Cooling system

Hello all,

I am currently gathering ideas on what cooling system to put together for my 10 gallon all grain system. I am open to most ideas so any input you all have as to what works best and what works the quickest would be most appretiated. That my ground water temp is only 65 at the coolest time of the year and it only rises in the summer.

Yellow70cooper

I haven't built any of these, so take this advice with a grain of salt, but here are your options:

1. Wort Chiller
2. Counter-flow chiller (requires a pump)
3. "Inverted" wort chiller (requires a pump)
4. Any combination of the above

What I call the inverted wort chiller is where you pump the wort through the coiled tubing, and that tubing is sitting in a bucket of ice water.

You might have to cycle it through a couple times to get to the desired temperature.

1. Ice Bath
2. Immersion Chiller
3. CounterFlow Chiller
4. Plate Chiller (This is what I use, it chills in 1 pass to pitching temps)

I use my MLT as an ice chamber with about a gallon of water in it.

I then pump this through my coil mounted in my BK while I also whirlpool my wort in the BK with another pump.

You need a lot of ice though. I am using a 50' 1/2" dia. SS coil

I'd say the best is the plate chiller (I have a Therminator, which is nice). When it is hot here, I also run water through an IC which is in an ice bath, then it goes through the plate chiller. Works great.

By the way, I always use pool water to cool my wort. It returns to the pool, also, so no waste.

The Pol said:

I am using a 50' 1/2" dia. SS coil

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Yea, but is it convoluted? Man, I just love the look of that crazy tubing.

So what I am thinking now is that I will probably run a plate chiller with water ran through an IC in an ice bath. The question now is can I recirculate my Wert this way till I get down to pitching temp?? And yes I will be using my march pump..

Yellow70cooper

yellow70cooper said:

So what I am thinking now is that I will probably run a plate chiller with water ran through an IC in an ice bath. The question now is can I recirculate my Wert this way till I get down to pitching temp?? And yes I will be using my march pump..

Yellow70cooper

Click to expand...

Sure. In fact, you'll find that your chilling times will be about the same and you'll use far less ice if you just use ground water to knock out the first 60-70' and then stick the pre-chiller in the ice bath to get it down to pitching temps.

passedpawn said:

Yea, but is it convoluted? Man, I just love the look of that crazy tubing.

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No, couldnt find SS convoluted, and I dont know how I would attach my triclamps to it if I did!

The Pol said:

No, couldnt find SS convoluted, and I dont know how I would attach my triclamps to it if I did!

Click to expand...

You can use a Swagelok NPT or FNPT to tube fitting.

Sawdustguy said:

You can use a Swagelok NPT or FNPT to tube fitting.

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Would the compression fitting attach to a helix? I got the SS compression elbows for the SS coil, but I dont know how they would seal to a helix

The Pol said:

Would the compression fitting attach to a helix? I got the SS compression elbows for the SS coil, but I dont know how they would seal to a helix

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Good Question. I can't say yes or no because I am not 100% sure.

What about recirculating Glycol through the plate-chiller as the cooling solution? Currently I run hose water through, while recirculating the wort back to the kettle to get the wort down to ~150, then a recirculating ice bath on the plate chiller and pump from the kettle into the fermenter. Wonder if I used glycol the whole time though if I could go straight off the whirlpool in the kettle (still around 200ish) to the fermenter if it hit Glycol on the other side of the plate?

I was thinking I could use part of my chest freezer to hold a large glycol bath (put a 20 gallon bucket in there, with a submersible pump) and two lines, one to and one from the glycol bucket through the chiller. Thoughts? Seen it?

The Pol said:

Would the compression fitting attach to a helix? I got the SS compression elbows for the SS coil, but I dont know how they would seal to a helix

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The ends of the tubing are not helical shaped just for that reason. At least the one in the posted like is made that way. but way over priced IMO. We have really hijacked this poor guy's thread, well...i havn't. If you are going to buy a plate heat exchanger you should get one from a place in WI. The have them posted on ebay. They are made of the same material/brazed on O2 free furnace, ect. bla bla bla. They also have the same warranty, just not a mounting plate.