SS Counter flow wort chiller from Williams Brewing

Does anybody have experience with this thing:

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/STAINLESS-CONVOLUTED-COUNTERFLOW-CHILLER-P3152C107.aspx

I personally haven't used it, but I have a friend who uses the copper version as both a HERMS coil and a chiller and he loves it. Stainless should be a better version I would think.

Contrary to what the Williams Brewing website states, copper would transfer heat better.

skunker said:

Contrary to what the Williams Brewing website states, copper would transfer heat better.

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I have question about that. I know everybody has read that copper is better at heat transfer a thousands times but I am looking for clarification on it.

Yes copper does get hotter or cooler faster (more efficiently) than SS but as far as accomplishing your end goal of wort chilling is that really what you want?

In an immersion chiller, I would think copper would be better as you are submerging it in a body of hot wort during the boil (making it hot) and then running water thru it in order to change the temperature of the chiller. The faster (more efficiently) you change the temperature of the chiller the faster the wort it is submerged in will cool.

But in an counter flow chiller, you are doing the opposite. You are releasing a small amount of wort into the chiller which already has been cooled by running water thru it. The wort touching the cool surface of the chiller makes the wort cooler...so in a counter flow, wouldn't you want the chiller to resist getting warmer by exposure to the hot wort...wouldn't you want it to be sluggish in absorbing (transferring) the heat from the hot wort? Wouldn't something that is poor at absorbing the heat from the wort and maintain the cool that it has been set at be better so the next amount of wort that comes in contact with the chiller surface be touching a still cool surface?

Even though these chillers are really heat exchangers, you aren't really trying to exchange temperature but instead maintain one side (the cold side thru flowing cool water thru it) and pull the wort towards that side.

Since it is easier to change the temperature of copper it is easier to equalize the temperature between the hot and cold side in copper, when what you are really trying to maintain the cool surface of the chiller as long as possible so the equalization is averaged out to a lower temperature.

This is why I always thought that plate chiller are made of SS and NOT copper.

Again, I know we have all read that copper is "better at heat transfer" so I am looking to have this explained by someone that really knows. If anybody can explain WHY copper would be better in a CFC than stainless I would like to have it explained. I realize copper is also easier to work with and that' why most DIYers use it but is it really the best material for a CFC?

I believe commercial plate chillers are made of SS because breweries use caustic and acidic cleaning chemicals which would destroy copper in a short time. Same reason aluminum isn't used.

Considering that there are copper brew kettles and mash tuns, it could just be an issue of cost...although the stainless does provide greater corrosion resistance.

You are trying to move the heat in the wort to the flowing coolant, not maintain anything. Copper is faster in moving that heat than SS.

Actually I thought I was trying to move the cold to the wort. Not heat up the coolant water. Wouldnt a colder surface area that is more apt to stay cold do that better?

Isn't it just a surface transfer and you are using the coolant flow to keep the surface cool? Not that you are trying to put the heat somewhere else? (Although I do understand thats what happens, you average the heat energy between all components, so a cooler surface would keep the average lower) Basically, if you can keep the surface cooler, you would be more efficient at wort chilling

Steinbeir uses super hot rocks placed in the wort to heat/caramelize the wort. If there was a way to keep the rocks sterile, placing frozen rocks in the wort would cool it just the same way. However, you would likely need to replace the rocks with fresh cold ones as they can only get so cold. Hmmmm.

And I get that the electrons in copper would be faster at averaging the temperature energy between the wort, the coolant, and the wall of the chiller, but I guess I am wondering at what point does having a part of the elements that are being averaged (the walls of the chiller) being more resistant to change become beneficial.

It's all about energy, thermal energy. In thermodynamics, there's no such thing as "cold." It's all "heat": varying degrees of it. The cold water for cooling has less heat than the hot wort that you're trying to chill, and you're trying to move the heat from the wort to the coolant.

