Daisy-chained CFCs/plate chillers

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Lil' Sparky

Cowboys EAC
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OK, so a little light went on in my head today (or maybe off, it's hard to say).

Anyway, there's been several threads this summer about trouble cooling with hot ground water. My last brew session was the first time I tried the technique of recirculating the wort through the chiller (I have a CFC) and back into the kettle until the wort's down to ~ 120' and then pump ice water through the chiller as the wort makes its final pass into the fermenter.

This may not take that long with 5.5 gal batches, but with 11 gals it really seemed to take too long.

Now, here's the idea. Any of you do this?

Why not just daisy-chain two counterflow (or plate) chillers together and effectively chill your wort in a single pass? If you use your warm hose water in the first CFC, the exiting wort will be 90-ish (at least it was for me), and then ice water pumping through the 2nd CFC can easily get the wort down (below) pitching temps.

I know it requires the extra cost of another chiller, but I've invested SOOOO much more than an extra chiller in other parts of my brewery. It seems like worth it to me to take the extra step out and get the wort chilled that much faster - especially with 10 gal batches.

The only counter argument I could see is that you may not get the entire batch cooled below 140' as fast as the recirculate first method, but I'm not sure. I think I could pump the entire batch through in about the same time to get it cooled below 140'. It would be really close anyway.

Comments?
 
The point of recirculating is to drop the whole volume of wort faster for less DMS production and locking in the aroma hops. If you're pumping icewater through the chiller, there's no reason why it wouldn't cool enough on a single pass. In fact, when I first unleashed my DIY CFC, my tap water was only 55F and the wort went in at 210F and came out at 59F. Had to slow the coolant down. The temp of icewater is about 32F so even if you ran through all your ice up front, the first half of the wort would be down in the 40's and later warmed to pitching by the second half at 80F. Make sense?
 
Hmmm. Couple of questions.

Do you use a submersible pump + ice water? What is the flow rating? I don't think my little submersible pump (160 or 190 gph) is enough to effectively chill it in a single pass without really throttling the March pump. It would probably work with a bigger pump and a huge amount of ice water to start out with. You wouldn't want to recirculate the hot water exiting the chiller.

Do you really think you can get the entire kettle down below 140' faster than you could pump it out if you were chilling in a single pass? Not with the 85' tap water we've got here.

How long is your CFC? Mine's 25'. I guess that's fairly standard. Anyway, I don't think there's any way I could use mine with 55' tap water to cool the wort to 60' in a single pass (without really restricting the pump). I'm wondering how much better any of this would be with a plate chiller.

I guess my original point was trying to devise a way to chill the wort in a single pass in the summer at full throttle with the March pump. I think that's a tall order but something my idea could accomplish.
 
would a plate chiller like a therminator work even better if you submerged it in an ice bath ?

also, it was my understanding that to make a therminator cool the wort cooler, you just slowed down the flow of the wort that was going through it. is this not correct ?

I've never used a therminator, I'm just trying to get an idea of how they work before I buy one.

Thanks!
 
When my tap water is to hot to get me to temp I put my carboy in a tub of ice water and just tel it rip thru the CFC. By the time the wort is all in there it's cooled down.
 
Mutilated1 said:
would a plate chiller like a therminator work even better if you submerged it in an ice bath ?

I think it would only make a slight difference. The real cooling comes from the cold water passing back and fourth over the plates.

Mutilated1 said:
also, it was my understanding that to make a therminator cool the wort cooler, you just slowed down the flow of the wort that was going through it. is this not correct ?

The problem is it can't cool any lower than the temperature of you cooling water. That's true for any cooling device, regardless of its efficiency.

The goal of what I was thinking was to come up with a way to quickly drain the kettle with a single pass through the chillers. I did some checking and I think breweries to this too, except using glycol for the 2nd pass.
 
You know, I only successfully cooled in one pass during cold tap times and when I was gravity feeding the CFC. I now have a March pump so the flow is probably twice as fast. Of course, my tap is still warm at 78F now so I still recirc to the kettle to hit sub 140F (this only takes me 5 minutes as of last batch even with warm tap). I think draining the entire 10 gallons with the March takes at least 10 minutes (my chiller is 1/4 ID so I don't have to throttle it with a valve). Once you get the wort down there, then start pumping icewater. I don't think the coolant output is much over tap temp though, so maybe running that back into the ice container isn't such a bad idea. If it's coming out 100+, I agree, ditch it onto the lawn.

I guess bottom line, if one CFC or plate isn't doing it, I'd spend more on cold water/ice so that you can run all 10 gallons through without running out. I find it hard to believe that 30ish coolant can't pull wort down from 210 to 65F.
 
