Dual Coil Pump Operated Wort Chiller

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butterblum

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Hey all, I wanted to discuss a potential wort chiller design I have dreamed up. The two halves:
1) I currently use a 30ft copper coil attached to my kitchen sink to cool my 6 gallon batches. It works alright when it is cool outside, but much less effective when it is warm. I also notice the bottom of my kettle cools much quicker than the top, which makes obvious sense (and yes, I do stir the cooling wort to compensate), so I was thinking of introducing an inner coil. I would split the flow to the outer coil (cooling from the bottom up), and the inner coil (cooling from the top down). To do this, I would use larger ID tubing from the faucet to a short piece of large ID copper. I would then connect the two 3/8" coils to the straight, large copper using a reducing wye. I would then tie the outputs together in the same way. Would this be an improvement?
2) I would also like to stop wasting so much water doing this. I was thinking of taking a cylindrical cooler and placing a submersible pump at the bottom, which would then run to a quick disconnect fitting where the spout normally is. This is where the wort chiller supply would be connected. The return would go into a similar fitting in the center of the lid, however, on the inside of the lid, I would have a spray nozzle to evenly distribute the warm water across the surface of the ice. I would also drill a small hole in the lid for the power cord of the pump.

Also, is there any good, sanitary way to keep the coils of the chiller evenly spaced? Mine currently just sag.

Am I crazy? (Or just an engineer?)
Any suggestions?

Thanks guys
 
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S94Lhp-bv8M[/ame]

this may help some.

good luck

Tim
 
Thanks, that will help with some of this.
However, the premise that I am working with is that by the time the water from the bottom of the coil reaches the upper loops, it is already sufficiently warm, making the cooling less effective. So using a single continuous coil like this would make the entire inner coil fairly ineffective. By splitting the cold supply to two separate coils, you would be carrying away more heat than that from a single continuous coil.
 
Sure, I get that, should be fairly easy to solder a fitting on so you can split the flow. That link was to help give you some insight and maybe an idea or 2 on how to wrap and coil the copper and such.

Still trying to figure out what coil to feed from the top and what coil to feed from the bottom. my initial thought would be smaller coil bottom up, smaller coil less surface area and colder water to offset it.

Keep posting and let us know how it comes out

T
 
This is exactly what I did when I built my chiller, it works well and cools my wort pretty fast. Of course the limiting factor is still the temperature of the cooling water but I get my beer there real fast and then to carboy and in the ferment chamber for the rest of the cooling. I can get it to 80 deg in about 10 minutes and usually just racking it will cool I another 5 degrees or so. My chiller has two 25' coils of 3/8" tubing. The input and outputs are 1/2" copper pipes with appropriate hose fittings on each.
 
butterblum said:
Hey all, I wanted to discuss a potential wort chiller design I have dreamed up. The two halves:
1) I currently use a 30ft copper coil attached to my kitchen sink to cool my 6 gallon batches. It works alright when it is cool outside, but much less effective when it is warm. I also notice the bottom of my kettle cools much quicker than the top, which makes obvious sense (and yes, I do stir the cooling wort to compensate), so I was thinking of introducing an inner coil. I would split the flow to the outer coil (cooling from the bottom up), and the inner coil (cooling from the top down). To do this, I would use larger ID tubing from the faucet to a short piece of large ID copper. I would then connect the two 3/8" coils to the straight, large copper using a reducing wye. I would then tie the outputs together in the same way. Would this be an improvement?
2) I would also like to stop wasting so much water doing this. I was thinking of taking a cylindrical cooler and placing a submersible pump at the bottom, which would then run to a quick disconnect fitting where the spout normally is. This is where the wort chiller supply would be connected. The return would go into a similar fitting in the center of the lid, however, on the inside of the lid, I would have a spray nozzle to evenly distribute the warm water across the surface of the ice. I would also drill a small hole in the lid for the power cord of the pump.

Also, is there any good, sanitary way to keep the coils of the chiller evenly spaced? Mine currently just sag.

Am I crazy? (Or just an engineer?)
Any suggestions?

Thanks guys
Click to expand...


Check out jadedbrewing.com, they may have something like you're talking about, or at least give you some idea if you're on the right track. They have some great designs and have put a lot of thought into it. I have a plate chiller, but if I were to buy an immersion chiller it would be from them.
 