(As an aside, there's a trick question which demonstrates this: Which has more heat, a burning match or an iceberg? It's actually the iceberg. The heat present in an object is the sum total of the motion of all its constituent atoms and molecules, while its temperature is a measure of the average motion of the atoms and molecules.)

TerraNova said:

If there was a way to keep the rocks sterile, placing frozen rocks in the wort would cool it just the same way. However, you would likely need to replace the rocks with fresh cold ones as they can only get so cold. Hmmmm.

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Strictly speaking, any solid rock (or any solid substance, for that matter) is already frozen. But leaving pedantry aside, you wouldn't be adding the "cold" of the rocks to the wort; you're transferring heat from the wort into the rocks, from which you have previously removed more heat than they would have at room temperature by sticking them in the freezer first.

If I haven't convinced you yet, think about a cooler with a grain inside it being mashed. The cooler is resistant to the flow of heat, so it feels cool on the outside. This coldness doesn't get into the mash taking place inside. Otherwise, you couldn't maintain the temperature inside the cooler, and insulators would make the best wort chillers. It's the parts of the cooler that feel warmer to the touch than others (e.g., ball valve, lid) that cause the temperature to drop; this is because those are the parts where the system is losing heat.

Latium, I have been needing a thermodynamics tutor...

Thanks latium, this is what I am asking about.

I need to ponder this a bit longer. There an element to this that I think I am not wording correctly.

It all seems to work for what we are doing but I am one of those types that has to know how it all works. Thanks for the info.

tx-brewer, I'm not the right person for the job, but I sure am flattered!

Haha

Copper is a better conductor, but the s/s is stronger so the tubing is probably much thinner. Probably a wash. It really doesn't matter anyway, because the water flow is the limiting factor. You can only get so many gallons per minute out of your faucet and through a 3/8" or 1/2" chiller. Get what ever is cheaper, which these days seems to be the stainless.

I am now understanding (I think) what latium was saying. Thermal energy is just "heat" and "cold" is just a lack of thermal energy. Once the coolant has for lack of a better word "absorbed" the thermal energy from the wort it is flowed out and new coolant is flowed in, in order to absorb more energy from the next amount of wort. The surface of the apparatus itself isnt absorbing any real amount of thermal energy it is only transferring the energy from one side to another. That is if I understand the principal correctly.

Follow up question, and the last post before this touched on it, a larger coolant flow seems like it would be ideal, right? More coolant than wort would be able to absorb more energy if I am thinking right. One thing I noticed about this chiller and the morebeer ones is that they are made of 5/8" tubing inside of 7/8" tubing... Really only allowing the equivalent of 1/4" of coolant to flow thru on the cold side (7/8" - 5/8"= 2/8" or 1/4" of space within the outer tubing for coolant, not accounting for the thickness of the
tubing but for the sake of this discussion, lets assume it is negligible).If my understanding is right, wouldnt a larger outer tube that has equal or greater flow capacity / rate be more efficient? Or does it not matter, does it at some point equal out as long as the surface of the of the inner tube is covered with even a small amount of coolant. I understand cost and space would be an issue for bringing a product to market but I am just trying to understand the principals of how this works.

Thanks in advance to anybody who can explain this to me...this is awesomely informative to me.

Faster coolant flow (and more of it) will cool the wort down quicker, all else being equal, but there's a point of diminishing returns where you become very inefficient with your coolant. If you're using twice as much cooling water for a 10% reduction in cooling time, it might not be worth it.

Regarding the math: The difference in the diameter is 0.25", but there's a big difference in area in that quarter-inch outer ring vs. a quarter-inch diameter. The area of a circle is pi times the square of its radius, with the radius being half the diameter: A = pi * r^2. (Or you can substitute A = pi * (d/2)^2 if you want. (If you want to get the volume of the tube/pipe/cylinder, just multiple by the height, or think of it as the length, if you prefer.)

