chiller from hell

Check this out!
My Brother-in-Law made this immersion chiller. 85 feet of copper dropping wort from 212deg to 68deg in under 7 minutes

I'll take one. No seriously send it to me I'll give ya a sixer of Pabst for it.

Haha, that's just the sort of bad dream I often have. More is always better!

Wow.....that looks like something out of "Starship Troopers"! I almost want to shoot it!

If he ever gets tired of using it as an IC, he could put it in the HLT and make an AWESOME HERMS! Think about how much wort would be in contact with the HLT; you could probably raise your mash a few degrees a minute!

ScubaSteve said:

If he ever gets tired of using it as an IC, he could put it in the HLT and make an AWESOME HERMS! Think about how much wort would be in contact with the HLT; you could probably raise your mash a few degrees a minute!

Click to expand...

That's a great point. Nick (My Bro-in-law) was over yesterday to brew. He cranked out a red hook knock off and I did a porter... but I was blown away by how fast it dropped the temp. I don't know if I'd use it in a HLT situation... might end up acting like a giant strainer....lol

In the search for the most efficient chill at the cheapest cost... I did what most would do... break out a calculator, start to do the math, get frustrated and call someone with more knowledge than my own. I called my dad (retired engineer) and showed him Nicksteck's chiller. This is what became of the conversation:

You will get a faster chill with less copper as long as you have a higher temp differential. In other words the longer the copper - the longer your chill water is exposed to the heat of the wort. this is actually (according to Dad) less efficient. Ever notice that when chilling, you go from boil to around 100 deg and then the chill rate slows? It's because at temps around 100 deg, there is a smaller differential in temps of wort vs. chill water. (at this point we switch from house water to recirculated ice water)

Now we also know you can go the other way by having too little copper for heat transfer, IE: 3ft of copper would take forever to chill 5 gal of wort. So what is the right amount of copper?
I'm about to build an IC chiller that's kind of like Nicksteck's, but with the following changes: I'll build, and record the outcome for future ref. I'll post my results.

2 each 3/4 inch copper input and output like Nickstecks.
16 each 1/4 inch ID copper at 28 inch lengths which would net me 37 feet 4 inches of heat exchange copper vs. his 85 ft of copper.

Now, 3/4 in. copper pipe = .44 square inches of area for flow. That is equal to 9 units of 1/4 in ID copper tube. I'm adding an additional 7 units, so there will be a drop in flow rate as soon as the water hits the 1/4in copper. The water should have enough exposure time to adequately transfer the heat while keeping the heat differential great enough to operate efficiently.

Ideas? Comments? Experience?

Science is good, Beer is great, Science & Beer together is awsome!

I wonder if a big copper box with baffles in it directing the flow of water would work well...sorta like a muffler.

Seabee John said:

Science is good, Beer is great, Science & Beer together is awsome!

Click to expand...

QFT

Do you think all this extra work will have a greater effect than just varying the rate of flow at the point where the temperatures aren't far apart? Like... have it run really slow untill you reach 100F, then turn it up?

Well, ok.... I guess the more copper you throw in there the better the cooling will be....

> the longer your chill water is exposed to the heat of the wort this is actually
> (according to Dad) less efficient.


I'm not sure if you mis-understood your dad or mis-communicated here. For any given flow, a long pipe is not less efficient than a short one. The longer pipe reaches a point beyond which further increases in length yield little increase in performance (the point of diminishing returns). I'm guessing you got his point, because your explanation of why it does so was correct.

That's precisely why your 37ft of parallel tubes sourced from a 3/4" feed will cool much better than a single 37ft piece linear copper. If you wanted to go uber-geek on this one, find the precise length of 1/4" copper required to cool the wort to the point of diminishing returns and make them all that length. That will be as fast as you can possibly go.

Frictional loss in laminar flow is related to pipe diameter. If your calculations are simply matching 3/4" area to 1/4" total area, your tubes will be undersized for full flow. Try upgrading to 3/8" tube or increasing your number of tubes for max fluid flow.

One final thought: Perhaps the biggest reason discussions here generally center around a single linear piece is ease of construction.

pldoolittle said:

>
That's precisely why your 37ft of parallel tubes sourced from a 3/4" feed will cool much better than a single 37ft piece linear copper. If you wanted to go uber-geek on this one, find the precise length of 1/4" copper required to cool the wort to the point of diminishing returns and make them all that length. That will be as fast as you can possibly go.

Frictional loss in laminar flow is related to pipe diameter. If your calculations are simply matching 3/4" area to 1/4" total area, your tubes will be undersized for full flow. Try upgrading to 3/8" tube or increasing your number of tubes for max fluid flow.

One final thought: Perhaps the biggest reason discussions here generally center around a single linear piece is ease of construction.

Click to expand...

