Environment Friendly Wort Chiller

So, here's the deal:

I've brewed one batch of beer, and I am working on my second. As of now I am doing what most of you would consider a no-no, and I am cooling my wort down with ice. I disinfect some tupperware, fill it with water, put a lid on the tupperware, and put it in the freezer so I have some ice. I obviously cook less wort, so that adding the ice brings up my total level to the correct gallon amount.

This method is somewhat effective, it still takes awhile to cool down the wort. So, I would really like a wort chiller, but they seem rather wasteful to me. You pump all that water through just to cool down the wort. Does anyone have any ideas for a nice way to be a bit more green while cooling the wort?

Here's an idea... Use it or don't...

Since you're worried about wasting water - dont... Get a couple 55 gal drums and drain the hot water from the wort chiller into em. Use the collected water (cooled) to water your garden. Or wash your car with the hot water... or...

I dont worry about it, but thats just me (I drain it right into the ditch, which goes right into the stream... which goes back into the water supply...) With a properly set wort chiller (LOW flow - should be HOT when the water comes out) I dont think an excessive amount of water gets wasted (I'll have to measure at some point... not that I care...)

I measured it once at about 20 gallons of water to chill wort from boiling to ~80 using a copper chiller. But, I also have pretty cold tap water...

The water was harvested and used to clean up afterwords

25FT coil; as stated, on low flow for 20 minutes doesn't use that much water. The bucket idea for watering the garden is a great idea If you use a pump and a basin to recirculate it, I don't see any reason (as long as your connections don't leak) that you cant add a little antifreeze or anti algae stuff and reuse the water (just add ice to cool and make up for evaporation). Of course dispose of properly if you use antifreeze.

MoRoToRiUm said:

25FT coil; as stated, on low flow for 20 minutes doesn't use that much water. The bucket idea for watering the garden is a great idea If you use a pump and a basin to recirculate it, I don't see any reason (as long as your connections don't leak) that you cant add a little antifreeze or anti algae stuff and reuse the water (just add ice to cool and make up for evaporation). Of course dispose of properly if you use antifreeze.

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I understand your intentions here but, I still find it humorous that, in a thread named "Environment Friendly Wort Chiller", we are offering suggestions that involves the use of anti-freeze.

Gotta love us home brewers

Why not get a cheap submersible pump from the hardware store, and recirculated your water. Once you get the wort down to about 140, add some ice to the water collection tank where you are using the pump. Keep adding ice and you'll get your wort down in no time...

I have also seen people fill their washing machine with the run off water. If you are going to water your garden, make sure that you wait a few minutes til the water coming out of the chiller is cooled down a little. At first, that water is going to be screamin hot. Many people have pissed off the SWMBO by leaving burn marks in the grass or killing plants with their near boiling run off.

Ek0nomik said:

So, here's the deal:

I've brewed one batch of beer, and I am working on my second.

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Here is another idea. Since you were doing two brews, you can save the water in a couple of buckets and use it in the next brew and sparge. The water is already up in temp and will come to strike temp (or boil for extract) a lot faster. Then you save water and propane/electricity in the making of your next brew.

Every brewery I have ever worked at does this. All the water from the heat exchanger goes back into the HLT.

Hope this helps.

John

NoClueBrewMaster said:

Why not get a cheap submersible pump from the hardware store, and recirculated your water. Once you get the wort down to about 140, add some ice to the water collection tank where you are using the pump. Keep adding ice and you'll get your wort down in no time...

I have also seen people fill their washing machine with the run off water. If you are going to water your garden, make sure that you wait a few minutes til the water coming out of the chiller is cooled down a little. At first, that water is going to be screamin hot. Many people have pissed off the SWMBO by leaving burn marks in the grass or killing plants with their near boiling run off.

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I think that sounds like the easiest and cheapest solution. Are you suggesting adding ice into the actual container, or maybe keeping the ice in tupperware and dropping it into where the old water is coming out to avoid contamination?

AZ_IPA mentioned that he found out that about 20 gallons of water flowed out of his chiller. I imagine a 20-30 gallon container isn't cheap...

Nwcw2001 said:

Here is another idea. Since you were doing two brews, you can save the water in a couple of buckets and use it in the next brew and sparge. The water is already up in temp and will come to strike temp (or boil for extract) a lot faster. Then you save water and propane/electricity in the making of your next brew.

Every brewery I have ever worked at does this. All the water from the heat exchanger goes back into the HLT.

Hope this helps.

John

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The two brews were done months apart, otherwise that isn't a bad idea.

