Immersion Chillers and False bottoms

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vtfan99

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Ok...this is my first all grain batch with a false bottom (just used hop bags before). I brew in a converted keg. I have a zymico weldless spigot. I had a custom made stainless drain tube to go from my spigot to the false bottom. My question is this....how do you AG'ers handle the problem of the immersion chiller coming into contact with the drain tube and preventing it from reaching more of the wort? Now, my very limited knowledge of thermodynamics tells me that the hotter wort will rise to the top anyway...so it may not be much of an issue.

Just curious to see if anyone has a creative solution for this....someone usually has thought of something.....this board is loaded with intuition. :D
 
vtfan99 said:
Ok...this is my first all grain batch with a false bottom (just used hop bags before). I brew in a converted keg. I have a zymico weldless spigot. I had a custom made stainless drain tube to go from my spigot to the false bottom. My question is this....how do you AG'ers handle the problem of the immersion chiller coming into contact with the drain tube and preventing it from reaching more of the wort? Now, my very limited knowledge of thermodynamics tells me that the hotter wort will rise to the top anyway...so it may not be much of an issue.

Just curious to see if anyone has a creative solution for this....someone usually has thought of something.....this board is loaded with intuition. :D


Yeah, its called a counterflow chiller. :D After I heard about Sam's problem with the same thing, I bought a CFC before my next batch. Works awesome.
 
ORRELSE said:
Yeah, its called a counterflow chiller. :D After I heard about Sam's problem with the same thing, I bought a CFC before my next batch. Works awesome.

What/Where'd you buy it? I was contemplating trying to make one as I also have to cool the tap water here in the summer but shelved the thought for now.
 
desertBrew said:
What/Where'd you buy it? I was contemplating trying to make one as I also have to cool the tap water here in the summer but shelved the thought for now.


I broke down and bought one from my HBS. Its a small one and was less than 40 bucks.

If I had more money to spend I'd get the one Sam has--its all metal so it could be baked to sanitize it. I think its the Chillus Convolutus. Pretty cool.
 
desertBrew said:
What/Where'd you buy it? I was contemplating trying to make one as I also have to cool the tap water here in the summer but shelved the thought for now.

I think one like ORRELSE's would be pretty easy to make. You'd need some garden hose, copper tubing and fittings. I believe there's a kit that has all the fitting you'd need. Look for something called "Phil Chill" fittings....I believe that's what you need.

I had the money for mine at the time, and went for it. Given the same water temp, I don't know if mine will really cool any faster than another. One bad thing about mine is gravity feed is almost impossibe. I just got a pump. We've been using ORRELSE's with gravity, and it works fine.
 
Below is what I did yesterday. A combo of bath soak and immersion chiller. Pool is now at 78 and I got the brew down to that in about 45 minutes. 1st time I ever thought of using both the pool & the chiller together :eek: . Save water as well. This will work great in winter when the pool is at 50. But it is the most expensive chiller there is...

IMG_1763-small.JPG
 
BeeGee said:
Hmmm. My neighbor has a pool, and a gate on my side...they're out of town frequently...

There ya go ;). Might offer them a HB for the use of their h2o...

It does work great "when" the water is not that hot. In the heat of summer out here though it's at 86-90 temp so doesn't help then. The other 8 months it works pretty nicely. With the immersion chiller and the pool I think I found my best solution. Its just those summer months I scratch my head...
 
I use an immersion chiller I fashioned from some leftover copper tubing and even using water from the tap is more or less in the summer when the "cold" water is barely below lukewarm, at least around here.
 
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