Water saving wort chiller

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Thekeez

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I have a bunch of guys that I brew with, usually 3 or 4 batches at one time. We all just converted to all-grain! It has been a smooth transition but we use a ton of water cooling down that many batches with my wort chiller. Has anyone ever used a pump to sort of circulate the water to cool wort? Maybe fill a utility sink with ice water and use a pump to feed the water through the wort chiller and drain it back into the ice bath to cool the water back down. Thoughts?
 
Currently using a plate chiller, but I'm considering switching to an immersion chiller. When I do I'm planning on doing exactly that. Big bucket of ice water to pump to chiller back to bucket.
 
I tried doing that over the winter using snow to cool the water down. Didn't work too well. I did use less water, but it took a lot longer since the water coming out was heating up the cooling water. Had to change the water a few times and add a ton of snow.
 
should work but the ice is gonna melt fast when the hot water comes back from the chiller. My buddy pumps water from his swimming pool through the chiller. Warms up the pool at the same time! I run the input water really slow and just collect the warm water for cleanup later.
 
This is how I do all of my chilling. Works great for me. I use old plastic tubs (butter, cottage cheese, etc.) of frozen water in one of my spare ale pales with the pump in it. I also sit my kettle in an ice bath. Works like a champ!
 
What about running the heated water exiting the chiller into your mashtun for the next batch? That way you can reuse the water, plus it's preheated and you'll save on fuel needed to heat the water.
 
What about running the heated water exiting the chiller into your mashtun for the next batch? That way you can reuse the water, plus it's preheated and you'll save on fuel needed to heat the water.


This is what I'd recommend.

I haven't used my new setup yet, but am planning on capturing my "waste" cooling water for my clean in place process. I have a CFC made with a vulcanized rubber hose, so I wouldn't use the water to rbew with. But cleaning with hot water will be awesome.
 
Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of thinking that saving water is necessarily saving money. If you use the heat capacity of ice to reduce water consumption, you have to figure out what it costs to get the ice. If you buy it from a store, it's easy to figure out. If you make it in your freezer, the electricity used is harder to figure out but it's certainly not free.
 
I dump or 'waste' the first 5 gallons or so when the output water is extremely hot. This gets used as cleaning water, added to the washing machine, or let sit to cool down to be used to water the garden. Once the wort is down to 110-120ish I switch to a bucket of ice water and recirculate the water with a pump. By time I hit pitching temps, I am almost out of ice. This water is used in my swamp cooler as it is usually around 50-60 deg. I adjust with makeup water if it is too low or frozen 2-liter bottles if too high.

Although now that my pool is open I need to refine my process. Its much easier for me to just pump from/to the pool till I get to 110, then go to the ice bucket.
 
My water costs $4.05 per every thousand gallons. I would think a hundred gallons per chill would be a nice high estimate. That's 40.5 cents worth of water. Even if I double it I still haven't purchased a bag of ice yet.

Hook up the lawn sprinkler to the output hose and I'm actually getting some extra use out of my water.
 
I dump or 'waste' the first 5 gallons or so when the output water is extremely hot. This gets used as cleaning water, added to the washing machine, or let sit to cool down to be used to water the garden.

Yup, there are lots of ways to conserve water other than simply using less to chill. Especially if you're brewing multiple batches per day and can use the hot chiller runoff as strike liquor for the next batch.

Your ice idea will work though, but you may be thinking it will require less ice than it actually does. You'd need about 0.75 lb of ice per pound of wort to get to ale pitching temps - about 33 lb for a 5 gal batch.
 
I use a 20 gallon picnic tub, fill it with 20-30# of ice (depending on batch size), and use a cheapo aquarium pump. The first ~5 gallons goes into my HLT for cleaning, etc., and from there on I recirculate. Using that in combination with a march pump/whirlpool arm, I got 11 gallons of kolsch down to ~60f in about 20 minutes.

Yeah, the ice costs 10 or 15 bucks each brewday, but I brew at night after my son is in bed, so the 30 minutes of sleep I get back is worth it to me.
 
Yup, there are lots of ways to conserve water other than simply using less to chill. Especially if you're brewing multiple batches per day and can use the hot chiller runoff as strike liquor for the next batch.

Your ice idea will work though, but you may be thinking it will require less ice than it actually does. You'd need about 0.75 lb of ice per pound of wort to get to ale pitching temps - about 33 lb for a 5 gal batch.

Is this estimate going from 212 to 70 or 110ish to 70? Because I know for a fact that I can get to 70 from 110 with less than 10 lbs of ice. Thats why I 'waste' the runoff from the tap for about 15 minutes before switching to the ice water. If I didnt do that, the ice would be melted really quickly.
 
Over the winter I did a recic using snow insted of ice. I used 5 gal of water,plies got rid of some snow! In the summer I don't worry about it because I pay a flat rate for water. During the spring and fall I use milk jugs full of ice that I keep in the freezer anyway (I only use 2 shelves in my deep freeze, they work better with less air space)
 
Just need to make yourself one of these.

That is sweet!! I happen to have that AC Unit too, its in the master bedroom. How pissed would SWMBO be if she came home to a hot bedroom and I had that thing ripped apart downstairs in the garage?!?!

Ehhh we lost the remote a long time ago anyways, I'd rather keep it cool in the bedroom as opposed to COLD in the bedroom if you know what I mean!
 
Just need to make yourself one of these.

I saw this a while back and have been thinking it may be my next project. I got an ac unit that I was going to use for my ferm chamber before I ended up getting a chest freezer instead.

