transcript of the video:

Hi, and welcome to this BREWHA video. In this video we are going to be looking at the chilling system that BREWHA is distributing and is available on our website.

This chiller is an excellent little chiller that we are bringing in for a number of reasons. First, it comes from the Czech Republic—it is designed and built in the Czech Republic, the home of pilsner and the company has a reputation of building very high quality machines. Second, it is a 120V system, which for here in North America and throughout the Americas is the power that is most readily available. Third, it is a powerful little chiller; it is a 3/8hp chiller so it is more powerful than a lot of chillers on the market. Fourth, it is economical; the price, relative to other systems is very competitive. And fifth, it has a number of features that make it ideally suited for BREWHA customers, both for serious home brewers, as well as for commercial applications that are starting to bring in a micro-brewery, it is a chilling system that is powerful enough to operate even in that capacity.

First we want to just give an overview of the chiller and look at its various parts, and then we are going to look at its features and how to set it up and the applications/functions that it can serve in your brew house.

So just to quickly look at the chiller itself, it is a fairly compact package. On this side there is a water reservoir; the reservoir is jacketed and the chillant goes through the walls of the reservoir [in tubes] and then it passes over to this side where there is a pump and compressor and a fan that is blowing of the heat that is produced through the chilling process. The controls of the chiller are regulated by this dial; there are settings that can determine whether the bath water that the coils go through are between 10°C which is about 50°F and you can drop it down to about 4°C which is about 40°F. So there is about a 6°C or about a 12°F (a little less) range in which this chiller can operate. There is a switch here and a receptacle, which is for the pump, which we are going to talk about in a minute. This switch will turn it on. BREWHA has selected this chiller because it believes it provides the best value for the brewer and it is the most versatile chiller that can meet a number of functions in the brew process.

There are three main processes/functions that it can fill. The first function is to drop the temperature of your wort down sufficiently so that you can pitch yeast when your municipal water that you are using for the first portion of chilling after boil is not cold enough to bring the temperature all the way down.

The second function is the regulation of temperature during fermentation. So by using the chiller and running your cold water through the jacket of your fermentor [3-in-1] you are able to precisely maintain your fermentor temperature. You can even lager with this chiller. Even in a warm environment, you are able to lager with it. And the third function is that you are able to serve beer, you are able to chill your beer on its way from the keg, push it through these coils that go through the water bath, connect it to your tap and you will have ice cold beer coming out of your tap.

To go into a little more detail of those three functions, I will show how to set it up and use the chiller for each of those applications. The first application is to finish off your chill post-boil. For example, in the Americas or the southern US where municipal water is often at 80°F, if you need to drop it to 70°F for pitching yeast, or even lower, then municipal water is not able to do that. You can use municipal water to bring the temperature from 212°F post boil, all the way down to say 100°F and then plug in your Water, Beer and Wort Chiller, there is no glycol in the lines that makes it difficult for…that you have to clean out…and you are able to just plug in this chiller and drop it [the temperature] down to where you want to pitch yeast. So the main part of your chilling you will use municipal water for. When the temperature differential is high, the difference between your wort temperature and your chilling water, when it is big range, it is very efficient. So to use municipal water to get it off 212°F down to 100°F, even if your municipal water is at 80°F, is relatively efficient. It is the dropping it from 100°F down to 80°F that is going to take a lot of time. Or in Celcius, to bring it from 100°C down to 30°C is fairly quick and efficient, but to get it form 30°C down to 20°C, takes a lot longer and will use a lot more municipal water. So you will use municipal water to drop it down the bulk of the way, and then directly tie in the Water, Beer and Wort Chiller by connecting the pump that exists down in the water reservoir and connecting your hose from the inlet on the jacket to this, and then the return from the jacket goes back into the reservoir to fill the reservoir up.

This pump outlet comes with a plastic connection. It is a quick connect so just push these [tabs] in and the hose comes out really easily. I have put a 3/8” hose barb by 1.5” tri clamp cap so I can quickly disconnect my hose and it can do double purpose, for example, as a mash hose. Connect it form the pump to the jacket, and a return hose from the 3-in-1 top jacket, back to the reservoir. Another way to connect without the quick-connect, is to buy a hose barb to an NPT fitting; these are very common, hardware stores will have these. Purchase a 3/8” hose barb to any size NPT fitting that you need. Push in the hose barb and connect it up that way.

Once you have connected it up, turn the pump on and the pump is going to circulate it all the way through until your temperature is down where you want it.

The second function that this chiller can fill is to maintain fermentation temperature. You can precisely maintain it and even lager with this chiller. How you would do that, is instead of connecting the pump power cord, directly into the chiller itself, you would purchase a computer monitor power cord, it is a standard plug from a computer monitor and you would plug the pump into that cord, which changes the plug over to a standard 120V plug, and you would the plug the pump into the chill side of your ETC (either the ETC that we provide or if you have your own temperature controller that would work just as well). The when the controller senses that the temperature is starting to rise, it turns the pump on. The pump starts pushing the chilling water through the jacket until the temperature has dropped back down.

The third function that the chiller can serve is to chill beer enroute from a keg to a tap. These stainless steel coils run down through the water bath; there are several lines that can be connected so you can have several taps that are providing different kinds of beer. The keg connects to one of the inlet lines, which goes down through the water bath. The CO₂ pushes the beer through the line, through the water bath, gets chilled, and then goes directly to the tap. If you have the tap a long distance from the chiller, you can even connect this pump that will run the chilling water either through the tap heads (some taps have a built-in chilling system inside the tap) or through hoses that are accompanying the beer lines to make sure that they are cold all the way to the tap.

So that’s the BREWHA/Lindr AS110 Water, Beer and Wort Chiller. There are two models that we are selling. One is a little bit less expensive—it is the black model that is just regular steel with a black coating. The other model is 100% stainless steel and it is insulated a little bit more; if you are in a tropical environment where it is humid or hot then the stainless chiller is going to provide a little more performance at a slightly higher price point.

If you have any questions about this chiller, I would be happy to answer them. Please send them in using the form on the website.

Thank you for watching!