Wort chiller water wastage

I got a mate who can get me an empty keg or 3 from a bar he works at, so im thinking its time i got my own AG set up and all that stuff... but there's one thing worrying me.

Down here in Aus, we got a pretty big drout goin on... so we have water restrictions and junk. I dont mind "wasting" an arseload of water if its eventually gonna become beer. But in a 10 gallon batch, how much water is generally wasted running through the wort chiller? Or is there any other way to chill 10g of wort without wasting water?

Cheers
Chrus

You could try a plate chiller. I don't know what temp your water is coming out
of the faucet, but to give you an idea mine is somewhere in the 60's and it
basically cools the wort down to low 70's as fast as you can gravity feed the
wort thru. And that's running the water at a slow thru-put. From there you could
give it an ice bath if needed.
Here's where I got mine..
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=7142

A pre-chiller + immersion chiller will probably use less water than an immersion chiller alone.

I think this was discussed earlier, people all said what they do with the water.

We have outdoor water restrictions here, I will be using mine in the backyard But, I plan on collecting the water in buckets, letting it cool and use it to water my plants.

Don't know what restrictions you have down-under, in the states (at least in my state) the restrictions don't include vegetable gardens. So as long as the water was cooled and used in that manner it would be OK.

In additition to buckets the water could be collected in a kiddy pool. The warm water could then be used to wash your equipment after a brewing session.

The hoses could be run back inside the house to do a number of tasks: fill a bathtub for a hot bath, fill a washing machine to wash clothes, Kitchen sink or automatic dishwashing machine, even the toilets for that matter.

It's really only restricted by your budget and imagination. If you had access to an old water heater that could be filled it would keep the water warm for a while.

I have toyed with the idea of putting a T on my hot water line with a valve from the water heater output line and another line going to an additional outside spigot. Then I could close the valve from the water heater, hook the output from the chiller up to the spigot and use the hot water thru the regular hot water lines. This would also give me a hot water spigot outside with the valve in the open position.

You could also put a recirculation pump on the water heater start with cold water and use the chiller to heat your water.

For a five gallon batch I use about 10 gallons of cooling water. It depends a great deal on the starting temperature of the house water, mine is normally 55-65F.

[I run mine to the blueberry bushes, but I thought it would be a good idea to actually answer your question.]

If you're into water conservation, pumping icewater is the best method. If you're goal is to chill for the least amount of money, just run a ton of water. As long as your tap temp is lower than your desired wort temp, it just takes time. The reason I put ice water circulation as more expensive is that the energy it takes to make enough ice will cost you more than say quadrupling your water use.

It costs about half a cent per gallon average in the US for tap water. I'm still a little sketchy on the actual cost to make ice at home but I'm sure it's more. Obviously store bought ice would put you in the $5-10 range.

Beerrific said:

A pre-chiller + immersion chiller will probably use less water than an immersion chiller alone.

I think this was discussed earlier, people all said what they do with the water.

Click to expand...

Right. IF you can hook up a recirculating pump and have a prechiller, you essentially have a closed system and you're not wasting water.

You'll go through a sh!tload of ice though.

I use a pre-chiller. As soon as my output reaches 10 F above ambient water temp, I drop in the ice in the pre-chiller.
I'm down to 70 F in a total of 20 minutes. 65 F in 30 minutes.
I'm in southeast Louisiana, so the ambient water temp in the summer runs above 95 F (hot).
Already mentioned, when the water gets around 150 F, I wash my mash tun.

CFC's work faster than IC's. I've never had to pump more than a decent trickle through at a time to get my wort nice and cool.

I think that i have heard of some aussies using no chill methods. They buy what sounds like food grade gas cans. They sterilize them very well, then put the hot liquid into the container. (straining for hops and what not) then when the container is full, they put it between their legs and squeeze the bucket untill the liquid is right to the edge of the container. Then they put the cap on, which is air tight, and leave it at least overnight. I think i heard someone that did this and didnt pitch yeast for 2 months or so and there were no ill side effects.

I can try to find a link, but i think it was from another forum. Is it cool to link to other beer forums?

Chrus said:

But in a 10 gallon batch, how much water is generally wasted running through the wort chiller? Or is there any other way to chill 10g of wort without wasting water?

Cheers
Chrus

Click to expand...

I use an IC without prechiller and collect the water in buckets for use in the garden. I use 20gals total of water to cool a 5 gal batch to the mid 60's in about 60 minutes. My tap water is around 58F. The last 5 gals get about 5# of ice added to it to do the final chilling. I still feel guilty about it so I conciously try to conserve water in other ways (My Subaru hasn't been washed in about 5 years... )

Got Trub? said:

I use an IC without prechiller and collect the water in buckets for use in the garden. I use 20gals total of water to cool a 5 gal batch to the mid 60's in about 60 minutes. My tap water is around 58F. The last 5 gals get about 5# of ice added to it to do the final chilling. I still feel guilty about it so I conciously try to conserve water in other ways (My Subaru hasn't been washed in about 5 years... )

Click to expand...

That is a lot of water and a really long time man! What's the deal?

ski36t said:

That is a lot of water and a really long time man! What's the deal?

Click to expand...

IC's work best with agitation
the more you mix up the wort with a spoon or the chiller, the better
I cool 5 gal from 195F to 80F in 15 min with 25 ft of 3/8 copper running 68F well water

(I wash down my porch with the initial, extremely hot water, which then runs off to my plants)

Jammer that was Kadmium that you are talking about...he's on this forum

OP: you should talk to him (Kadmium) since he's in Austraila....I'm sure he could give you some tips

Good luck!

ski36t said:

That is a lot of water and a really long time man! What's the deal?

Click to expand...

I have a 25' 3/8 in chiller run by an aquarium pump. I think the flow is too low so I'll be playing with that as well as a pre-chiller. A whirlpool would also help. I'm a sanitation freak so I don't open up my brew pot while cooling until I absolutely have to to check temp so I don't mix it either which would help. I'd be interested to hear what volumes other have to use as I suspect it is more then you may think.

Thanks for the info guys. Just gotta wait for my mate to come through with these kegs now...

Got Trub? said:

total of water to cool a 5 gal batch to the mid 60's in about 60 minutes.

Click to expand...

Save some more time & water, pitch when you break 80.

Don't let that chiller sit motionless in the wort! Do this test: feel the exit water heat up instantly after swaying the chiller around in the wort. Thermal blanketing is the culprit

BierMuncher said:

Right. IF you can hook up a recirculating pump and have a prechiller, you essentially have a closed system and you're not wasting water.

You'll go through a sh!tload of ice though.

Click to expand...

For a 5 gallon batch, plan on using about 20-30 lbs of ice. That's really not that much.

I use about 60 lbs of ice to cool 15 gallon batches. That may qualify as a sh!tload, but at least I'm not flooding my yard with the runoff from a "traditional" wort chiller.

if your chiller is short enough you can add another fitting to the water out side and hook a garden hose up to it and water your lawn with it

i have around a 9foot 1/2" od immersion chiller (homemade lol) and the water that comes out is still some what cool one night while brewing i took the other fitting that came with the package and hooked up the garden hose to it with the sprinkler on the other end and watered the yard while i chilled my wort! worked alright but had a slight leakage due to a cheap hose clamp not making a good enough seal with the slight backpressure caused by the sprinkler.

otherwise i would go with a pre chiller, and a bucket of some sort filled with icewater to sit your boil pot in

hey there, it was indeed me who does the no-chill. And yeah, its a great invention. There are deffinatley no side effects, so its a great way of cooling your beer, and warming the planet! one 5g batch at a time but in all seriousness, the drought in Australia is so bad, you cannot water you garden any more...