Currently I use tap water to cool to 110-120 then recirculate through ice water to bring it down to 70.

The tap water I collect and cool to water my garden.
 
I also just hook up the outflow to a cheap sprinkler to water the lawn. Gotta water the lawn anyway.
 
Is this estimate going from 212 to 70 or 110ish to 70?

That was based on an 83°C (149°F) drop - so if you boil at 212, it would take the wort down to ~63°F. Basically every pound of ice melted will drop 5 gal of wort a little less than 5°F.
 
That was based on an 83°C (149°F) drop - so if you boil at 212, it would take the wort down to ~63°F. Basically every pound of ice melted will drop 5 gal of wort a little less than 5°F.

Ok then my rough estimates make sense based on your math. 110-70 = 40 degrees. It takes less than 10 lbs of ice for me to get down to pitching.

Thanks for the clarification
 
In the Texas summers when we brew we use a bucket of ice & pre-chill the cold water with a immersion chiller. Then on to the CFC for 70-75 wort. We have had 85 degree tap water before.
 
if you use a longer coil in your chiller, the water temp will be higher at the exit, removing more heat per unit of water. the only "waste" you have in a chiller is water that exits the chiller without being heated to its full potential.

you can get the same effect by reducing the flow rate, though this increases the time it takes to chill.
 
Here is how we do it in Texas.
Start off by cooling from the tap and then switch to pumping chilled water.

Equipment that you will need:
1 pump (for recirculating the hot wort, i.e. March Pump)
1 counter flow chiller, of your choosing.
1 immersion chiller (but not to be immersed in the wort)
1 cooler (I use the 10 gallon cooler that I had the mash in)
3-4 bags of ice
1 immersion pump or some other pump to recirculate the cold water once then wort drops to below 140° F
Since our tap water is not that cool, I have come up with the following.

Process
Attach the garden hose from the tap to the immersion chiller.
Put the immersion chiller in the cooler and fill with ice. This acts a pre-chiller for the tap water.
Connect immersion chiller to the water side of the counter flow chiller, and then connect a hose from the exit to go out to the tree or garden that needs the water. Everything here needs water desperately this year. Waste no water!
Now attach the boil kettle to the March pump and then the pump to the counter flow chiller.
You will then have a hose going from the counter flow chiller back to boil kettle.
NOTE: make sure all of the hoses, pump and counter flow chiller that come into contact with the wort has been cleaned and sanitized before you start to cool the wort. Do not rely on the boiling wort to do it for you.
Start by turning on the tap to start the water flowing through the immersion chiller and the counter flow chiller.
Start the March pump to recirculating the hot wort.
You will see the temperature start to drop right away.
Once the temperature of the wort has dropped below 140° F turn off the tap water.
Connect the hose that was attached to the tap to the immersion pump. Move the exit hose from the tree or garden to the cooler.
Turn on the pump and you will see the wort rapidly drop in temperature. Add ice to the cooler as needed. This way you are recirculating the cold water back into the ice filled cooler through the pre-chiller, pump, counter flow chiller and back.
Using this process we have dropped a 10 gallon batch from boiling to 65° F in less than 15 minutes.

Once you are done you dump the remaining water in the garden, it needs it.

Transfer the wort to the carboy and you are ready to pitch the yeast.

By the way I don’t buy ice I have a ice maker I found on craigslist.
 
Using a pump and recirculating cooling water through a bucket of ice water is inefficient until you get down to 100F to 120F depending on your tap water temperature. Use tap water for the first part of the cooling. Then switch to recirculating icewater with a pond pump. Fit your wort chiller with quick connects to make it easy to change from tap water to recirculated water.
 
Using a pump and recirculating cooling water through a bucket of ice water is inefficient until you get down to 100F to 120F depending on your tap water temperature. Use tap water for the first part of the cooling. Then switch to recirculating icewater with a pond pump. Fit your wort chiller with quick connects to make it easy to change from tap water to recirculated water.

Agree but wow this is an old thread
 
A super old thread but I have a quick question. Being in Florida my ground water doesn't get that low so I've always had to use an ice bath with my immersion chiller. I just bout a pond pump at Lowes that is a 600 gallon per hour pump but when I hooked it all up to my chiller it basically was running about 1 gallon per minute if that. For those of you using a system like this, is this about normal? I was expecting much better flow...
 
I used one and realized quickly those ratings are dependent upon small lift distances. I always had to run mine at max flow and adjusted the flow rate by moving the cooler with ice on a stool or off the stool.
 
My 278 gallon rainwater wert chiller
image-385664488.jpg
 
beaksnbeer said:
My 278 gallon rainwater wert chiller

Nice. I recently acquired a 55 gal drum that I am intending on using for a similar system. I'm assuming that you just circulate the hot water back into the tank. Have you measured the before and after temps of the tank after cooling a batch? Do you use a pre chiller? Have you had freezing issues?
 
Nice. I recently acquired a 55 gal drum that I am intending on using for a similar system. I'm assuming that you just circulate the hot water back into the tank. Have you measured the before and after temps of the tank after cooling a batch? Do you use a pre chiller? Have you had freezing issues?

Would take a lot to have freezing problems here, if there is a rise in temp I haven't noticed it, can usually take a 5 gallon batch down to 70-75 degrees in 10-20 minutes. the tank held about 73-75 degrees all summer (sits in the shade) I emptied it to move it so not sure what it will hold during our "winter"
 
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