The idea of 1/4 vs 3/8 or any other size isn't as important as length in my eyes as long as the flow area is greater than .44 sq in. in the total of the smaller tubes. I guess what I'm getting at is exactly your point of finding the proper length to meet the law of diminishing returns, then building with the right number of tubes to meet the needs of the volume being cooled. This will give you the highest efficiency while maximizing the unused space in the kettle as well as cost of materials. (smallest chiller for fastest chill)

If cost and size were not an issue, we would simply use a chiller with the greatest amount of surface area for heat exchange, IE: 200 LF of 3/8 copper coiled for ever and displacing 4 gal (the remainder of space in my kettle)

Note: this all is changed by the one variable that is different in each of our homes, the water pressure. I get almost 60 PSI, if you get 30 PSI everything would change.

Seabee John said:

The idea of 1/4 vs 3/8 or any other size isn't as important as length in my eyes as long as the flow area is greater than .44 sq in. in the total of the smaller tubes.

Click to expand...

What I was trying to say was that for any given pressure, the flow through nine 1/4" pipes is less than the flow through a single 3/4" pipe. I just read this part "I'm adding an additional 7 units".... As such, I guess it's no surprise that my comment about increasing the pipe size made no sense at all.

The rest about finding the point of diminishing returns was just a suggestion in case you were looking for a geek project.

That's a monster in more ways than one. The thing of nightmares and dreams.

I want one....

Wow!!! Don't leave that out in the open. Someone might steal it and retire!!!!

I'm not an expert, but I know a pre-chiller would increase the temperature differential. You could save some copper for one of those.

I guess the copper was free.

i think 5-8' of 1/4 or 3/8 would work the best. i used 1/4 because it was free (left overs from air conditioner installs) the problem with 28'' runs is thats not enough time for contact with the water. if i could build it again i would use 3/4'' manifolds and 5- 3/8'' id loops 10' long i think that would work very well

thanks, Nick

I am using garden hose down to 100 degrees and than switching to ice water in a bucket to get to 65 degrees. im in the heating and cooling trade so this is just a challange to see how fast i can get to 65 degrees. I'm a TRANE dealer and this is what they use for there condensers to disapate the heat outside. i just got into brewing and saw the 25' 35' and 50' coils that are used and new i could improve the idea.

love the site, you guys are great to talk to

Nick

If you work in the A/C industry, then you have the ultimate chiller right under your nose! Use a refrigerant system! Why pump water through the chiller at 60 degrees (32 degrees with ice), when you could run refrigerant at lower temps? Only thing to worry about is building ice on the chiller..... Anyone up for trying that out?

thought about it, made a chiller for a guy next door some years ago for a minnow tank with a window air conditioner. used a roll of copper for the evap. idea would be the same. gonna think about it, thanks for the idea.

Nick

shafferpilot said:

If you work in the A/C industry, then you have the ultimate chiller right under your nose! Use a refrigerant system! Why pump water through the chiller at 60 degrees (32 degrees with ice), when you could run refrigerant at lower temps? Only thing to worry about is building ice on the chiller..... Anyone up for trying that out?

Click to expand...

I had thought about it too but I dont think they are designed to handle 200+ degree temps. You would have to have a HUGE condensor on that sucker. I also doubt that the compressor could handle the higher pressures. Might be worth a try though if you had a spare refrigeration unit on hand.

Why does everyone assume boiling wort is 212'? Pure water boils at 212, but with extra sugar it boils hotter.

Anyway, I see this thread and I think "Blah blah blah...CFC." Attach a pump to it and you chill boiling wort to 70 degrees in minutes. 85 feet of copper not required.

Cheesefood said:

Why does everyone assume boiling wort is 212'? Pure water boils at 212, but with extra sugar it boils hotter.

Anyway, I see this thread and I think "Blah blah blah...CFC." Attach a pump to it and you chill boiling wort to 70 degrees in minutes. 85 feet of copper not required.

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If it does, it isnt by much.... My thermometer never goes above 212 when I am boiling 3 Gal extract batches.

And yeah, you're right but there is always the innovative bigger better faster people. Me being one of them.

If we all followed the 'yeah thats adequate' mentality we would all be reading this with monochrome monitors and 300bps modems

Virtuous said:

And yeah, you're right but there is always the innovative bigger better faster people. Me being one of them.

If we all followed the 'yeah thats adequate' mentality we would all be reading this with monochrome monitors and 300bps modems

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I'm a fan of better and faster, but bigger isn't necessary. You can get the same cooling out of a CFC. Rdwj and I used a CFC hooked to a March pump and got a really quick drain and 70' wort.

Virtuous said:

I had thought about it too but I dont think they are designed to handle 200+ degree temps. You would have to have a HUGE condensor on that sucker. I also doubt that the compressor could handle the higher pressures. Might be worth a try though if you had a spare refrigeration unit on hand.

Click to expand...

I was thinking that the severe temp differential would make it work more efficiently. The pressures involved are set by the initial fill of the system, and the compressor design, not the temps involved(I could certainly be wrong about this, though. Now your comment on the size of the condenser may be right, but an A/C guy could probably pick up a big one once a week if he/she wanted it. How many people ask to keep the condenser, or any other part, from their old system? Maybe one of them could crunch the numbers and give us an idea of how big the components would have to be.......

Cheesefood said:

I'm a fan of better and faster, but bigger isn't necessary. You can get the same cooling out of a CFC. Rdwj and I used a CFC hooked to a March pump and got a really quick drain and 70' wort.

