How to cool wort faster in Texas

[LibertyBrewer]

That's the plan. When I made my ic I soldered m/f garden hose connections on each end to make life easier. I'll probably add a 5/8 hose nipple to the pump so I can run garden hose from it and easily connect to the ic.

The pump comes with a 1/2" hose barb, which is what I used, along with some cheap clear vinyl tubing. Then picked up a cheap male hose end for 1/2" hose and added it.

You know you are doing some good when you see the line going to your heat exchanger sweating.

That pump has really gone up in price. I think I paid 9 bucks for it.

 

[E_Marquez]

I didn't recirculate the water back to the cooler. I started it off with ice water from the beginning. It took about 9 gallons of water and two bags of ice to go from 212 to 64 degrees. I didn't see where it would be helpful to recirculate and heat your ice water back up. The extra ice would cost me more than a few gallons of water from the water hose. I know it was 9 gallons because I ran the water off in a 5 gallon bucket.

Also I don't see the point in starting with the water hose. It takes my hose around 25 minutes to get my water to 100 degrees. With just ice water I went from 212 to 65 in about 15 mins. Just seems like you would use more water starting with a hose. I also want my wort chilled as fast as possible.

Am I missing something?

Missing? No, different way of getting there yes.

With just hose water, chiller and pre chiller in ice water I get to sub 70 in under 20 min.

Personally Im trying to improve on that, what worked for me was what I described above.
I may try your way as well.... if I can improve on your lower temps (id like to see 60deg) with your method,,, Im all for it.

The purpose in my mind in recirculating the water to the ice water bath is it serves to "stir" the ice bath water...moving colder water though the heated thermal layer that forms right around the prechiller coil.

I get consistently colder chiller water temps by stiring the ice water in the prechiller cooler. I get those same cooler temps by using the recirculated water coming back into the cooler to "stir" the ice water around the prechiller.

For folks not using a prechiller coil.. then, I agree, no need to dump it back in to the ice bath. Perhaps I'll try that next weekend and monitor the temps to see what works best....(colder = best for me.. I don't care about ice usage I make my own, it costs penny's for pounds in water and energy)

 

[thisisbeer]

That makes sense. I stired the the wort like normal to keep it moving. But once it hit 75ish the temp dropped like a rock. It was down to 64 before I knew it I was shooting for 66. I bet you could take this all the way down to lager fermenting temps somewhat quickly with this method

 

[LibertyBrewer]

For these type systems, the magic number is around 20. That's the difference between the water going through the coil and the wort temp. If you have plenty of ice, you should be able to get it down to around 55F.

 

[benco]

After reading this thread I ordered a pond pump from amazon, should be here tomorrow so I can brew this weekend. Thanks to all! Can't wait to try it out!

 

[jeffjm]

If you have a fermentation fridge, use it to pre-chill water that you can pump through your IC. 40-45°F chiller water will remove quite a bit of heat, and as long as you keep that 20° differential mentioned earlier, you can recirculate it for a while.

 

[Mordhaus]

Posted this in another thread and then remembered this one.

Today it took 15 minutes to cool 5 gallons from boiling to 70 using my new submersible pump addition. Cooling wort when it's 105 out isn't fun. My 25' x 1/2" homemade immersion chiller can only get it down to 85 in this heat.

I bought a 264 gph pump from harbor freight and got some 5/8" silicone hose to go from the pump to the chiller. Cooled the wort from boiling to 100 using tap water then put the pump in a cooler with water and two bags of ice and recirculated that through the chiller. 100 to 70 in 5 minutes. Worked like a boss. Couldn't be happier with it.

 

[buffbeeker]

I have the same problem with warm cooling water as well. However, after some research I came to the conclusion that pitching slightly warm (not scalding) would be OK provided that the wort is cooled by the time the yeast's respiration stage is completed. Although, there was a lot of conflicting information on this topic so I'm still not 100% sure it is correct. None the less, it seems to work for me.

What I do is pump through a Shirron chiller at the slowest rate I can go and can usually get the wort down to about 82F ~ 84F. I pitch at this temperature and then immediately place in the fermentation refrigerator. I've logged the temperature multiple times and find that it cools down at about 3F per hour. This puts it down at the fermentation temperature in 3 ~ 4 hours and still well within the yeast's typical respiration stage. It doesn't seem to produce any off products that my untrained taste buds can detect.

 

[Stauffbier]

Here's my pond pump set-up with ice and frozen water jugs. I'm also in TX, and this works great!

 

[MuchoGusto]

We lost our big side by side frig a year ago. I said there has to be something in the guts of the frig I can use..... walaaaa.... took the aluminum coil and made a pre-chiller. Works great in a tub of ice.

I have found that the water flow needs to be reduced as the temp drops for the best results. Stir the wort and the pre-chiller is a must. In the Texas heat (yesterday) I took the temp down to 80 in 15 minutes.

If you think about it the IC is nothing more than a big heat sink. I am going to braze more flat copper vertically to the sides to theoretically improve performance.