Closed System Wort Cooling Works

Tested it tonight on my E-HERMS... worked like a charm.

Basic premise:

Use my HLT complete with HERMS coil as a heat exchanger to cool the wort after the boil. Using a March pump to pump the wort and whirlpool it in the kettle.

Here are the stats.

5.5 gallons BOILING (IN KETTLE)
4.0 gallons 65F water and 44 pounds of ICE (IN HLT)

5 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 50F
KETTLE TEMP 148F

10 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 54F
KETTLE TEMP 99F

15 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 52F
KETTLE TEMP 81F

20 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 50F
KETTLE TEMP 66F

25 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 48F
KETTLE TEMP 57F

30 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 48F
KETTLE TEMP 57F

Was there any ice left?

that's awesome, but what is your target temp? Did you also use an IC in the kettle, I know one of the guys had mentioned it.

olllllo said:

Was there any ice left?

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Ice was gone in 20 minutes, which is perfect. This means the heat transfer was pretty eff.

JesseRC said:

that's awesome, but what is your target temp? Did you also use an IC in the kettle, I know one of the guys had mentioned it.

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Nope, whirlpooled in the kettle, just the HERMS coil in the HLT in the cooling liquid.

My target temp. tonight was as low as I could go as a test.

nice! you should also post this in the other thread you started where the math you and Bobby_M were doing made my head hurt.

I've been watching this from your other thread and thought it was really interesting. Great to hear that it works. Any chance you took a picture of the whole thing in action? I am more of a visual learner...

AZ_IPA said:

nice! you should also post this in the other thread you started where the math you and Bobby_M were doing made my head hurt.

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I posted it there too...

The math worked to the DEGREE! When the ice was melted, the cooling water was at about 48F... exactly where it predicted. It had plenty of cooling power for nearly 6 gallons.

I am pretty pleased with it, especially because I can utilize exactly the equipment that I already have for my HERMS.

cford1 said:

I've been watching this from your other thread and thought it was really interesting. Great to hear that it works. Any chance you took a picture of the whole thing in action? I am more of a visual learner...

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Sorry, no... I threw this together tonight in a few minutes to test it.

Basically, all I do is hook up the pump inlet hose to the kettle and pump it thorugh the HERMS coil in my HLT. The HLT has 4 gallons of tap water and 44 pounds of ice.

As you can see, the HLT temp rose to a point, but since there was still ICE in the HLT consuming those heat calories and the "wort" was cooling, it then again began to cool off, adding some extra cooling punch at the end.

so how does this compare to using an IC with Ice water? I know most of the things you do are specific to your setup, and I know you want a closed system, but what about recirculating the ice water in the IC in the kettle. I guess you would have to have a whirlpool going and that would require another pump? I am just so against pumping the wort out of the kettle for fear of infection. However , this does seem super easy for your setup.

JesseRC said:

so how does this compare to using an IC with Ice water? I know most of the things you do are specific to your setup, and I know you want a closed system, but what about recirculating the ice water in the IC in the kettle. I guess you would have to have a whirlpool going and that would require another pump? I am just so against pumping the wort out of the kettle for fear of infection. However , this does seem super easy for your setup.

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Well, I have that electric element in the BK, so the IC would sit on it, not IN the wort all the way.

I would need 2 pumps to circulate the cooling liquid and whirlpool the wort.

It works nice, because it uses everything I already have... it utilizes the HERMS coil and the temp. controller in the HLT (to monitor cooling liquid temp) and it allows me to use just one pump for mashing and for cooling. The PID monitors the temp in the BK during the chill.

I know you have some money burning a hole in your pocket to spend on brewing stuff. Now that you don't need to spend the money on a plate chiller or counter flow chiller, can I have it? You can always support the poor electrical engineer in Manorville, New York foundation.

Just a clarification. I didn't do any math at all. I just used my google-fu to find the formula.

Bobby_M said:

Just a clarification. I didn't do any math at all. I just used my google-fu to find the formula.

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And thank you much Bobby... it was awesome!

Sawdustguy said:

I know you have some money burning a hole in your pocket to spend on brewing stuff. Now that you don't need to spend the money on a plate chiller or counter flow chiller, can I have it? You can always support the poor electrical engineer in Manorville, New York foundation.

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Um, I will get back to ya! I was planning to spend $400 on this... and I did it for free thanks to Bojoridujgun Kouwuhiuenfh (sp)

This has been fun, thanks guys!

Cool it's nice when you can get what you already have to pull a double duty.

But I thought you moved over to the no chill thing?

FSR402 said:

Cool it's nice when you can get what you already have to pull a double duty.

But I thought you moved over to the no chill thing?

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No Chill is coo, it works, and it works well IMHO. I have been working toward a closed system all along, and now I can have a closed system and still chill, really effectively (57F in 25 minutes!)

I am going to be doing a few brews with the closed cooling system coming up to see how I like it.

Pol you should do a test with a 44# block of ice and see the difference in cooling time to find out if it is worth the trouble of making 44lbs of ice cubes.

OMJ said:

Pol you should do a test with a 44# block of ice and see the difference in cooling time to find out if it is worth the trouble of making 44lbs of ice cubes.

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I think Pol has an ice cube machine, the lucky guy!

Sawdustguy said:

I know you have some money burning a hole in your pocket to spend on brewing stuff.