For a 1/4" circle, the area is 0.049 sq. in.
For a 5/8" circle, the area is 0.307 sq. in.
For a 7/8" circle, the area is 0.601 sq. in.

(Again, multiply those figures by the length of the pipe--in inches--to get the total cubic inches that the pipe holds.)

You can see that the 7/8" pipe approaches twice the cross-section of the 5/8" pipe, probably more like 80-90% without actually doing that part of the math, but it's getting there.

But a larger diameter outer pipe wouldn't necessarily be better. It would allow faster flow rates (all else being equal), but there's an effect with fluids (i.e., liquids and gases, although we're only concerned about liquids here) called laminar flow. It's this effect that causes water near the inner pipe to stay close to the inner tube, and it also causes the wort near the edge of the inner pipe to stay close to the inner pipe, with less mixing than you might expect.

This is why you see "convoluted counter-flow chillers" (or even the occasional immersion chiller for sale; the surface of the inner pipe is not smooth, so it disrupts the laminar flow and causes greater mixing of the different layers within both the wort and the coolant.

(If it's possible to force a high-enough flow rate, I would guess that smaller pipes might be more efficient with the coolant, possibly at the expense of longer cooling times, but I don't know for sure. In any case, nearly every design decision is a trade-off.)

As you can see, both fluid dynamics and thermodynamics play large parts in what look at first like simple wort chillers.

Latium, you're evoking some fond memories of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics class! Those were the days...but I digress. Thanks for putting some good information out there. It could help so many. It is a subject that is oft misunderstood.

Those 3rd dimensions...ugh.

This EXACTLY what I was asking about, thanks. I will be pondering this on dogs walks and while sitting in traffic for the next couple of days for sure.

I figured there would be a diminished return on the outer pipe size, I can't imagine a 3/8" inner tube of wort getting that much cooler while surrounded by a massive outer tube than with one that is only somewhat bigger. There must be a formula for that.

And I have seen the convoluted chillers (this one and some at morebeer) that you mentioned but I have also seen people do comparisons in real world tests with varied results. With equal variables (as equal as possible in non-lab environments) sometimes the convoluted one chills faster (in recirculations) or to cooler temperatures in straight to fermentor CFC runs...but sometimes not. What I have seen is that length of the tubing seems to have a bigger effect.

Interesting about the laminar flow. Does that mean if one were to throttle back on the output of wort into a 5/8" inner tube it would actually create a hollow tube of wort that is contacting the surface of the inner tube as much as possible (more or less, of course) or would it trickle through along the bottom of the tube (in non-convoluted tubing)?

BTW, you are the MAN for taking the time to explain all of this and field my ignorant questions.

If I may interject a small explanation of laminar flow, you can think of it strictly as the flow path of a particle in a stream...in our case, water or wort flow. Laminar flow means simply that the particle will flow in a straight line. You can imagine a car in a wind tunnel: when they inject the stream of smoke, it will flow in a straight line and follow the path of the car exterior. That a visual explanation of laminar flow. When the flow is disturbed, as in the case of a convoluted pipe, the flow will become turbulent. If you've ever flown in s plane and experienced turbulence, that should pretty much give you an idea what kind of flow turbulent flow it. Very rough and swirly.

In answering your question, by reducing the flow in the larger pipe, there won't be a "hollow tube" of wort flow. Gravity will ultimately take over and creat a stream of wort along the bottom of the pipe. Depending on the flow rate, centrifugal force may force the flow up the outside of the pipe a bit but not a complete hollow tube of flow.

Ok, you guys are really making me want to get off homebrewtalk and get into my thermo book. I'm having a mental breakdown. Rdwhahb

For those waiting for Williams Brewing to get restocked, they are in and on sale until8/14. I got mine and it is sweet. They apparently heard people's concern about the odd wort tube sizes and added 1/2" MPT threads to each end, which is a nice upgrade. http://www.williamsbrewing.com/STAINLESS-CONVOLUTED-COUNTERFLOW-CHILLER-P3452C107.aspx

Have you put that thing to use yet? Just curious how it performs. Are you going straight into the fermenter or whirlpooling with it?

