How much water for an immersion chiller?

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danielinva

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I have a question for those of you out there using a standard 25 or 50 feet immersion chiller. How much tap water do you end up using before cooling the wort down to about 70 degrees. I know this depends on the temperature of the tap water and whether or not you use a pre-chiller, but I just want some general numbers if anyone keeps track of this sort of thing.

I've always used an ice bath to cool 5 to 6 gallons of hot wort and can accomplish this in under 30 minutes with about 20 pounds of ice. The SWMBO is concerned that a wort chiller would waste too much water.
 
I probably used 30-50 gallons... I stopped chilling altogether, it makes for less hassle.
 
I'd wager at least 30 gallons... I know I fill up a 7 gallon bucket with the hottest of it for cleanup, and then proceed to water the plants around the deck where I'm brewing with the lukewarm stuff... In the winter it goes down the sink drain so yeah, I feel like I'm wasting it.
 
Wow 30 gallons!? I usually fill my HLT which is about 10 gallons. I then use the water for my plants/sanitizing/etc. Honestly I only get my wort down to about 85 degrees and let it sit until it hits about 75 before I pitch my yeast.

If I already had an icebath setup, I would pick up a pump and an IC and just pump the cool water in a loop. This would keep you from using more water and would also give the benefit of a more time efficient cooling method.
 
That sounds potentially more expensive than my 4 dollars of ice and maybe 10 gallons of water.

More expensive? Water is cheap, but it is wasted. I presume that $4 of ice would buy A LOT of water for an IC.

My method isnt cheaper (water is cheap) but it doesnt waste water... or cost me $$ for ice.
 
I make my own ice for doing an icebath. I use about 8 galons of water to cool my wert down, and it takes 20-25min.
 
Perhaps I'll buy an IC whenever we get around to setting up a rain barrel and just send the outflow into that once it gets to a reasonable temp. Then I can just use the otherwise wasted water on the garden as needed.

Arkador, how long does it take you to make enough ice? Our current fridge has no ice maker, but we've bought one for when we move next month so I may go that route for a while.
 
I watched my friend do something that I will do for myself when he was chilling wort. He used plastic milk containers! Filled them with water and froze them. It took 3 of them to chill to the desired temperature.

He took a hammer to the container and then cut away the plastic. Worked great. and recycled too!
 
I have a fountain pump on mine and used 4 bags of ice and a little water it took about 30-45 to drop from 212 to 75. this was my first time to use it and was quite pleased I need gto rework the shape more but giving it a shake to move the wort around worked quite well.
 
Sounds like that method would dilute the wort.

When I was still doing extract brewing, I would brew up 2.5-3 gallons of high OG wort and freeze 2-3 gallons of purified water in tupperware containers, along with some more water for an ice bath. When my boil finished I'd drop in the purified ice, and that would usually get the temperature in the 85-95 range very quickly, and I'd be right at my target OG/volumes once the ice melted. Then, I'd transfer to the ice bath for the last bit.


I have been using more water than I'd like for my AG batches, so I actually ordered and received delivery today of a 160GPH fountain pump which I plan to put into an ice bath for pumping through my immersion chiller. I'll do my best to track how much water I use to cool down the batch, and post results.
 
I admit my water tends to be a bit cold, but 5-8 gallons.

This, is impossible... mathematically anyhow. Unless there is a BIG part of the story missing.

If you have 5 gallons at 212 (boiling)
AND
you pour directly into it, 8 gallons of 40F water, it will rest at 107F

So, I would have to assume that if you are using 8 gallons of water in an IC, there is no way on this earth that you will chill your beer to a reasonable pitching temp.

However, if you can get your water down to 33F and pour it into your wort you CAN get 5 gallons of boiling wort down to pitching temps. But, just barely with 8 gallons.
 
I use a recirculating chiller set in a 6-gallon pail, and add blue ice packs and frozen 2-liter water bottles to the water after I run the hottest IC outflow into a bucket for use in cleaning. So, all told, I probably use about 15 gallons to chill my wort in 25 minutes, and don't have to run to the store to buy ice, nor plan ahead to make lots of extra ice before brew day (we have a countertop ice maker for cocktail parties).
 
Well, maybe it's impossible, but I run the chill water into a bucket and rarely overflow. And, yes, my water is very close to freezing much of the year.
 
Well, maybe it's impossible, but I run the chill water into a bucket and rarely overflow. And, yes, my water is very close to freezing much of the year.


Does your bucket have a hole in it? :D

Close to freezing is good, but my 8 gallon calculation at 33F is if you dump the cold water INTO the wort. That being said, that is 100% efficient when it comes to the thermal capability of the cooling liquid, Id have to assume that an IC is less than 100% efficient.

Another assumption can be made as well... I could easily run 1.5 gallon/min. through my IC, so this means that you chill from boiling to 70F in 4-6 minutes as well, which again, leaves me scratching my head. Good for you though... Id have to see that to beleive it.
 
I have a question for those of you out there using a standard 25 or 50 feet immersion chiller. How much tap water do you end up using before cooling the wort down to about 70 degrees. I know this depends on the temperature of the tap water and whether or not you use a pre-chiller, but I just want some general numbers if anyone keeps track of this sort of thing.

I've always used an ice bath to cool 5 to 6 gallons of hot wort and can accomplish this in under 30 minutes with about 20 pounds of ice. The SWMBO is concerned that a wort chiller would waste too much water.

Simple, just tell the wifey the it takes 0.50999 gallons to fill 50' of 1/2" pipe.... but there may be some leakage from the open end while you fill it. It is up to you if you want to tell her that it will be 20 to 30 gallons of "leakage". :D
 
Pol - Mixing water does not give you the same results as the normal cooling process. You are leaving out heat lost to evaporation, radiation and convection. Just losing a pint of water during the process provides an additional 965 BTU of cooling, that's about 20F. Calculating the last two methods are rather complicated, but just let your kettle sit for 30 minutes after flameout. It won't be boiling any more.
 
Where is the pint going? If you are cooling it in 5 minutes flat, (5-8 gallons) I cannot see where there is THAT much evaporation or heat loss to radiation. I am fully aware that if I let wort sit, it will cool... that is how I cool mine to pitching temps, I just let it sit. But, to claim that with 5-8 gallons and I presume then about 5 minutes of cooling, you reach pitching temps, is hard to even fathom.

I have never heard it take anyone less than 15-20 minutes to reach pitching temp, with 5-8 gallons total, that is like 4-5 minutes. Like I siad, kudos to you, but I'd love to hear from anyone else that can do it, because this is a first for me.
 
I guess we just must assume that David 42 is cooling over a lengthy period of time, therefore, all of the cooling is not coming from the 5 -8 gallons of cooling water.

I could chill a batch w/ a pint of water through the IC, of course this would be on my back deck, overnight, in the middle of January.

Yes Pol, I agree, anyone that can rapidly chill a batch w/ 5-8 gallons of water should not be homebrewing, they should be concentrating on the "energy crisis", as they have likely created a way to produce free energy.
 
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