NoClueBrewMaster said:

Why not get a cheap submersible pump from the hardware store, and recirculated your water.

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This is what I do and it's based on EdWort's thread. I use a keg tub, fill it with water and dump 10# of ice. Ice water from the keg tub goes into the chiller and hot/warm water comes back into the keg tub and recirculates. It takes about 15 minutes to reach pitching temps. I wait a couple hours and use the water for my lawn.

Ek0nomik said:

AZ_IPA mentioned that he found out that about 20 gallons of water flowed out of his chiller. I imagine a 20-30 gallon container isn't cheap...

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I wash bottles and sanitize in a 19-gallon rope handled bucket thingy. Cost about 12 at ACE (that's how I know it took about 20 gallons - filled it up with the water from the coil outflow and the bucket thingy overflowed for less than a minute

noremorse1 said:

I understand your intentions here but, I still find it humorous that, in a thread named "Environment Friendly Wort Chiller", we are offering suggestions that involves the use of anti-freeze.

Gotta love us home brewers

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Hence

MoRoToRiUm said:

dispose of properly

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Nothing wrong with reusing the water, I was merely trying to point out that if you are like me living in an apartment, with no garden to water, there are alternatives to allow you to keep re-using the same water. Algae killer/suppressant is SAFE, which is why I also suggested it. As for a long term usage of the water, over and over, I was merely suggesting a little anti freeze because it will keep the water good for almost forever, and help in the cooling. Just throwing ideas out there, no offense and my apologies. My water goes to my cats water reservoir ;-)

do some searching, there's a couple threads about this.

i send my chiller water into a 5gal bucket for cleaning, then into my HLT for next time, and then i fill my emptied mash tun to start cleaning that out. it only takes me 10min to cool my wort to 68F, and at the low flow rates i use i'm pretty much done cooling by the time those 3 things are filled, no water wasted.

what about the energy you use to freeze the water? which is better to "waste", water or electricity? you decide.

MoRo, I've heard that anti freeze in the water will really makes the cats cost shiny & soft....

I'm just saying!

zac said:

MoRo, I've heard that anti freeze in the water will really makes the cats cost shiny & soft....

I'm just saying!

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And used motor oil makes an excellent lawn fertilizer.

Don't forget the cold water bath for the uranium rods! Cows love it!

Absolutely. RIght on. I had forgotten about that. I need to change the oil in a couple of tractors, rekon the fertiizer qualitites will last till spring time?

All kidding aside, I use my wort chiller water to water the plants, bathe the dog, fill up the washing machine, clean carboys, if none of those are needed, theres always the cistern to dump it into. then it gets used fro verything else.

How about just letting the water run off into the sink, and then skipping your next shower. That should even things out.

Seriously though, if you can easily reuse the water then thats great. Otherwise, it really isnt THAT much of a waste. I think its the fact that we just see the water running off into the drain that makes us wanna save it. But between dishes and showers and drinking, the water used in a twice a month brew doesnt really make a huge part of the bill.

I just run a garden hose from the chiller to my pool. I've got to top the pool up periodically anyhow, this way nothing is wasted.

Fett, ogh come on, we've all got to do our part, Al Gore says so.

Ok, I'm bowing out, day off work & one too many homebrews...

Therminator...takes 5-10 minutes to cool down from boiling and all the water can be collected and used for clean up...

Padstack31 said:

Therminator...takes 5-10 minutes to cool down from boiling and all the water can be collected and used for clean up...

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I have no idea what a therminator is.

SenorWanderer said:

do some searching, there's a couple threads about this.

i send my chiller water into a 5gal bucket for cleaning, then into my HLT for next time, and then i fill my emptied mash tun to start cleaning that out. it only takes me 10min to cool my wort to 68F, and at the low flow rates i use i'm pretty much done cooling by the time those 3 things are filled, no water wasted.

what about the energy you use to freeze the water? which is better to "waste", water or electricity? you decide.

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What is HLT? The freezer is on regardless of whether or not I am brewing, so that doesn't matter. Meat, etc doesn't play nice in the warm air.

Fett327 said:

How about just letting the water run off into the sink, and then skipping your next shower. That should even things out.

Seriously though, if you can easily reuse the water then thats great. Otherwise, it really isnt THAT much of a waste. I think its the fact that we just see the water running off into the drain that makes us wanna save it. But between dishes and showers and drinking, the water used in a twice a month brew doesnt really make a huge part of the bill.

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The bill isn't my concern.

Thanks for the ideas. I think saving it for laundry seems like a very simple idea.