If you're whirlpooling while you're cooling then a single coil is all you need as long as its the same amount of surface area. The max amount of heat you are able to pull out of the system is determined by the amount of water flowing per unit time and the inlet temperature. Once you have a max amount of heat you can remove it becomes a game of reducing the effectiveness of your heat exchanger. That's where to design of it kicks in. without constant circulation of the wort you'll get a layer of very cool wort quickly against the surface of the tubing. After that happens you're relying on conduction of heat through the wort. If your wort is moving however, your constantly moving hot wort to the surface of the tubing greatly increasing the effectiveness of your chiller. So now your cooling by the surface of the chiller which transfers heat a whole lot faster than conduction through the liquid will.

My point being, and it may have been stated but i'm too lazy to read, is that it depends on how you're cooling. You need surface area, the lowest inlet temperature possible, and the highest flow rate of cooling water possible. A double coil helps get more tubing into a smaller space and limits the cooling inefficiencies of a stagnant pool of wort. If you're whirlpooling with a pump then you're good with a whole lot of tubing in a single coil. Otherwise, try to cover as much space within your kettle as possible with your chiller. The jaded brewing herms coil is a good representation of the previos statement.

Good luck.
 
I wonder if you might be better off putting the "inner" coil outside the kettle in a bucket of ice - call it a pre-chiller.
 
How hot is your discharge cooling water? You're probably getting all the cooling that you can out of the water in the single pass, regardless of how the stratification in the wort is.
 
butterblum said:
Hey all, I wanted to discuss a potential wort chiller design I have dreamed up. The two halves:

2) I would also like to stop wasting so much water doing this. I was thinking of taking a cylindrical cooler and placing a submersible pump at the bottom, which would then run to a quick disconnect fitting where the spout normally is. This is where the wort chiller supply would be connected. The return would go into a similar fitting in the center of the lid, however, on the inside of the lid, I would have a spray nozzle to evenly distribute the warm water across the surface of the ice. I would also drill a small hole in the lid for the power cord of the pump.
Click to expand...

No need for the spray nozzle. You can only transfer so much energy to the ice, spraying isn't going to make it more effective.

Assuming:
-You do not drain any of the ice when it melts, just continue to recirculate. If you do multiple ice batches you will need more ice.
-you are cooling 6 gallons to 70°F
-you continue to cool until 70°F is hit regardless of time (you will need more ice to actually reach 70°F in a reasonable time)
-no heat input from pump, or loss outside the system

You will need a minimum of 33.5lb of ice.
Capture.JPG

Also, is there any good, sanitary way to keep the coils of the chiller evenly spaced? Mine currently just sag.
Click to expand...
I've seen them tied with stainless steel wire ties.
 
Why not use regular tap water to bring the wort down to around 90-100F, depending on what your ground water temps is, then start using ice? Using ice to chill everything down from 212F is a total waste of money IMO. Isn't water is cheaper than ice?

If water is a scarce commodity, you can reclaim and store all of it in a large barrel, and reuse next time, with a pump and a 2nd barrel (or buckets). Or use for watering plants, filling your pool, etc.
 
IslandLizard said:
Why not use regular tap water to bring the wort down to around 90-100F, depending on what your ground water temps is, then start using ice? Using ice to chill everything down from 212F is a total waste of money IMO. Isn't water is cheaper than ice?

If water is a scarce commodity, you can reclaim and store all of it in a large barrel, and reuse next time, with a pump and a 2nd barrel (or buckets). Or use for watering plants, filling your pool, etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, however, I plan on filling some water bottles with water one time and then freezing them over and over. The ice is much cheaper that way.
 
jddevinn said:
No need for the spray nozzle. You can only transfer so much energy to the ice, spraying isn't going to make it more effective.
Click to expand...

Yes, but I would think you would get some amount of air cooling if the flow is sprayed. The only question is whether it is negligible or not.
 
IslandLizard said:
Why not use regular tap water to bring the wort down to around 90-100F, depending on what your ground water temps is, then start using ice? Using ice to chill everything down from 212F is a total waste of money IMO. Isn't water is cheaper than ice?

If water is a scarce commodity, you can reclaim and store all of it in a large barrel, and reuse next time, with a pump and a 2nd barrel (or buckets). Or use for watering plants, filling your pool, etc.
Click to expand...