Click to expand...

Hey Cheese, not all of us are hitched to a money making machine like your ol' lady... Those CFC's are not cheap, neither is a march pump. Not to mention there may be a lot more work to clean and sanitize a CFC & pump. All I need to do is boil my IC. Although... It sounds like all of us unknowing, unworthy, sludge brewing non hackers SHOULD just be happy you graced us with your presence...

Brew what you can, when you can & how you can... Just Brew!! :rockin: :rockin:

I just scored an industrial chiller unit from work. It was for a plastic injection molding machine that we no longer use. Should be fun to try it out. Still need to decide how much copper to use. I'll probably just use my current immersion chiller with it to begin with.

what if you still used miles of pipe, but in separate flows? Like if you put a splitter on it that broke it into three different but concurrent ten-foot lengths instead of one thirty-foot length?

Seabee John said:

In the search for the most efficient chill at the cheapest cost... I did what most would do... break out a calculator, start to do the math, get frustrated and call someone with more knowledge than my own. I called my dad (retired engineer) and showed him Nicksteck's chiller. This is what became of the conversation:

You will get a faster chill with less copper as long as you have a higher temp differential. In other words the longer the copper - the longer your chill water is exposed to the heat of the wort. this is actually (according to Dad) less efficient. Ever notice that when chilling, you go from boil to around 100 deg and then the chill rate slows? It's because at temps around 100 deg, there is a smaller differential in temps of wort vs. chill water. (at this point we switch from house water to recirculated ice water)

Now we also know you can go the other way by having too little copper for heat transfer, IE: 3ft of copper would take forever to chill 5 gal of wort. So what is the right amount of copper?

2 each 3/4 inch copper input and output like Nickstecks.
16 each 1/4 inch ID copper at 28 inch lengths which would net me 37 feet 4 inches of heat exchange copper vs. his 85 ft of copper.

Now, 3/4 in. copper pipe = .44 square inches of area for flow. That is equal to 9 units of 1/4 in ID copper tube. I'm adding an additional 7 units, so there will be a drop in flow rate as soon as the water hits the 1/4in copper. The water should have enough exposure time to adequately transfer the heat while keeping the heat differential great enough to operate efficiently.

I'm about to build an IC chiller that's kind of like Nicksteck's, but with the following changes: I'll build, and record the outcome for future ref. I'll post my results.

Click to expand...

Ok, the Chiller is half built. A little change though. I have 18 pieces of 1/4" ID copper (all free from Nicksteck) so basically the flow rate is halved once the water leaves the 3/4" Inlet manifold and enters the 1/4" Each 1/4 copper tube is 28" in length, so if you do the math it's a total of 42 feet of 1/4" copper. That's still less than half of what Nicksteck is running. We will test by the weekend (given that I've found and fixed all my leaks - I'm not much of a plumber, but we'll see.) I'll be back with Pics and data.

coyotlgw said:

what if you still used miles of pipe, but in separate flows? Like if you put a splitter on it that broke it into three different but concurrent ten-foot lengths instead of one thirty-foot length?

Click to expand...

That's basically the idea, break up the longer length into smaller chunks. The efficiency is in the disparity of temps. The greater the disparity, the better the chill. So if you have a large disparity in the first 3 feet of pipe, in the second 3 feet the chill water is already warm from the first 3 feet, rendering it basically useless. My design breaks a 3/4" inflow into 18 twenty eight inch segments, and then back out a 3/4" out flow. Much the way a counter flow chiller works. They're not very large. They expose the temp disparity for a very short distance and time.

Seabee John said:

Click to expand...

I'm in love

I think a few people have suggested it before me, but I increase my temperature differential by first running the tap water through copper tubing submerged in an ice bath, then it runs through vinyl tubing to my actual immersion chiller. I think my cooling limitation is the chiller size at this point.

My initial thought is that by the time the water gets half way through it would be as hot as the wort. But either way it is a beauty!

Well folks the long awaited experiment has been done. I built the new chiller. 3/4" inlet/outlet w/ 18 - 1/4"ID tubes at 28" long. Nicksteck and I had a good old fashioned "chill off" between his monster and mine. He came out ahead. 212+ down to 68 in under 4 minutes with the assistance of circulated ice bath under 100 deg and a mixing paddle. I was from 212+ down to 68 in under 7 minutes with the ice bath under 100 and a mixing paddle.

here are the pics... win or lose it was great fun!

more pics

Cool. Looks like a rib cage!

can you post more pics of nick's chiller?

Seabee John said:

Check this out!
My Brother-in-Law made this immersion chiller. 85 feet of copper dropping wort from 212deg to 68deg in under 7 minutes

Click to expand...

here ya go

What do you use as a paddle? Would a 14.4 volt drill hooked up to a pain stirrer be overkill to stirr wort to chill it fast?

Grimsawyer said:

What do you use as a paddle? Would a 14.4 volt drill hooked up to a pain stirrer be overkill to stirr wort to chill it fast?

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Not on low speed... works really well.
You just need enough to move the wort past the copper

Seabee John said:

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