Prechiller effectiveness

Yakima 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I

iglehart

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
142
Reaction score
9
Location
Durham
So I want to brew in summer when the tap water is warm. I went out and bought a prechiller for my wort chiller.

I hooked it up and took water temp readings.

Tap water 81 degrees
prechiller hooked up 78 degrees.

The water the prechiller was in was about 45 degrees

Why is the efcectiveness only 3 degrees?
Have others seen this?

I did notice after swirling the prechiller, the output water dropped to 68 degrees better but still not what I wanted to see.

Is there an effective way to drop this or do I need a plate chiller?
 
Prechillers work. I use one with my plate chiller. The trick is exactly what you mentioned above. You need to swirl the pre-chiller in the ice water. Also, controlling your water flow is important. If it's too fast you won't get a lot of heat transfer.

A plate chiller won't get your final temperature any lower than the temperature of your water, so you'll still need a pre-chiller to get your final temperature below 81F.
 
I had the faucet on full. I will try again with the water flow less than full and report on it. It will be tomorrow as I am too tired after cooking chilli, prepareing for tomorrows brew and steam cleaning the carpets in the entire house.
 
One more thing. I don't even add any ice to the pre-chiller till the temp of my wort hits 90F. I use it to get the wort down to 70F from there. If you add the ice too early you'll just end up wasting ice.
 
I've only ever used an immersion chiller with a pre chiller so I have no way to compare an IC without one. I'm sure it helps at the end, but it still took me forever when I brewed this week.

What I do is freeze a 1 gal bucket of water before brew day and I put that ice block in a 5 gallon bucket with water and the pre chiller bucket. I'm surprised to find the water isn't that cold. I guess what I should do is wait until the wort is closer to 100F and then use the 1 gal ice block, but I should probably break it up to give more surface area. I've just been leaving it whole, which probably doesn't cool as effectively as smaller ice cubes.
 
My shot at a prechiller did NOT work. I tried it, and my 20' 3/8 copper Immersion Chiller slowed down my water flow, and the wort coming out of my CFC was actually WARMER than when I had the prechiller unhooked......I have great water pressure. To be fair, my IC is only 20' and my CFC is only 25', so I am working with fairly low chilling capacity to begin with.

Wort temp exiting CFC w/o Prechiller: 71 degrees
Wort temp exiting CFC with Prechiller: 76 degrees
 
I recently used a prechiller when I brewed a lager. I only got a few degrees lower. Next time I'll just throw it in my fermentation chamber (as I had to anyway). I figure it'll only take a little longer for the chest freezer to drop the temperature another few degrees. I'm glad I hadn't bought a prechiller special for this purpose. I just converted the small 20 footer I used to use for partial boils to feed my 50 footer. I'm hoping someone in my club might want a small one...
 
I used mine today. Used a 20lb bag of ice for 2 batches. Waited until the wort got down to 90F, added the ice and some water, and agitated the pre-chiller every few minutes. Got my wort down to 70F. You have to agitate the pre-chiller. Hold the output side while you're doing this and you'll be amazed how much colder it gets.

My pre-chiller is my old IC since I switched to a plate chiller. It works like a charm.
 
iglehart said:
So I want to brew in summer when the tap water is warm. I went out and bought a prechiller for my wort chiller.



I hooked it up and took water temp readings.



Tap water 81 degrees

prechiller hooked up 78 degrees.



The water the prechiller was in was about 45 degrees



Why is the efcectiveness only 3 degrees?

Have others seen this?



I did notice after swirling the prechiller, the output water dropped to 68 degrees better but still not what I wanted to see.



Is there an effective way to drop this or do I need a plate chiller?
Click to expand...


