DITCHES (Dual Immersion Thermal Coil Heat Exchange System)

Williams 728
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Wow! Now that's freakin' shiny! Nice work, and yes - more pictures please! Maybe start your own thread and post a link here to not offrail this build.

Kal
 
I have done a second brew day and have now come to the conclusion I am not getting enough cooling capacity out of this double circulating method. I have put a very large bag of ice into the HLT and filled it with water. The hot wort circulates through the HLT and the cold water through the boil kettle. I get down to 120 very quickly but it takes another 20 minutes or so to come to an equilibrium at about 100 to 110.

Long story short, do you have other cooling methods planned? I am considering building a counterflow chiller or maybe going with a heat exchanger.
 
55° - 60°. Once I hit about 110° circulating the water from the HLT I then switch over and circulate tap water through the boil kettle to get the rest of the way down to 70°. This is painfully slow and inefficient.
 
Ahhh... yes. You can't start with the ice water. I thought I detailed that in this thread.... hmmm.

We ran some math on it and found that the 15g HLT is not enough cooling capacity, as you have found. What I have done to get around this is to set everything up as follows:

Fill the HLT with ice (like normal).
Hook up all connection like normal except the return to the HLT. Keep the hose running into the HLT as you circulate the ice water and collect the initial hot water into a bucket for later clean up. Continue this until the wort is below 120ºish (should be 3-4 minutes) then connect the HLT return and circulate ice water to chill down to ale or lager temps. This has worked very well for me (the only difference with my current setup is I have a CFC now instead of a second coil, but that should be changing shortly after the new year!)

I hope that helps and I apologize for not making it clear. Woop.

:mug:
 
WhiskeyFingers said:
55° - 60°. Once I hit about 110° circulating the water from the HLT I then switch over and circulate tap water through the boil kettle to get the rest of the way down to 70°. This is painfully slow and inefficient.
Click to expand...

Edit: Need to look at your system more before I comment again...

Ok, I like Boerderij_Kabouter's idea, as usual :)
 
What size batches are you cooling using this configuration? With a ten gallon batch I suspect that the ice will be nearly all gone in 5 minutes once I reach 120°ish.

Do you completely fill your HLT with ice? I would rather not spend another $10 per batch on ice but instead use the ice i have already in my freezer.

Since you speak from experience i will certainly give it a try.
 
My ground water is about 55º at its hottest in summer. So the ice lasts pretty well during the initial cooling because no hot water is returning. I usually start saving ice from my freezer a couple days before brewing and normally end up buying an additional 20# bag for a couple bucks. So I usually have a bunch of ice.

I have cooled a max of 13 gallons of wort. I got that one down to lager pitching temps (55º) in 15 minutes or less IIRC. If you are only adding one small freezer bucket of ice, you will not get much cooling capacity from it.

This is a great thread to see the math and theory behind how much cooling power ice has:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/therminator-ice-water-whirlpool-question-140003/index2.html
 
I will give this a go for my next brew day. I usually throw a 20lb bag in as well. I like the idea of not returning the hot water right away as well to save some of the cooling capacity and expelling this water for cleanup.

I do have another question that came up this week during my brew session. When you are step mashing have you found that direct firing your mash tun has affected your wort? Isn't the idea of a HERMS to avoid this?
 
When you direct fire the tun, you should be circulating the wort from the bottom of the mash to the top. As long as your flow is adequate (still moving and not stuck) the heating will be gradual and even. With your system, you should be able to measure the temp of the wort leaving the MLT drain. That will tell you exactly how hot that wort is getting. I have never had any carmelization, scorching or other problems with my direct firing.

What burner do you have under the MLT and how high are you turning it up? I have a 35,000 BTU burner under there now so I am not applying that intense a heat.
 
I am circulating at the same time while firing the MLT. I have a high output burner below it but I can throttle this down as low as needed. I do have a temp sensor on the outlet of the MLT as well. What temp should I be afraid at this point to avoid?

