Franken-Chiller - Good Idea or Overkill?

So I had a Shirron plate chiller, which worked ok by itself, but decided to purchase a 30-plate chiller when I saw them for $74 at Keg Cowboy. I was going to sell the Shirron, but instead of losing my tail on something I only used twice, I decided to mate it with the 30-plate chiller.

I connected the two together, along with my new Chugger pump, and ran some leak/flow tests with great results. My question is this:

Is it going to work that much better or is it just overkill?

Yes of course it will add some cooling capacity - I cant tell if you have the cold water running in series between the two or parallel however, and I would say that that the most gain would be had if they were hooked in parallel. I don't have my heat transfer book in front of me right now but I am pretty sure that would be the case.

Will it be worth it? I would say yes since you already have it built and it will allow you to have a higher incoming water temp to achieve the same wort temp as before.

They are currently hooked together in series: the water out goes into the water in on the second PC and the same with the wort. The water and wort are running in opposite directions on both, however.

I would think that running the water like that in series is not the most efficient (in terms of heat exchange) use of the system. Like mopar said, hook your cooling water up in parallel and run your wort in series to make the best use of your ground water temp.

You're adding a second chiller for a very small efficiency gain unless the second chiller is using colder water.

I use two plate chillers in series like this:

kettle -> 30 plate (tap water) -> 20 plate (ice water via pond pump) -> inline aerator -> fermenter

Yeah, that's not doing much for you.

I'll take the shirron off your hands for twenty bucks.

I will probably get a water splitter from my washtub and have two cold water inputs. I was just trying to eliminate 4 hoses (in/out), but I guess what's a couple more in the grand scheme of things. It would definitely be more efficient.

Shorten your "jumper" hoses and you can lower restriction and clean the build up some.

Waunabeer said:

I will probably get a water splitter from my washtub and have two cold water inputs. I was just trying to eliminate 4 hoses (in/out), but I guess what's a couple more in the grand scheme of things. It would definitely be more efficient.

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Well, you'll be doing a two-step cooling at that point, which will definitely be better. Pulling the heat out twice.

So, $25?

JetSmooth said:

Well, you'll be doing a two-step cooling at that point, which will definitely be better. Pulling the heat out twice.

So, $25?

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Ha, ha; that's what I was talking about.

ScubaSteve said:

Shorten your "jumper" hoses and you can lower restriction and clean the build up some.

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If I shorten my jumpers any more then they crimp and restrict flow. I would need some type of wire wrap to keep them from bending too much. Anyone know of such a wrap/material?

There's a hose wrap on mcmaster that some use, but I wouldn't bother. Maybe you could hard pipe them...there's a guy on here who recently did just that.....but as has been mentioned, I'd go in series with wort and in parallel with water, or even separate with a secondary ice recirc loop.

Why not make the turnarounds out of 1/2" soft copper and compression fittings to connect? No restriction, and you can make them as short as the bend radius if you want to. Should cost less than $10 too!

SweetSounds said:

Why not make the turnarounds out of 1/2" soft copper and compression fittings to connect? No restriction, and you can make them as short as the bend radius if you want to. Should cost less than $10 too!

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I'll probably move to something like that eventually. I want to try it all out a few times before I put too much effort into it. I had extra hose and fittings and was just something I put together and wanted to try.