Motorized Immersion Chiller

During my brew session I used a new gizmo that I fabricated. It's an immersion chiller with a paint stirrer down the middle, and a gear motor at the top. It worked beautifully! Complete freedom from standing there stirring with the long-handled spoon. It's not like you can't find something else to do at that point in the brew day, you know.

nice, any pics?

I'll snap a pic later today.

Exbeerienced said:

During my brew session I used a new gizmo that I fabricated. It's an immersion chiller with a paint stirrer down the middle, and a gear motor at the top. It worked beautifully! Complete freedom from standing there stirring with the long-handled spoon. It's not like you can't find something else to do at that point in the brew day, you know.

Click to expand...

How powerful is the gear motor. How many RPM?

It's a continuous duty, 115 volt, .27 amp, 180 rpm gearmotor. If watts (power) is volts x amps, then it's 31 watts.

Sounds like the same $17.95 motor P-J and friends recommend for stiring the HLT for HERMS systems and the BK While using immersion chillers.

Here is this motorized immersion chiller. It will need a protective covering and permanent cord before it can be called finished, although I used it like this during its first use. I've got the copper shaped as such to keep the weakest connection (the hose clamps) away from the wort and motor.


There's the stirrer nestled within the coils. I have that straight piece of tubing soldered to just one of the coils, the top one (bottom one in this view).


A close-up of the sleeve that connects the gearmotor shaft to the paint stirrer. It has two set screws. Bigger than needed, but it was what was on hand. A fortunate thing is that the tubing is slightly larger than .500 inch. I used a .500 inch reamer which gives a snug fit where the tubing goes through the lid. Hopefully it will stay that way.


One more view. That hole is for an airlock stopper when I thought the plastic disk was going to be used as a fermenter lid.

Very nice!!

You should put the chiller on with QD's (unions would work) so you can use the gizmo for mash stirring. Nice project, even better dual purposed.

Very nice. Have you used this yet? Im just curious if you get oxidation while the paint stirrer is running in hot wort?

I did use it. By oxidation are you referring to HSA? I could look through that airlock hole and see the wort swirling. Nowhere near a vortex, but enough to move the wort amongst the coils. Next brew, I will dangle a thermometer probe in the wort and check its cooling performance.

samc said:

You should put the chiller on with QD's (unions would work) so you can use the gizmo for mash stirring. Nice project, even better dual purposed.

Click to expand...

+1 In fact my steam-heated MLT just informed me it wants one of those stirrers for Christmas

I wonder if that particular motor is strong enough for that task...

Cheers!

Stainless steel stirrer? If so, where'd ya get it/how much was it if you don't mind me asking.

The stirrer is painted metal. I'm not too thrilled about that but if it doesn't flake off I'm not going to sweat it. Probably wouldn't hurt the beer anyway. At least it doesn't have any lead in it!

I have a chrome painted mud mixer I can't get a straight answer of whether or not it'll be ok in boiling wort.... hmmm

How about using one of these SS Impeller's
they are for frozen ice cream but be able should move the wort about the boil kettle ok.

http://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/Product_580113?mr:referralID=3232d370-ee23-11e0-891e-001b2166c2c0
http://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/Product_289007?mr:referralID=624800cc-ee23-11e0-891e-001b2166c2c0

What about using a stainless steel brew paddle. I had been thinking of a slower RPM gear motor to use both during mash and cooling the wort.
I wonder if a slow rotation (20rpm) of a paddle(big a blade as possible) would create a whirlpool effect in the wort? it would seem fine for mash stirring and there would be little risk of HSA for what that bogeyman is worth.

thewurzel said:

How about using one of these SS Impeller's
they are for frozen ice cream but be able should move the wort about the boil kettle ok.

Click to expand...

The first is only 3" in diameter, and the second is only 1.9". Seem pretty small to use for stirring a big pot of wort...

Cheers!

cool!

The only thing I don't like about it is that to sanitize everything, you'll have to put it into the kettle @ 15 minutes. With everything attatched to the lid, you'll be covering your boil for the last 15 minutes.
I've been thinking of doing this and cutting a hole in the side of my lid to allow the chiller to be added seperately
Bull

bullinachinashop said:

The only thing I don't like about it is that to sanitize everything, you'll have to put it into the kettle @ 15 minutes. With everything attatched to the lid, you'll be covering your boil for the last 15 minutes.
I've been thinking of doing this and cutting a hole in the side of my lid to allow the chiller to be added seperately
Bull

Click to expand...

just leave it sitting in a bucket of sanitizer prior to use.

could you increase the speed of the motor to make a motorized whirlpool chiller ? really nice build !

samc said:

just leave it sitting in a bucket of sanitizer prior to use.

Click to expand...

i was thinking this also, but i thought i remember reading that you shouldn't cover the wort until it reached a certain temp... i guess he does have the opening on it though.

cool idea!

android said:

i was thinking this also, but i thought i remember reading that you shouldn't cover the wort until it reached a certain temp... i guess he does have the opening on it though.

cool idea!

Click to expand...

I like to get below 140 degrees for beers made with pilsner malt.

bullinachinashop said:

The only thing I don't like about it is that to sanitize everything, you'll have to put it into the kettle @ 15 minutes. With everything attatched to the lid, you'll be covering your boil for the last 15 minutes.
I've been thinking of doing this and cutting a hole in the side of my lid to allow the chiller to be added seperately
Bull

Click to expand...

The wort is already boiling, so wouldn't it sanitize on contact if you dropped it in at flameout? It's just the outside of the copper you are dealing with. No big deal.

Nicely built

where would you find one of these motors in a salvage yard or scrap pile? What are they normally used in?

do you have a part number for the motor?

Stainless Mixer?

http://www.amazon.com/Bon-15-181-Stainless-5--Gallon-Container/dp/B008BFVLBS/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1346206723&sr=1-1&keywords=stainless+mud+mixer

McMaster-Carr has everything !!

here's a suitable range of motors

McMaster has the right stuff but its pricey. With a little DIY know-how this becomes a viable alternative: http://monsterguts.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=4

bobjohnson said:

where would you find one of these motors in a salvage yard or scrap pile? What are they normally used in?

Click to expand...

For this application, lots of possibilities here, look at the various AC gearmotors linked on the right side of this page: http://www.surpluscenter.com/electric.asp

The motor, which Herbach doesn't carry right now, and a few other sites to check out.

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/me...de=ACGEARHEAD&Offset=0&Previous_Stack_Depth=0

http://www.electronicsurplus.com/leftnav/motors/acgearmotors.cat

http://www.surpluscenter.com/electric.asp?catname=electric

http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm/subsection/18/category/169