Burner with shroud.JPG
 
That looks perfect. I have no idea what temp would be bad. I am hoping to add my automation by the end of 2010. I would guess you are fine with that burner throttled back to a low flame and a decent circulation, that is pretty much exactly what I have going on.
 
So I have another keg to convert and am trying to decide if it should be a HLT or mash/tun. I want to be able to easily do temp changes for either mashout or step mashes and like the idea of cycling through coil in hot water but a direct fire tun would be easy too.

Any pitfalls to using a direct fire mash/tun instead of running through a coil in the HLT? I realize I would have to circulate the wort while direct firing.
 
Here is my idea for a DITCHES that is completely hard plumbed.

13 hand operated valves, direct spark ignition, controlled with LOVE controllers. Connections with no valve are white, connections that are dark gray are valves. The bottom connections are drains.

Hard_DITCHES.gif


HLT.bmp


MLT.bmp


BK.bmp


Hard_Plumbed_DITCHES_-_parts_list.bmp



(click for a larger image that you can actually read)

The ignition circuits are controlled by LOVE controllers. The three bottom circuits are three LOVE timers for monitoring times during the brewday.
 
Great work on the design and illustrations.

However, I never understood what the point of using threaded to triclamp adaptors THROUGHOUT the system. The threads negate the sanitary aspect of the triclamp, making them unnecessary. I understand using a threaded triclamp adaptor to retrofit something to a system with sanitary connections, but using threads all over the place means you're throwing money away on those triclamps.

Now if you had all those triclamps welded on, then you'd have a truly badass setup.
 
I really like using the tri-clamps as a QD. They are full flow, have absolutely no leaks, are bomb-proof and very easy to fully clean. I know they are not sanitary. Believe it or not, they are actually an economical connection if you want stainless. The cam-lock people have started using are cheaper, but I still like the tri's better.

It would be any easy thing to do without though, if you wanted to.
 
Boerderij_Kabouter said:
the HLT return and circulate ice water to chill down to ale or lager temps. This has worked very well for me (the only difference with my current setup is I have a CFC now instead of a second coil, but that should be changing shortly after the new year!)
Click to expand...

I would be interested to hear any experience people have in using a recirculated CFC cooling method. Either in-place with the original brew kettle or into a second container for multi-stage.

I have pretty cold water around here, even in the summer, so I was thinking I could just pump through CFC back into the brew kettle (and whirlpool) until I get down to desired temps and then transfer to fermenter at the end of all that...

Anyone do this?
 
Hi Kal-

Do you have any feedback on your system? How do you like it? Anything you would add if you re-did it (read, tips for me ;))?

The Blichmann kettles are worth every penny. They are simply the best available. I got everything installed in the control box this weekend and I intend to have it wired by mid week. I will post pics once it is all assembled.
 
Loving the system so far... I'm putting a bunch of batches through it so that I can update my website (theelectricbrewery.com) with more info. So far I've done about a dozen batches on it.

I can't think of anything that I'd change offhand. I spent a long time thinking and designing it over the period of a year and half and so far it's exceeded my expectations. I'm hitting my targets bang on every single time as it's extremely consistent (everything I seem to do gets 91-92% efficiency). This is fly sparging with only a silicone hose resting on the grain bed (the simple sabco method). No need for a fancy sparge arm.

Kal
 
How many watts are you running in your BK etc? Kal?

Blichmans are nice, they are worth every penny... much different than buying a chili stock pot and converting it for brewing. Blichman does a nice job of giving you the whole package and presenting it in a ready to run form. Fully equipped with tools and cleaning brushes.

Very easy to drill for elements and light weight if you need to move them around. They are awesome electric brewing kettles. I will never part with mine. The BK alone, assembled, is worth more than my car.
 
Updates are here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/superiorbrews-ditches-172520/

Unfortunately I really dropped the ball at the end of the build and didn't take any photos. I delivered the rig on Sunday. Maybe SuperiorBrew will upload some finished pics once he gets it assembled...

It was all I could do to actually build it. Really ran out of time in my life toward the end of the build.
 

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