jordanlee05

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I've been designing a wort chiller in my head for a while now (finally switched to 5 gallon boils). I had one of those "eureka" moments this afternoon and have been trying to blow holes in this design for the last couple hours. I was wondering if anyone else would mind taking a look?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14682795@N02/2730053298/

(sorry, not sure how to post pictures from flickr)

Basically, it will siphon the wort from the brew pot and run it through a (copper/aluminum) coil that is sitting in a 0C ice water slurry. The slurry will most likely be in an old cooler I can modify a bit. From here, it continues to siphon right into the primary fermenter.

I figure it eliminates the need to be near a sink. I've been trying to move outside so I don't stink up the apartment anymore.

It wouldn't be that hard to sanitize either, just need to siphon some sanitizer through it and hit the two ends.

I still need to figure out the length of coil and material to get it to come out at around the right temp. That shouldn't be too hard once I find my old thermo books.

ExpertBrewers

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The water would most likely heat up really quickly. Any heat you take out of the wort is going straight into that water.

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jordanlee05

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Damn...works out to about 45 pounds of ice. Going by the differences in heat of fusion (333J/g) and heat capacity of water (4.18J/g*degreeC) I didn't think that would have been an issue. Those pesky laws of thermodynamics are a pain.

We used a somewhat similar design to cool keg beer at one of my jobs. 8 pounds of ice was generally enough for at least 1 keg. Guess the temperature change wasn't nearly as large in that case though.

MikeFlynn74

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Around here, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

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DutchK9

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I don't believe that by making one pass through your chiller the end result will be 75*. I hook a hose up to my chiller to take it down to 100*, and then switch it over to a large tub of ice water with a pond pump that gets it to 75*. Whole process takes about 15-20 minutes with the water re-cycling through the chiller. With it only making one pass and then into your carboy, the wort is still going to be hot.

Brew-Happy

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Do you have the equipment to give this a try? I have been thinking along these same lines of design and would be interested if your idea works.


Your design is not much different from this one:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/hell-earth-wort-chiller-73315/

The main difference is the counter-flow sleeve.

I say give a try and report back.

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