HERMS for cooling???

Anyone ever use their HLT (or Cold Liquor Tun!) with HERMS to cool their wort after boil?? I imagine a reverse immersion chiller effect or similar to a counterflow. The only reason I ask is because I thought the "CLT" could be filled with ice water and the water reused to make more ice for next time. Just a thought.

I did this with two batches of beer - then I bought a plate chiller.

it cost me about 5 dollars in ice per 5 gallon batch and was a PITA - if I had an icemaker like someone on this forum it would be something I would consider doing all the time but alas I do not.

it works fine - I think it took about 15 minutes to cool my batch.

dukes7779 said:

Anyone ever use their HLT (or Cold Liquor Tun!) with HERMS to cool their wort after boil?? I imagine a reverse immersion chiller effect or similar to a counterflow. The only reason I ask is because I thought the "CLT" could be filled with ice water and the water reused to make more ice for next time. Just a thought.

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Interesting concept; would you pass it through the coils just once like using a CFC? I can't think of a reason it wouldn't work, but you'd probably want to keep an eye on the flow rate and decrease it as the ice water in the HLT warms.

You may also need to replace the ice as it melts; I don't know if you'd have enough cooling power in 15 gallons of ice water to bring down 11 gallons or so or wort from 212 to 65 degrees.

Not a bad idea but...I think it might be easier sanitation wise just to use an immersion cooler. I use an immersion cooler with a recirc line and a pre chiller. I can get 11g of wort down to pitching temps in 30 minutes.