I feel like a complete idiot for using pretty much

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ThePonchoKid

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100L of water through an immersion chiller and down my drain.

I want to buy a therminator type chiller. Any suggestions? I want something that I can clean and inspect to assure 100% sanitation.
 
buy a pond pump and recirculate ice water through your chiller. no wasted water and you get to chill faster.
 
100L. What's that, 25 gallons or so? Basically, the equivalent of a 10 minute shower. But instead of sending the water straight down the drain, perhaps you can divert the discharge out onto the lawn or flowerbeds where it can do double duty. Or collect it in buckets and use it for laundry. Or skip a shower. I know a lot of people on here seem to get racked with guilt about the "wasted" water from their immersion chillers, but I honestly don't understand it. It's really not that much water when you think about it.
 
I run mine into the fermenter to sanitize. The rest I collect into buckets for cleaning other equipment and watering flowers
 
What's your ground water temperature? Are you agitating your wort while the immersion chiller is in there?

People often try to switch up their chilling setups in hopes of getting better efficiency, but often the limiting factor is just hard facts of thermodynamics. It can take a lot of water, no matter how you mix it, to bring 5gal of boiling wort to pitching temps.

I don't know of any plate chillers that open up for inspection. It's pretty much a constraint of the design.
 
I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.
 
I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and making everything relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

Keep it in the debate forum, sparky.
 
I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

May not be the right place in the forum, but his head is in the right place. You may want to look into a no chill method.. no water usage, pitch yeast a few days after your wort naturally cools.
 
I guess I touched a nerve with my response. It wasn't my intention. I was just trying to give a little perspective so you wouldn't feel like "a complete idiot" for your excessive water usage, maybe even save you from laying out cash for a new chiller. Please accept my apology.
 
What's your ground water temperature? Are you agitating your wort while the immersion chiller is in there?

People often try to switch up their chilling setups in hopes of getting better efficiency, but often the limiting factor is just hard facts of thermodynamics. It can take a lot of water, no matter how you mix it, to bring 5gal of boiling wort to pitching temps.

I don't know of any plate chillers that open up for inspection. It's pretty much a constraint of the design.

This is true. If your water out of your tap is 75 degrees, you simply can't chill with it lower than that no matter what your chilling device is.

However, you can chill faster by agitating the chiller/wort. A prechiller is great for saving water, as is recirculating with ice water (with a pond pump).

The same constraints for temperature will apply to any type of chilling device, whether it's a Therminator, an immersion chiller, or a counterflow chiller.

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

And, please remember to keep any political debates, remarks, and other controversial topics out of the technical threads and only in the debate forum, as per our forum rules.
 
You may want to look into a no chill method.. no water usage, pitch yeast a few days after your wort naturally cools.

Excellent suggestion.

The Aussies came up with no-chill out of necessity, as they have some serious water shortage issues, the kind that make our periodic droughts appear trivial. Well worth looking into if you're concerned about water usage when brewing.
 
I'm kind of pissed about the water loss as well. A plate chiller seems like one solution, but really I just end up not making hoppy beers in the summer, and doing a no-chill. I let it cool in the kettle down to about 120 and then into the bucket and an ice bath. Haven't had any problems doing this, as far as infection, clarity etc. Plus I hate my immersion chiller. Look for it in the classifieds in the near future.
 
Grab yourself a fish tank pump and hose that fits put pump in container. It will suck your ice water in, and that extra hose. Return it back into the same container, then just recycle your water.
= 0 spillage or waste!!
 
How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?
 
I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

i think the point people are making is not that water waste isn't a problem but that when you put 100l in the context of an average persons daily usage it actually isn't as bad as you think.
And If you are really cut up about it, miss a few showers and you should square it up.
 
How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?

That's the problem with ice-water recirculating idea that gets thrown around a lot. The water coming out of the IC is pretty damn hot, so your ice-water bath isn't going to stay ice cold for long if you're recirculating right off the bat.

I recirculated ice-water with my IC when I lived in FL..but I didn't actually start using my ice-water supply, and completely having a closed-off recirculating system until about 15 minutes of chilling time with just tap water and collecting my steaming hot runoff in my HLT.

Collecting the run-off water was a perfect opportunity to throw in some oxyclean and thus having my cleaning water nice and hot and the oxyclean completely dissovled. I use 15.5g keggles, and ended up using just a little over 15gals for chilling before I switch to a close re=circulation.
 
bottlebomber said:
How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?

I'm not sure, to be honest. I've gotten my wort down to 50°F without much trouble, but I've never had reason to go below that. I buy a 5lb bag because that's what's available, and it always has been plenty to supplement my water (which is at least 75°F this time of year)

This is on a 50' chiller with a recirculation arm. I capture the first 10 gallons for cleaning, then I fill the sink with 3 gallons of water and the bag of ice. I use a cheapo pond pump that I had laying around to push water after that. Takes about 15min to get from boiling to pitching temps.
 
Cool, it sounds like you guys are using the same technique. I'll have to try that, and maybe I can learn to love my IC again.
 
Cool, it sounds like you guys are using the same technique. I'll have to try that, and maybe I can learn to love my IC again.

As was mentioned, the key is to not use the boiling water that initially comes out of the chiller. I fill my HLT with some the hot water, to use for cleaning the brewkettle when it's empty. Within a few minutes, the water coming out of the chiller is cooler (you can at least touch it without burning yourself, even though it's still pretty warm) and that is the time to add the ice.

