immersion wort chiller question

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Time-Travelers

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We saw a immersion wort chiller in the LBS a few days ago and DH says; I can make that...
So this morning I was sharing what I read on the bb with him (length, diameter, running the chilled water thru the copper coil...) and he said; why not run the wort thru the coil, it'd be quicker...
Hmm, I don't know? Then he went to work.
So, has anyone tried it this way? Are the reasons not to?
Thx,
Linda
 
I would think you'd have to pack the ice in ice to cool the wort, otherwise your cooling water would heat up too much.
 
Linda, as said above... a counterflow chiller is essentially that. You're running the wort through the copper and water is flowing the opposite direction (hence counterflow) around it. In this respect, chilling is usually faster, though not necessarily by a huge margin depending on how well you impliment an immersion.

One thing, however - without a counterflow design, running the wort inside the copper as opposed to outside wouldn't change a thing in cooling capacity... all else being equal. Either way you have hot liquid on one side of the copper, cooler liquid on the other. What side each is on doesn't really matter.

Personally I prefer an immersion because it allows me to easily see, with my own eyes, the condition / cleanliness of the surface that contact my wort. So I don't have to guess if it's clean and corrosion free.
 
Agree that whether the wort is inside or outside the chiller will not, of itself, make any difference whatsoever in the chilling rate. And, of course, the downside is that if the inside of the chiller carries the wort, it must be thorougly cleaned and sanitized. All I do with my immersion chiller is rinse it off with the hose and put it away until next time.
 
Actually, hold on a second. But you could use this as a very environmentally friendly alternative here. If the copper coil were sitting in an ice bath with salt, you could recirculate the wort until cool and simply add more ice as needed. But the amount of actual water you "waste" should be reduced I would think considerably since it's just the volume to fill up the sink plus ice. Anyone ever measure the amount of water the dump while using an immersion chiller?

I'm in the process of building an immersion chiller myself (have all the parts, just have to assemble it this weekend. But I've been trying to come up with a decent alternative to reduce the amount of water used.
 
Actually, hold on a second. But you could use this as a very environmentally friendly alternative here. If the copper coil were sitting in an ice bath with salt, you could recirculate the wort until cool and simply add more ice as needed. But the amount of actual water you "waste" should be reduced I would think considerably since it's just the volume to fill up the sink plus ice. Anyone ever measure the amount of water the dump while using an immersion chiller?

I'm in the process of building an immersion chiller myself (have all the parts, just have to assemble it this weekend. But I've been trying to come up with a decent alternative to reduce the amount of water used.

Use an ice water bath with a submersible pond pump pumping the icewater through the immersion chiller and back into the ice bath.
 
Yup. That's what I was thinking originally since my brother has a pump I can borrow to test the idea out. But it's from a fish tank. Didn't really want to run wort through that. :D
 
Yup. That's what I was thinking originally since my brother has a pump I can borrow to test the idea out. But it's from a fish tank. Didn't really want to run wort through that. :D

I was thinking pumping the ice water through the immersion chiller with the IC in the wort. I think you could cool pretty quickly this way as the wort is sitting in an ice bath and ice water is being pumped through the IC.
 
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