Mtn_Brewer said:

For those waiting for Williams Brewing to get restocked, they are in and on sale until8/14. I got mine and it is sweet. They apparently heard people's concern about the odd wort tube sizes and added 1/2" MPT threads to each end, which is a nice upgrade.

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Have you used this yet? How'd it perform?

Just saw this thread and thought I'd say something. I just bought this product from Williams. Tried it several times with just water to test the new brew system. Didn't get the water down below 130 degrees. I tried slowing the water flow, slowing the wort flow, both, I even switched the hookups to make sure I was in counter flow method. Nothing worked. So I borrowed my buddies more beer counter flow and it worked awesome. So I returned it and got my money back.

I talked to the people at Williams and was told, "it has to work, it is physics" Well physics apparently does not happen at my house. They also said they have sold hundreds of these and not one return. Maybe I got the lemon.

It does sound like you were doing it wrong. It's not like it can malfunction.

chugach1 said:

Just saw this thread and thought I'd say something. I just bought this product from Williams. Tried it several times with just water to test the new brew system. Didn't get the water down below 130 degrees. I tried slowing the water flow, slowing the wort flow, both, I even switched the hookups to make sure I was in counter flow method. Nothing worked. So I borrowed my buddies more beer counter flow and it worked awesome. So I returned it and got my money back.

I talked to the people at Williams and was told, "it has to work, it is physics" Well physics apparently does not happen at my house. They also said they have sold hundreds of these and not one return. Maybe I got the lemon.

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I have found I achieve the best results when I have my wort flow dialed way back and the water flow full throttle. yes you use more water this way, but when both are wide open it doesn't work nearly as good. when you used your buddies Counter-flow its possible his inner wort tube was smaller and flowing slower than your binged out Williams Brewing one.

-=Jason=-

I used this thing for the first time this weekend and it took about 20 mins of recirculating to cool a 5.5gal batch from boiling down to 65. It works, but I was expecting more "shock and awe". I've never used a copper counterflow, so I'm not sure how this stacks up.

I'll take a trace of the temp change next time I brew and post it so we can potentially compare it to someone out there running a copper chiller.

These chillers are pretty short (12') compared to most of the counterflow chillers people make. This may have something to do with the lack of chilling ability.

I just thought I would reply to some of the replies I got about this product, that I posted.

"It does sound like you were doing it wrong. It's not like it can malfunction"

This is why I said in my post that I switched the hookups to make sure everything was correct. Also I figured out how to use the MoreBeer one, so I guess I know how to do it.

"I have found I achieve the best results when I have my wort flow dialed way back and the water flow full throttle."
Yup, stated also that I slowed both wort, or water and both, still no help. I just think stainless just cant cool as well as the 12' copper one. Or like I just got the lemon.

wilconrad, what was the temp of the water you were running through it?

ddlr25 said:

wilconrad, what was the temp of the water you were running through it?

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About 60F

TheZer said:

Copper is a better conductor, but the s/s is stronger so the tubing is probably much thinner.

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But is the SS used in these Williams chillers actually thinner? I have welded tri clover end caps to these chillers before and don't remember the tubes being particularly thin. Certainly not much thinner (if at all) than the 3/8 copper tubing used in my CFC. If I had to guess, I would say that my copper tube is thinner.

Finally remembered to take a trace of the performance of this chiller. It took a 5.5 gal batch down to 67 from boiling in 14 minutes with input water temp at 48.5. I'm happy with that, but curious what a copper chiller would have done. If anyone has time to capture a comparable run, would be cool to compare the two.

Here's the trace, temp was measured at the BK outlet:


Here's the setup, so you can see where the temp probe was. And yes, I'm running the cold water in via the red hose, and the warm water out via the green hose :cross: