I'm quite happy with my cooling system tonight

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Bigsnake

Bigsnake

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6 gallons of wort coming off the burner.

Had a prechiller in a bucket packed with ice. I shook the prechiller while my g/f stirred the wort. 80 degrees in 12 minutes. Down to 68 in 17 minutes.

I started running ice from the start of the cooling. Took an entire weeks worth of ice harvesting from the freezer's ice machine though. :p

Edit: I guess I should say "morning" instead of "tonight." Yes, it's 4am, yes, I just finished brewing.
 
wow. lol. I have a 25 ft copper IC and my next "project" is to chill for about 10-15 minutes with my ground water then connect my IC input with a pond pump leading to a bucket of ice water. I heard that this method is pretty efficient considering my ground water isn't that hot...
 
I'm going to go the pre-chiller/ice bath route as soon as I find a cheap one on the Ebays. It takes me 30-40 minutes to cool to >80 with 1 chiller and that's not good enough IMO.
 
Very nice!!

I have a counterflow chiller which, in the summer gets the wort down to 72 after one pass. But I'm moving to VT in a week, so i think it will get colder than that.
 
TeleTwanger said:
I'm going to go the pre-chiller/ice bath route as soon as I find a cheap one on the Ebays. It takes me 30-40 minutes to cool to >80 with 1 chiller and that's not good enough IMO.
Click to expand...

I would do the pond pump in a container of ice if I had to do it over again. About the same cost as my prechiller and then you don't have to worry about having someone shake the prechiller. I'm probably going to give this setup a try soon anyway. Make it easier because it's sometimes hard to recruit a helping hand for this process, especially during my late night brewing.

Now, the prechiller does work GREAT but ONLY when someone is shaking it around in the bucket of ice. I do like how you can feel the heat exchange. Grab the chiller and start shaking it and one side gets ice cold. Same thing on the IC in the wort. One side is going in ice cold and the other side you almost don't want to touch it's so hot.
 
Bigsnake said:
I would do the pond pump in a container of ice if I had to do it over again. About the same cost as my prechiller and then you don't have to worry about having someone shake the prechiller. I'm probably going to give this setup a try soon anyway. Make it easier because it's sometimes hard to recruit a helping hand for this process, especially during my late night brewing.

Now, the prechiller does work GREAT but ONLY when someone is shaking it around in the bucket of ice. I do like how you can feel the heat exchange. Grab the chiller and start shaking it and one side gets ice cold. Same thing on the IC in the wort. One side is going in ice cold and the other side you almost don't want to touch it's so hot.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how the pond pump works. Do you need 2 hoses?
 
I have an immersion chiller, and I use the garden hose to get the wort down below 100 degrees, it gets it down to that temp in less than 10 minutes. Then I switch my chiller over to the pond pump in the bucket of ice water and recirculate the ice water through the pump and back to the bucket. By the time the ice is melted the whole thing is down to a good lager pitching temperature maybee 20 minutes total.

I fitted it all with garden hose quick disconnects so the swap out is really quick, disconnects on the pond pump and the hose and on the chiller, works like a charm.
 
TeleTwanger said:
I'm not sure how the pond pump works. Do you need 2 hoses?
Click to expand...

I believe you'll only need two.

I'm thinking you'll have the pond pump in the bottom of the ice container. The first hose will then run to your IC. Then a hose from your IC back to the ice container.

This is my cooling setup from last night right before we started the agitation
beeroatmeal40.jpg
 

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