IC & whirlpooling not as effective as I'd like

[ToastedPenguin]

Decided to go IC & whirlpool to cool my wort when I stepped into 11g AG brewing. I was concerned with getting a plate chiller clogged full of hops or other gunk and the CF didn't seem like the best bet for late addition brewing.

While I like the trub cone that forms at the bottom of the kettle as a result of the whirlpool, I haven't been impresed with the cooling power of the IC. The IC I'm using is 50ft of 1/2 copper and I mounted the whirlpool arm to this so the returning wort is inside the IC and flowing across the coils. While I know groundwater has been and still is warm, I thought I would see faster results with the setup.

I can get the 11G of wort down from 212 to ~110 in about 15-20min but it takes almost another 20-30 to get the wort below 80 from the ~110 mark and it difficult to get it to the mid 60 where I'd like it to be.

Winter will make my wort cooling life easier but I'd like to find some tricks to make the setup more efficient. I started using a pre-chiller, my old 25 IC, in a spare cooler full of ice used once i hit the ~110 mark but I haven't seem much improvement. I thought about sticking a sumersiable pump in the cooker to help circulate the pre chiller water, dont know if that will help.

Any other recommendations? I like whirlpooling so I want to keep at that, just want better more effective and consistent cooling ability,

Cheers

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Any other recommendations? I like whirlpooling so I want to keep at that, just want better more effective and consistent cooling ability,

Cheers

Since you're aware of reaching that point of diminishing returns when your tap water is just too warm, and you want to keep your current system, the only way to speed it up short of dropping frozen sanitized water jugs into the wort is to cool your tapwater like you are with the prechiller. You might consider adding rock salt and a little water to the ice in your prechiller cooler, which will lower the temperature of the prechiller.

 

[MazdaMatt]

Yeah, a BIG handful of salt on the ice in the pre-chiller will drop its temperature VERY low very quickly.

 

[crazyseany]

Yeah, a BIG handful of salt on the ice in the pre-chiller will drop its temperature VERY low very quickly.

I'm no help... But put a tub of milk in the ice... Mmmm Beer Floats

 

[ToastedPenguin]

Since you're aware of reaching that point of diminishing returns when your tap water is just too warm, and you want to keep your current system, the only way to speed it up short of dropping frozen sanitized water jugs into the wort is to cool your tapwater like you are with the prechiller. You might consider adding rock salt and a little water to the ice in your prechiller cooler, which will lower the temperature of the prechiller.

I do have some water in the cooler, but haven't added any rock salt so I will give that a try. Figure a small pump in the cooler helping the water circulate around the prechiller might help also.

I am not necessarily married to the use of an IC, but CFC and plate chillers worry me with regards to clogging and like I mentioned I do like the clearing results from whirlpooling and letting the wort rest 10 min before I pump it into my fermenter.

How can a CFC or plate chiller be more effective than a IC/with whirlpooling if they are using the same groundwater?

 

[ClayHenry]

I recirculate water from a cooler full of ice water through my 30 foot IC using a cheap submersible fountain pump and am able to cool 5 gallons to 65 degrees in under 15 minutes. If you have access to a commercial ice maker or have room in your freezer to make large amounts if ice I would highly recommend this.

 

[ajf]

The other thing that would make a difference is the rate of flow through the IC. You may find that you get faster cooling without the pre-chiller if the pre-chiller limits the flow of cold water through the IC.

-a.

 

[bruin_ale]

How can a CFC or plate chiller be more effective than a IC/with whirlpooling if they are using the same groundwater?

Plate chillers and CFC both use counterflow to chill, they also expose just a small amount of wort to the chilling water and I think most plate chillers and some CFC also have features to disturb the water/wort flow so you don't get a situation where just the outside of the column of water is doing the cooling. Take your IC for example, you have water flowing through a 1/2" copper pipe - if you get a laminar flow (where the water doesn't mix between the outside edges and the inner column) - you're only using a small amount of the cooling potential of the water.

 

[RichBenn]

I have to move my IC around to keep the heat transfer working good, especially at the end, where the temperature differential is not as great. Another item is more coil. I used to have 20-25 feet for a 5 gallon batch; I went to 50 feet and it's a massive difference.

Rich

 

[Flyingcow]

How can a CFC or plate chiller be more effective than a IC/with whirlpooling if they are using the same groundwater?

There's quite a bit more to a heat exchanger than just a temperature difference. It's likely that many of the plate chillers have a significantly larger heat transfer area than a 50 ft. IC.

In addition to temperature and area, mass flow (how much water) and flow velocity affect the third parameter, heat transfer coefficient. The shape of the heat exchanger will significantly affect the velocity of the coolant (and beer in a CFC or plate).

