Dry ice for pre-chilling?

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 02:37 PM

Any one ever tried using dry ice around an immersion chiller to pre cool your water before it goes into a CFC?

**TopherM** · 09-02-2011, 03:09 PM

Wouldn't dry ice be exponentially expensive compared to the same effective amount of "wet" ice?

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopherM

Wouldn't dry ice be exponentially expensive compared to the same effective amount of "wet" ice?

Well, Yes. But since it is much colder than conventional ice, I was thinking (only thinking at this point) that perhaps it would bring my supply water much cooler than using regular ice and perhaps use less.

My problem is I live in GA and what I am doing is going from my cfc, back into my kettle. I am bringing the whole kettle down to temp before I transfer to the fermentor. This is to remove cold break as much as possible. Even when I now use a pre chiller with ice I still can only get down to around 85 degrees.

BrewMoreBeers · 09-02-2011, 04:30 PM

i have had success using tap water to get down to about 120 and then re-circulating the cooling water over ice.

If you want the ice bath pre-chiller to be cooler you can add salt to the bath. But, i do not see the need for this. A regular ice bath should easily maintain at near freezing temps until you start dumping hot water in it.

Rather, I would invest in a larger mass of ice bath before buying dry ice. If one doubled the size of the ice bath from a 5 gallon bucket to a 10 gallon tub, one would have twice the thermal mass and would be able to sink more heat into the ice bath per degree of temperature change of the bath. Thus allowing you to cool your wort further.

Of, in other words... use a larger ice bath because water and ice a cheap.

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrewMoreBeers

i have had success using tap water to get down to about 120 and then re-circulating the cooling water over ice.

If you want the ice bath pre-chiller to be cooler you can add salt to the bath. But, i do not see the need for this. A regular ice bath should easily maintain at near freezing temps until you start dumping hot water in it.

Rather, I would invest in a larger mass of ice bath before buying dry ice. If one doubled the size of the ice bath from a 5 gallon bucket to a 10 gallon tub, one would have twice the thermal mass and would be able to sink more heat into the ice bath per degree of temperature change of the bath. Thus allowing you to cool your wort further.

Of, in other words... use a larger ice bath because water and ice a cheap.

Yeah, I was thinking of doing that anyway. For some reason Dry Ice popped into my head and it sounded interesting. How about liquid Nitrogen? I have access to that as well.

Sardoman · 09-02-2011, 04:52 PM

Dry ice would freeze the water in your prechiller, possibly ruining the prechiller when the ice expands.

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sardoman

Dry ice would freeze the water in your prechiller, possibly ruining the prechiller when the ice expands.

You think so even at full flow?

**BrewKnurd** · 09-02-2011, 05:00 PM

One problem with dry ice is a reduced contact on the chiller. That's the great thing about water, or a water ice mixture, is you keep cold liquid in contact with all parts of the chiller. Wouldn't be the case with solid dry ice, and it would just get worse as the dry ice sublimated.

Sardoman brings up freexing the water in your chiller, which certainly could be a possibility depending on your flow rate. With high enough flow rate, you should be able to prevent freezing, but what that rate is, no idea.

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 05:03 PM

Good point. I am imagining the coil getting pretty wrapped up with ice though as the heat exchange takes place.

**Celticway** · 09-02-2011, 05:08 PM

I am assuming there would be condensation on the chiller which would immediately freeze. Not sure of this but I can picture it.