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+1. I am interested to see what comes next. Your brewery is getting pretty awesome! Here is my list of want-to-buys, for some potential inspiration:

1. Transfer station, no more siphoning : ~$100
2. Laminar flow hood, Germfree Brand on eBay : ~$300-400 (I found and missed one for 150 last week)
3. Yeast ranching supplies, save all my yeast for significant cost savings : ~$300
4. Cleaning station : ~$120

I want to see what cool stuff you get next

44 lbs of ice? wow. I got my beer to 70˚ in about 30 minutes using tap water to 100˚ and whatever my fridge's ice maker makes (maybe 5-8lb? for the remaining temp. Next time I'd prefer twice the ice but 44lbs?
I like the idea of the dual purpose HERMS coil, and the whirlpool. One day....

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

+1. I am interested to see what comes next. Your brewery is getting pretty awesome! Here is my list of want-to-buys, for some potential inspiration:

1. Transfer station, no more siphoning : ~$100

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I actually have one of these - it is useful for one more big thing... CIP.

I have 25 foot lines on each end of the pump and when I need to clean my conical out i just pump it full of hot water & PBW, wash it down, and pump the waste water into my basement bathtub through the dump.

Unfortunately, I still need to take the conical apart to properly clean it.

I have also found it useful for aerating wort. My pump is self priming so after I am done pumping the wort from the kettle into the conical, I just leave the pump going for 5 minutes or so, which causes all sorts of bubbling and aeration. I know this isn't sanitary but so far I have not had a problem. I suppose you could put an air filter in line.

It's also useful for:

-cleaning spills
-cleaning the fridge with a spray attachment
-cleaning the kegerator

bdavanza said:

44 lbs of ice? wow. I got my beer to 70˚ in about 30 minutes using tap water to 100˚ and whatever my fridge's ice maker makes (maybe 5-8lb? for the remaining temp. Next time I'd prefer twice the ice but 44lbs?
I like the idea of the dual purpose HERMS coil, and the whirlpool. One day....

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The Pol is lucky because he has an ice maker that can make that quantity of ice. If I had that resource, I would probably use that quantity of ice also.

OMJ said:

Pol you should do a test with a 44# block of ice and see the difference in cooling time to find out if it is worth the trouble of making 44lbs of ice cubes.

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I can tell you, the time would be longer to cool. Why? Surface area. In this application you WANT the ice to melt FAST. Why? Because if it isnt melting fast, it is NOT removing all of those calories of energy from the circulating wort. That said, increased surface area will give you a faster rate of melt.

I was lucky, the ice melted in exactly 20 minutes... if it takes the ice 60 minutes to melt due to reduced surface area, chilling will take much longer.

#44 aint that much ice

bdavanza said:

44 lbs of ice? wow. I got my beer to 70˚ in about 30 minutes using tap water to 100˚ and whatever my fridge's ice maker makes (maybe 5-8lb? for the remaining temp. Next time I'd prefer twice the ice but 44lbs?
I like the idea of the dual purpose HERMS coil, and the whirlpool. One day....

Click to expand...

#44 is doable... and again, the whole point was to make and test a closed circuit cooling process. The math that was completed in the other thread was dead on when computing temps. It was a great help to have the temp. controller in the HLT and the thermocouple in the BK for this test. It showed me things that I would not have imagined, like the cooling water actually getting COLDER as the system ran!

NOT ACCURATE

The idea of making my HERMS coil work double duty was not mine though, it came from Boerderij_Kabouter. I WOULD implement the second pump and another coil IN the kettle to help increase the rate of heat transfer, but I dont think the cost in $$ and complexity would yiled enough of a difference in cooling.

Another thing here is that not only is it closed system, but in 25 minutes you are at lager pitch temps (57F), which you cannot do with a garden hose, probably not even a garden hose and 10 pounds of ice... but it is possible in this closed sytem.

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That's not accurate. I can bring my wort down to within 5F of whatever my hose temp is. With 10# of Ice I can get below 55F.

Pol how much room was left in your HLT when the ice and water was added? Was there room for more to try to cool 10 gallon batches?

scoots said:

Pol how much room was left in your HLT when the ice and water was added? Was there room for more to try to cool 10 gallon batches?

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The HLT was FULL with 44# and 4 gallons. Though, if you look at the #s, the water in there was still only 48F. You could compute the # of calories it woud take to heat 9 gallons of 48F water to say 60F (this would still provide decent cooling) and see how well that would cool 10 gallons. My guess though, is no. The calories needed to heat and melt ice are much more numerous than those needed to heat water.

Here are some photos:


Keggle Fittings:




Keggle Recirc. Indside:

Nice setup. Question, what is the adjustable plastic arm made of? How does it handle the initial heat?

Pol, did you use your stirrer at all in the process or would the ice be too much mass for it to move around??

bendavanza said:

Nice setup. Question, what is the adjustable plastic arm made of? How does it handle the initial heat?

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Meh, it is a coolant line, from McMaster Carr. The same stuff that I use in the HERMS return line. I have boiled the hell out of this stuff and no problems... works like a charm and holds its shape.

rcrabb22 said:

Pol, did you use your stirrer at all in the process or would the ice be too much mass for it to move around??

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YES, the stirrer runs during the cooling process, no problems with the ice.