The flow through the IC is going to be slower than through the tiny plate channels which will give you a lower cold side heat transfer coefficient. The slow whirlpool vs flowing beer through plate channels will give you a considerably lower heat transfer coefficient.

This makes it tough to compare each type of heat exchanger bases just on the inlet coolant temperature. Although, as you know, you can't get colder than you're cooling water, but some designs can get you closer faster.

Wow... that was a lot of text for a short question... hope I didn't bore you to death.

Oh.

Bruin ale, you're right. Some, but not all plate chillers will use a chevron pattern to increase flow velocity. Laminar flow can introduce a whole new set of problems, but we won't often see it in the chilling water (it's under 1 gpm in a half inch pipe)

 

[Bobby_M]

If you're going to put a pump in your icewater bath, it's best to just pump the cold water into the IC. It beats a prechiller coil hands down.

 

[ToastedPenguin]

I recirculate water from a cooler full of ice water through my 30 foot IC using a cheap submersible fountain pump and am able to cool 5 gallons to 65 degrees in under 15 minutes. If you have access to a commercial ice maker or have room in your freezer to make large amounts if ice I would highly recommend this.

I am sure I could find a used one on CL, though my wife may kill me.... I do have a large freezer that i typically store the large bags of ice in that I use on brew day so the idea of recirculating ice water sounds interesting.

 

[ToastedPenguin]

The other thing that would make a difference is the rate of flow through the IC. You may find that you get faster cooling without the pre-chiller if the pre-chiller limits the flow of cold water through the IC.

-a.

I don't think I have an issue with restriction I can crank the water on and it shoots out of the system with a lot of force.

You do bring up a good point, what should my flow rate be?

I have been running water pretty slowly at the beginning so its trickling out of the discharge hose thinking its maximizing the amount of time it spends running through the copper tubing, thus picking up the max heat it can. Is this the right train of thought? Should I increase the flow rate as the temp of the wort drops? I havent been doing that.

 

[Rundownhouse]

Yeah, if you're going with a pump, just pump ice water through the IC. Run your tapwater until the wort gets down under 110 or wherever you're starting to plateau, and then recirc ice water.

 

[ajf]

I don't think I have an issue with restriction I can crank the water on and it shoots out of the system with a lot of force.

You do bring up a good point, what should my flow rate be?

I have been running water pretty slowly at the beginning so its trickling out of the discharge hose thinking its maximizing the amount of time it spends running through the copper tubing, thus picking up the max heat it can. Is this the right train of thought? Should I increase the flow rate as the temp of the wort drops? I havent been doing that.

.

The higher the flow rate, the quicker it will cool, but you will use more water. As the water moves through the IC, it will get warmed, and the temperature difference between the cooler water inside the IC and the hot wort outside the IC drops. You get much better cooling with a high temperature difference, and if the water inside the IC approaches the temperature of the wort, you will lose the cooling potential. If you increase the flow rate, you will speed up the cooling, and you could save some water by collecting the discharge from the IC at the start of the process (when the discharge should be fairly hot) and using that water for cleaning.

-a.

 

[ToastedPenguin]

.

The higher the flow rate, the quicker it will cool, but you will use more water. As the water moves through the IC, it will get warmed, and the temperature difference between the cooler water inside the IC and the hot wort outside the IC drops. You get much better cooling with a high temperature difference, and if the water inside the IC approaches the temperature of the wort, you will lose the cooling potential. If you increase the flow rate, you will speed up the cooling, and you could save some water by collecting the discharge from the IC at the start of the process (when the discharge should be fairly hot) and using that water for cleaning.

-a.

Makes sense, I guess my slow flow rate has been part of my issue. Next brew I'll crank the flow and see what happens. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[bing09]

I use a cfc Nd also Whirlpool wih great results. I can cool 6 gallons in about 15 minutes. I am all for cfc and have never had issues with clogging.

 

[Flomaster]

my setup, was 80F tap water, I would go from the hose through my CFC and back into my boil kettle via whirlpool return port. this would chill my wort down to 100ish very quickly, but getting from 100F to pitching temps would have taken hours. I just put the carboy in the fermenting chamber and left over night and pitched the next day.

next brew I bought a 275 gallon per hour pond pump. chilled like normal until I got to 100ish. then I disconnected the hose tap water and hooked it up to my pond pump that was sitting in a cooler full of ice water. this worked all to well I cooled before my pitching point and I had to wait for the wort to come back up to pitching temps.

cliff notes, get a pond pump, use a CFC or Plate Chiller, use ice bath.

the owner of the HBS in Prescott used a small place chiller submerged into a cooler full of ice water using a small pond pump to pump the ice water through the chiller and back into the cooler... this worked well for him and he brews 10 gallons batches.

-=Jason=-