I tried using NO chilling water, and just using my HEX in my HERMS to chill a 5 gallon batch with ice. But it took 42 pounds of ice doing it that way- and so I never did that again. Combining the two- chilling to sub-130 with the chiller, and then using some ice and recirculating- would be a fairly efficient and cost effective way to do chilling.
 
Yooper said:
As was mentioned, the key is to not use the boiling water that initially comes out of the chiller. I fill my HLT with some the hot water, to use for cleaning the brewkettle when it's empty. Within a few minutes, the water coming out of the chiller is cooler (you can at least touch it without burning yourself, even though it's still pretty warm) and that is the time to add the ice.

I tried using NO chilling water, and just using my HEX in my HERMS to chill a 5 gallon batch with ice. But it took 42 pounds of ice doing it that way- and so I never did that again. Combining the two- chilling to sub-130 with the chiller, and then using some ice and recirculating- would be a fairly efficient and cost effective way to do chilling.

Sounds good. Really, it's those last 30 or 40 degrees that are using at least half of the water.
 
Am I the only one that uses the hot water coming out of the chiller to start cleaning up and do a few extra dishes? That way the water is not going to waste and I am even recycling the heat.
 
No matter how you slice the issue...cooling a batch of beer quickly takes a lot of energy, either in the form of water, or ice, less water and electricity to make the ice...saving 10-15 gallons of water, yet using 10 lbs of ice is just moving the impact somewhere else???

Nothing for free...No chill is the greenest method IMO if that is your goal.
 
Am I the only one that uses the hot water coming out of the chiller to start cleaning up and do a few extra dishes? That way the water is not going to waste and I am even recycling the heat.

No, you're not the only one, and in fact it's been mentioned a few times in this thread already ;)

(I've been brewing in the early evening lately, and my new favorite use for the water is baby bath time)
 
If saving water is your issue then "No Chill" is the way to go. If done properly it is simple and cheap. Be sure to get the right type jerry can, fill at boiling temp w/o splashing too much, and squeeze out all the air in the head space. This would work well for the apartment brewer and your brew day is shorter. Fill the jerry can immediately after the boil and your done (minus cleanup). Of course, you will have to transfer the next day and pitch, but its the tradeoff. Some "no chillers" claim to keep the sealed wort for weeks before pitching without effect. Just a suggestion.
 
I am not sure where they are coming up with that number, then later in the article SAB has a ratio of 4:1 which is well documented.

Yeah, I agree. 600:1 seems, well, just ridiculous.

I chill to 100-110 with tap water and IC, then switch to using a pump and ice water.

Bottom line is that removing that much heat in a short amount of time is going to take significant resources; period. There's no free lunch, physics-wise.

So you've got to make your own decisions about what's most important/valuable to you.
 
Onlooker said:
Yeah, I agree. 600:1 seems, well, just ridiculous.

That figure is probably arrived at using the Bobby_M method, there not only all water used in growing and malting the grain is figured in, but also the soda the guy driving the tractor drank.
 
The way I see it wasting water is not the same for everyone. For instance I live in a rural part of pa and I have a well and septic system any water that runs through my ic will eventual go right back into septic and then eventually the aquifer in which it came from. If I were on a municipal system the water would have to be supplied by a municipal source, treated by a waste water treatment plant and then drained and wasted as runoff (usually). Then look at a situation like Bermuda where there is no source of fresh water and every drop of rain that hits the roof must then be collected, stored and used sparingly. I guess every situation is different and I'm not fan of wasting resources, but individual circumstances should be considered to consider the degree of impact.
 
bottlebomber said:
That figure is probably arrived at using the Bobby_M method, there not only all water used in growing and malting the grain is figured in, but also the soda the guy driving the tractor drank.

Where the F did this come from? You are actually taking a jab at me for arguing for realistic and accurate accounting in a completely unrelated topic? Maybe it's cooler to ignore details so you can spin the answer in your favor instead. At least wait until I post in a given thread before you single me out.
 
Bobby_M said:
Where the F did this come from? You are actually taking a jab at me for arguing for realistic and accurate accounting in a completely unrelated topic? Maybe it's cooler to ignore details so you can spin the answer in your favor instead. At least wait until I post in a given thread before you single me out.

Calm down tiger, you're overreacting. It was all in good humor. My comment was based on input I've seen from you on "real cost of brewing" threads where you insisted that every factor from actual direct costs to even a portioned amount of rent/mortgage needed to be figured in as well as all time spent. Nothing wrong with that, but after a couple of these you start making a name for yourself. I'm not the only person who's noticed, surely. I'm sorry if I spoiled the fun. No hard feeling right?
 
So, looking at the Aussie method of doing this, anyone see any problems with me using a keg to do the 'no chill' method? The only issue I think I might run into is that the keg is 7.5 gallons and I would be putting 7 gallons into it, leaving a bit of headspace (read: oxygen). I am thinking that the still incredibly hot wort will sterilize everything in the keg, I can then toss it in the empty kegerator after it has cooled a bit as to not damage the kegerator. That will let me start my fermentation kinda low and let it rise naturally during fermentation, rack it into the 7.5 gallon bucket to clean the trub out of the keg, then rack it right back into the keg, drop a hop bag in there and hook up the co2. I suppose tossing in the prescribed amount of priming sugar and seal up the keg, leaving it out of the kegerator for another few days or so then cold crash it. Any thoughts on this? Any obvious flaws that you see? If I should have made mah own thread, lemme know. It seemed to go with the theme here since the Aussie no chill method had a nice foothold. Thanks!
 
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