Go to HD or Lowes and pickup a small submersible pond pump. Usually about $10-12. Put this in the bucket w/ your prechiller. It will circulate the cold water constantly help to avoid thermal zones which will improve your efficiency.
I use a larger pump w/ a CFC. I'm in GA so the ground water is pretty warm. I can get 12 gal to 62-64 in under 20 min.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
govner1 said:
Go to HD or Lowes and pickup a small submersible pond pump. Usually about $10-12. Put this in the bucket w/ your prechiller. It will circulate the cold water constantly help to avoid thermal zones which will improve your efficiency.
I use a larger pump w/ a CFC. I'm in GA so the ground water is pretty warm. I can get 12 gal to 62-64 in under 20 min.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

This is a great idea. I'm going to give this a try. It beats sloshing around the pre-chiller by hand.
 
Brewing in the next few days, I might go get a pump to save from swirling for 15 minutes.
 
govner1 said:
Go to HD or Lowes and pickup a small submersible pond pump. Usually about $10-12. Put this in the bucket w/ your prechiller. It will circulate the cold water constantly help to avoid thermal zones which will improve your efficiency.
I use a larger pump w/ a CFC. I'm in GA so the ground water is pretty warm. I can get 12 gal to 62-64 in under 20 min.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

Or, pump the ice water through your chiller and skip the prechiller.
 
I tried the pre-chiller route and it didn't work very well for me. I think you lose too much efficiency by going through copper walls twice.

This is what I use now:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000X05G1A/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It might be overkill, but it works great. If you're using ice, you want to be sure the pump can handle some small solids. I hear bits of ice getting sucked into mine now and then, and it eats them without a problem.

I chill with tap water down to 100F and then switch over to recirc with the pump in a 5 gallon bucket of ice with a couple of gallons of water at the bottom. I just let the output from the chiller flow back into the top of the bucket and back down through the ice.

It drops the temp like a rocket. I go from 212 to 55 in 12 minutes. When I've zapped the input to the immersion chiller with an infrared thermo it is usually 33 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit.

I brewed a lager last weekend and dropped it from 212 to 44F in less than 20 minutes.

Before I tried it, I did the math to see how much ice I would need and it worked out pretty close (love it when that happens). My tap water is about 80F this time of year and it takes about 40 pounds of ice for an ale and 60 pounds for a lager. I'm lucky though, there is an ice station a mile from my house that sells crushed ice for $1.50/20 lbs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
During the early spring I recirculate ice water after knocking down the temp with tap water. I also only bother when I have tons of free ice piled up in the yard. It does speed up chilling a lot.
 
disney7 said:
I tried the pre-chiller route and it didn't work very well for me. I think you lose too much efficiency by going through copper walls twice.

This is what I use now:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000X05G1A/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It might be overkill, but it works great. If you're using ice, you want to be sure the pump can handle some small solids. I hear bits of ice getting sucked into mine now and then, and it eats them without a problem.

I chill with tap water down to 100F and then switch over to recirc with the pump in a 5 gallon bucket of ice with a couple of gallons of water at the bottom. I just let the output from the chiller flow back into the top of the bucket and back down through the ice.

It drops the temp like a rocket. I go from 212 to 55 in 12 minutes. When I've zapped the input to the immersion chiller with an infrared thermo it is usually 33 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit.

I brewed a lager last weekend and dropped it from 212 to 44F in less than 20 minutes.

Before I tried it, I did the math to see how much ice I would need and it worked out pretty close (love it when that happens). My tap water is about 80F this time of year and it takes about 40 pounds of ice for an ale and 60 pounds for a lager. I'm lucky though, there is an ice station a mile from my house that sells crushed ice for $1.50/20 lbs.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear, I just bought that same pump, but have yet to brew w/ it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Similar threads

D
Another hopwater question
Replies
16
Views
749
Brushwood Brewing
Brushwood Brewing
N
Wort chilling and brew pot water volume
Replies
7
Views
583
Bobby_M
Bobby_M
G
Steam collection question
Replies
9
Views
679
Broken Crow
Broken Crow
B
240v : Scary start of brew
Replies
9
Views
833
passedpawn
passedpawn
K
Old brew in keg, still safe/worth saving?
Replies
9
Views
589
barry.hastings
barry.hastings
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top