Can anyone tell me how this wort chiller works?

I have found this wort chiller in a local shop..



I am just wondering how it work....I hook it up to the water source and put it in the wort? If yes, then one thing concerns me.....how can I use water in this chiller that is from another vessel (a vessel full of icy water)? Is there a way to make gravity push the icy water through it and thus shortening the cooling time?

You can either hook it up to your home water supply via garden hose connections or if you are using a big tub of ice water, you would need a pump to push the ice water through the chiller.

You can hook it up to a garden hose or faucet and then have a drain hose or you can buy a submersible pump to pump ice water from another vessel. I live in Minnesota and our tap water rarely gets above 60 degrees so it cools very nicely hooked up to a garden hose.

U could also use it the opposite way if u have a pump.. Put that in a large bucket full of ice and add some water and some salt to keep it extra cold. then pump the wort from ur BK thru it and into the carboy.

With that one you hook up one end to a cold water source and the other end drains - into a sink, yard...
I made mine. I have two coils from Home Depot. One is smaller than the other so I can put both in the wort. or I can put the smaller one in a bucket of cold water and ice.

The big trick is to keep the wort moving. If it is still the wort immediately next to the chiller cools but it takes a long time to chill the rest. I plan someday to get an electric motor the will turn slowly and add something to stir the wort.

Elysium said:

I have found this wort chiller in a local shop..

I am just wondering how it work....I hook it up to the water source and put it in the wort? If yes, then one thing concerns me.....how can I use water in this chiller that is from another vessel (a vessel full of icy water)? Is there a way to make gravity push the icy water through it and thus shortening the cooling time?

Click to expand...

You would need a pump to push icy water through it, most people use it the normal way.

Normal Way

Step 1: Put immersion chiller in boiling wort to sanitze (about 10-15min before end of boil)

Step 2: Hookup immersion chiller to sink or hose (make sure water outlet is not going into kettle)

Step 3: Once boil is over cover pot, to keep out bad things, and turn on water

Step 4: Once temp in down to pitching range, high 60's, move wort to fermenter and pitch yeast

phuff7129 said:

You can hook it up to a garden hose or faucet and then have a drain hose or you can buy a submersible pump to pump ice water from another vessel. I live in Minnesota and our tap water rarely gets above 60 degrees so it cools very nicely hooked up to a garden hose.

Click to expand...

Would a manual pump do the job? I mean it is lame to pump manually for 30 minutes...but I dont mind the extra sweat. I mean if I find a way to hook a manual pump to this wort chiller, then it should work...right?

The reason why I am trying so hard to make this wort....is because icy water must chill it a lot faster than tap water.

Elysium said:

The reason why I am trying so hard to make this wort....is because icy water must chill it a lot faster than tap water.

Click to expand...

It depends on where you live. If you live in Arizona, your tap water will NEVER chill the wort enough. If you live next door to me, your tap water will chill the wort in 15 minutes or less (tap water is currently 45 degrees).

Icy water isn't all that faster- as ice melts fast and the water bath heats up very fast.

Most people with too-warm tap water will chill the wort with tap water to 100 degrees, and then switch over to a pump (or use a prechiller) and ice bath to get down to the 60s finally.

The water coming OUT of the wort chiller is boiling at first. If it goes back to your ice bath, it will stop chilling really quickly!

I use 60lb of ice to chill 10 gal of wort. I put 5 gal of water in it and use an immersion chiller. I pump the water in and put the output water into my HLT for after brew cleaning. As needed I pour return water over the ice to keep chilled water on hand.

Works pretty good, 15 mins an I'm at pitching temps, plus I got plenty of water to heat and clean with.

pb

I use the outlet water from my chiller to sanitize my tools and fermenting vessel. I add 1 oz of Star-san, and turn the chiller on slow. The outlet tube goes into the airlock grommet and the lid is loosely set on top of the bucket. When foam appears the chill is close to done and I have a fresh clean batch of sanitizer right where I need it for long enough to work well. I throw my spoon and anything else like the airlock, thermometer and whatever tools I need in the bucket as it is filling. You can also use an inexpensive pond or hydroponics pump to push the ice cold water through the chiller too. If I use Ice water I add a bit of salt to keep the temp below 32 and still make a batch of sanitizer with the outflow too.

Wheelchair Bob

Elysium said:

Would a manual pump do the job? I mean it is lame to pump manually for 30 minutes...but I dont mind the extra sweat. I mean if I find a way to hook a manual pump to this wort chiller, then it should work...right?

The reason why I am trying so hard to make this wort....is because icy water must chill it a lot faster than tap water.

Click to expand...

Yes u could use a manual pump as long as u sanitizer it appropriately, it is safe for food grade applications and it can handle temperatures above boiling. But if you do us a pump, ur not looking at 30 minutes of manual pumping, more around 10 minutes because this will chill it fast.

Ive seen set ups on here of people getting separate buckets that are the same general size as fermenation buckets. Adding 3-4 bags of ice from turkey hill or sheetz or whatever, adding some water and some salt (Think the stuff u use for your driveway in the winter) and getting their 5 gallons of wort down to pitching temp quicker then using this type of setup as an immersion chiller which is its intended purpose.

She's 100% correct that its gonna melt the ice quickly but the salt will allow that water to get below 32 degrees which will really help cool the wort down that is leaving the output end and going into ur fermentor.

This is my counterflow that i bought on amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D50LO8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

25 feet of copper piping surrounded by 25 feet of garden hose. Now consider this and compare it to the setup i mentioned above. I used this recently with my last batch of beer. tap water temp was 55 degrees (im blessed with very chilly tap water almost year round) and by the time the wort left my BK around 200 or so degrees and went thru all 25 feet of copper piping after my tap water in the hose worked its magic, the wort going into my fermentor was 59 degrees. I actually had to put the fermentor in my ferm chamber and warm it up before i pitched.

All in all i used about 7 gallons of cold water from my tap so it is a very efficient method. Im sure it won't be as cold when i finally add a chugger pump to get it pushing thru the lines quicker, but for now, gravity feeding it thru the chiller had it at or below pitching temps by the time it hit the fermentor.