Upgraded my Pre-chiller

I finished up a brew session yesturday in some dissappointment. I brewed up a simple hefe in which everything went well until the end. I was all set to go with my immersion chiller and a small prechiller sitting in the sink with ice and water. In the past I have not had any difficulty in getting my wart below 80 degrees within 15 min. Yesturday I could barely get it below 90 degrees. Then with the sink full of water and ice, I was making a mess. So while I was in Lowes this morning I decided to upgrade and optimize. I wound up another 20 Ft. section of 3/8 copper tubing and purchased a bucket to hold the chiller in. This way it is more modular which will also free up the sink. For now I have 3/8 threaded connections but will be upgrading to quick disconnects when I get to work and pick through all the spare stuff. The quick discos will prevent draining and water mess which will also allow easy storage without all those hose lines getting tangled.

great idea... I needed one of those on Weds, couldn't get my wort cooled below 80.

I am thinking now that I can put the pot in the sink with ice now and also have the larger chiller going.

Nice. I think you just gave me the perfect idea. I'll build one like this as a pre-chiller then when the temp drops below 80, I'll drop a sump pump in and pump the cold ice water up through the IC and back into the bucket. I bet I'll be able to get my temp down into the 60's in no time. I think a trip to Lowes is in my future tomorrow morning.

I do the same thing and it works great. I may add a pump eventually.

Look great guys. I really need to get/make one of these. My last brew I filler my MLT (cooler) with ice water and after I got down to 90F I switched over to that and was able to get it to 70. Whole process took 40 minutes. I would like to cut this time down.

Where did you get the copper? I am looking for some cheapo copper to do it but it is hard to come by these days.

How much water does a wort chiller use to say cool the wort to 70 degrees.

I've been inspired now...a good use for the ole "ale pail"

I just built this one...




...but I haven't used it yet. I found 25' of 1/4" tubing at a yard sale. I'm a little concerned that the 1/4" tubing will cause too much restriction. I use a plate chiller.

-S

So now you guys got me thinking about a pump. What if we could use a submersible pump that is in the bucket. This way it would be pumping the ice water through the coils and then back into the bucket to cool the water again. It would be a totally closed loop system in which you use less water. I wonder how much gal/min you would need out of a pump to get this down right.

Cregar said:

How much water does a wort chiller use to say cool the wort to 70 degrees.

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Not to sure. I guess you could time out how long it takes to fill a gal of water through the chiller. My guess would be 30 gal.

Cregar said:

How much water does a wort chiller use to say cool the wort to 70 degrees.

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My immersion chiller took about 15-20 gallons. I turn the flow down really slow and turn it up to where the water coming out is just cooler than the wort.

anthrobe said:

So now you guys got me thinking about a pump. What if we could use a submersible pump that is in the bucket. This way it would be pumping the ice water through the coils and then back into the bucket to cool the water again. It would be a totally closed loop system in which you use less water. I wonder how much gal/min you would need out of a pump to get this down right.

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This is the way I now cool the wort after it reaches 100. The prechiller was to slow and uses a lot more water. I can cool 5 gallons with about 25 gallons of water that I collect in a plactic trash can. I bought a sump pump at the hardware store. It takes about 1.5 bags of ice to reach 70 degrees.

Beerrific said:

My immersion chiller took about 15-20 gallons. I turn the flow down really slow and turn it up to where the water coming out is just cooler than the wort.

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I did some tests a while back and found that you will cool your wort with more water flow rather than "throttling". I just got back from Lowes in which I was looking at a submersable pond pump. It is rated at 200gph and cost about $34. I started thinking about it and if I were to do the pump then I would not need the pre-chiller. Since I have already invested in the copper hose, I will stick with that for now.

I have heard of a few using submersible pumps in prechillers but they use water from the hose to get down below 100 or so and then use the pump to get it down lower. I think the reason for this is that with warm water coming out of the ground sometimes it can take a while to drop down the last few degrees and this way would also save you some ice maybe. Also will waste less water by recirculating it.

I'm not sure anyone has though of this but instead of using the bucket to pre chill use it as a CFC. Have one end of the copper tubing go out the bottom and one out the top end of the bucket near the cover. Fill the bucket with ice and water and run the wort through the sanitized copper tubing into the fermenter.

67coupe390 said:

I'm not sure anyone has though of this but instead of using the bucket to pre chill use it as a CFC. Have one end of the copper tubing go out the bottom and one out the top end of the bucket near the cover. Fill the bucket with ice and water and run the wort through the sanitized copper tubing into the fermenter.

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That sounds like a great idea. I have been a little shy with going to a CFC. I am too worried about being able to keep the internal copper pipe clean and sanitized. Seems like it may be more work than I want.

I am/was worried about the same thing but there are some good threads on how to clean a counterflow chiller.

Heres one: http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24433&highlight=sanitize+chiller:mug:

67coupe390 said:

I'm not sure anyone has though of this but instead of using the bucket to pre chill use it as a CFC. Have one end of the copper tubing go out the bottom and one out the top end of the bucket near the cover. Fill the bucket with ice and water and run the wort through the sanitized copper tubing into the fermenter.

Click to expand...

I actually do this as a post-chiller that the wort runs through after my CFC. Since our ground water is so hot during the summer, using my extra copper coil as a pre-chiller for the cooling water isn't as efficient and I really have to throttle the hot wort flow to get the wort cool enough. Using the coil as a post-chiller, I don't have to restrict the wort flow as much. The CFC drops the wort to near ground water temps, and the post-chiller drops the wort the rest of the way to pitching temps.

my ground water is about 45-50 degrees. Only takes about 10 minutes with an immersion chiller. I guess living with well water and a 160 foot well has it's advantages.

Plus my total cost of water for cooling the wort is about $.03 in electricity to run the pump.

missing link said:

my ground water is about 45-50 degrees. Only takes about 10 minutes with an immersion chiller. I guess living with well water and a 160 foot well has it's advantages.

Plus my total cost of water for cooling the wort is about $.03 in electricity to run the pump.

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Thats Cool!!! (sorry about the pun) Now you need to dig another hole to lager in!