This is kinda what I do (but not what OP was asking about, I did the math to show the crazy amount of ice required)

I normally

  • hook up my prechiller but don't fill the bucket with ice, cool until it's no longer efficient
  • add ice to the pre chiller bucket, cool until it's no longer efficient
  • Throw my CIP pump in the ice bucket and recirculate that for a couple minutes until the bucket ~=wort temp Normally get down to 70-75°F at that point
  • whirpool rest
  • Transfer to conical and cool the rest of the way
 
butterblum said:
Yes, but I would think you would get some amount of air cooling if the flow is sprayed. The only question is whether it is negligible or not.
Click to expand...

Inside a bucket almost completely 0 heat transfer, a fan would have to be installed to move the air from inside the bucket and replace with new air at a substantial rate. Cooling towers can generally get into a couple degrees from ambient....... but you would need a lot more system volume than a simple spray nozzle and bucket to get anywhere near this.

You'd also end up restricting the cooling water flow rate and increasing cooling time that way.
 
IslandLizard said:
Why not use regular tap water to bring the wort down to around 90-100F, depending on what your ground water temps is, then start using ice? Using ice to chill everything down from 212F is a total waste of money IMO. Isn't water is cheaper than ice?

If water is a scarce commodity, you can reclaim and store all of it in a large barrel, and reuse next time, with a pump and a 2nd barrel (or buckets). Or use for watering plants, filling your pool, etc.
Click to expand...

using a pre-chiller drops the temp of the incoming water so you get a bigger delta T. bigger delta T = more heat transfer = faster chill.

by my book ,ice is free. just fill up some water bottles and toss in freezer the night before (or raid the icemaker in your fridge). when it comes time to chill, just pop those giant ice blocks into the pre-chiller vessel, and you will transfer heat out of the wort faster.
 
jddevinn said:
This is kinda what I do (but not what OP was asking about, I did the math to show the crazy amount of ice required)

I normally

  • hook up my prechiller but don't fill the bucket with ice, cool until it's no longer efficient
  • add ice to the pre chiller bucket, cool until it's no longer efficient
  • Throw my CIP pump in the ice bucket and recirculate that for a couple minutes until the bucket ~=wort temp Normally get down to 70-75°F at that point
  • whirpool rest
  • Transfer to conical and cool the rest of the way
Click to expand...

Yup, that is a crazy amount of ice needed. I wasn't commenting on your calculations or the example, just the method.

That's the workflow I've been using too. When possible, I do the last pass directly to the fermentor, as I rarely rely on whirlpooling but rather on a large mesh filter to give me clear wort. But after a few monstrous filter clogs from trub and hop dust (even with fine mesh hop bags), I'm rethinking the whole setup. Perhaps after the whirlpool rest, using a rotating racking arm with a small (mesh) filter over it, siphoning off clear wort while leaving most of the trub behind, is a better solution.
 
IslandLizard said:
Yup, that is a crazy amount of ice needed. I wasn't commenting on your calculations or the example, just the method.

That's the workflow I've been using too. When possible, I do the last pass directly to the fermentor, as I rarely rely on whirlpooling but rather on a large mesh filter to give me clear wort. But after a few monstrous filter clogs from trub and hop dust (even with fine mesh hop bags), I'm rethinking the whole setup. Perhaps after the whirlpool rest, using a rotating racking arm with a small (mesh) filter over it, siphoning off clear wort while leaving most of the trub behind, is a better solution.
Click to expand...

This was a 10 gallon belgian tripel from earlier this week. No attempt to filter after the whirpool, almost everything is left behind.

About a gallon of wort left2016-08-25 02.02.16.jpg

All drained2016-08-25 02.03.42.jpg
 
jddevinn said:
This was a 10 gallon belgian tripel from earlier this week. No attempt to filter after the whirpool, almost everything is left behind.

About a gallon of wort leftView attachment 367843

All drainedView attachment 367844
Click to expand...

That is an impressive hop/trub cake!

Are you circulating/whirlpooling/chilling without a filter over your dip tube? What kind of chiller are you using?

I use a plate chiller. Even with hop sacks I prefer a good filter to keep it cleaner.
 
No filter at all. I have one of the larger diameter counterflow coolers.. With a plate chiller you may have issues trying to do no filter.

I have a Hop Stopper and a HopBlocker ..... neither worked well for me and were constantly clogging. I start the whirlpool at -15 from flameout to sanitize.... I THINK this may help get the trub away from the pickup line.
 

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