FSR402 said:
When my tap water is to hot to get me to temp I put my carboy in a tub of ice water and just tel it rip thru the CFC. By the time the wort is all in there it's cooled down.

Sorry, that won't cut it for me. With 85' ground water, a single pass through the chiller still leaves the wort at 90-95'. It takes a long time and a lot of ice to get (2) carboys down to 70-75' with an ice bath. I want it at pitching temps faster than that.
 
Bobby_M said:
I guess bottom line, if one CFC or plate isn't doing it, I'd spend more on cold water/ice so that you can run all 10 gallons through without running out. I find it hard to believe that 30ish coolant can't pull wort down from 210 to 65F.
At the march pump's rate, my CFC won't do it. If I used a more efficient chiller like a Therminator, I'm sure it would easily. Maybe that's the best route to go. My CFC's a cheap POS anyway - I don't like it.
 
Why not get an immersion chiller working, too? That's the easiest way, I think, of quickly cooling a big mass of wort down below 140° so DMS production's a non-issue. Use the immersion chiller for the initial colling, then drain and pump ice water with the CFC to get down to pitching temps.
 
Sure that would work, too, but I can do the same thing now by recirculating the wort through the CFC with hose water. I don't think it really buys me anything (except an extra immersion chiller ;)).
 
What costs more in the long run though, an extra (usable) chiller, or bags of ice each batch which you have to continue buying more of each week.

I didn't buy my chiller JUST because it was more efficient than an ice bath, I bought it because long term, it's also a buttload cheaper than buying ice every week.
 
Let's put it this way jezter6, you can use a 100 feet of copper but with 85F tap water, you'll get 85F wort if you run it for 4 hours. The temp differential just isn't there so even at 100% heat transfer, you're not at pitching temps. Now, once your tap gets down into the 65F or less area (In my area, late October is usually below that), then you start looking for more efficient heat transfer to avoid ice.
 
How about recirculating through your CFC to get the entire volume down and then running icewater through your cfc when transferring to the fermenter? You need to get the temp of your cooling water down no matter how you chill your wort.

You don't have to buy ice, I make a lot of ice before I brew and also take empty plastic water bottles ( or gatorade, coke, etc.) put water in them and freeze.
 
Make or buy, ice is still a relatively high expense per batch. What you describe is exactly what I do. Recirc cooling with tap to 110F, then start the icewater flowing and go direct into the fermenter. This only takes one ale pail full of ice and water.
 
1f1fan said:
How about recirculating through your CFC to get the entire volume down and then running icewater through your cfc when transferring to the fermenter? You need to get the temp of your cooling water down no matter how you chill your wort.

You don't have to buy ice, I make a lot of ice before I brew and also take empty plastic water bottles ( or gatorade, coke, etc.) put water in them and freeze.

If you look at my very first post, that's what I said I did. I know it works, but I'm trying to find a better way.

I don't have any reasonable way to make and store enough ice to use for chilling. I also don't think frozen 2 liters will chill nearly as good as ice cubes. It's just too easy to pick up 40 lbs of ice at the corner store for $3.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
If you look at my very first post, that's what I said I did. I know it works, but I'm trying to find a better way.

I don't have any reasonable way to make and store enough ice to use for chilling. I also don't think frozen 2 liters will chill nearly as good as ice cubes. It's just too easy to pick up 40 lbs of ice at the corner store for $3.

Doh! Must have forgot when reading all the other posts. Good luck man.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Man, I must have done something wrong. I used WAY more ice water than that. You talking 5 or 10 gals?

This was on a 6 gallon batch and I think the difference is that I was gravity draining the icewater, not pumping (not to be confused with pumping the wort, which I was). If the wort goes in a 110F, it doesn't take much 32F water to cool it to pitching. Are you letting your icewater cool a bit? If you fill the container with ice, then add water, it takes a bit of time before the water is 32F.
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Sorry, that won't cut it for me. With 85' ground water, a single pass through the chiller still leaves the wort at 90-95'. It takes a long time and a lot of ice to get (2) carboys down to 70-75' with an ice bath. I want it at pitching temps faster than that.
Well for me it takes about 30 minutes to drain the 5 gallons. That's enough time for the ice to work. At least for me.
 
Well, I'm at a loss as to what I should do. I think the next time I brew with my dad (who also has a CFC) we'll hook up both and give it a try. I'll make sure I report back with the results (and maybe a few pics).
 
This is a very old thread, but I was wondering if you got any results from "chaining" two plate chillers together?
 
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