Not impressed with my immersion chiller...

[Tactical-Brewer]

Bought 2 pieces of 20ft 3/8 copper tubing today to make the ultimate immersion chilling experience.

Made one to fit inside of a smaller cooler filled with water and 3 1 liter frozen water bottles which ran to your traditional immersion chiller you put in the wort.

Now I was expecting a cool down to mid 70's in 15-20 minutes, hoping for less, but it's hot out so I couldn't complain if I got to pitching temps in 20 minutes. Heck, it would be slowly stirring the wort in an ice bath for an hour...

It took 40 minutes to get it to 82 degrees.... The whole point of me being able to buy one was I convinced the SWMBO that it would drastically reduce my brew day... She wasn't impressed either.

The water going to it was like 75 degrees even after the ice water coil... Who knows. Maybe next time I'll fill the whole little cooler with ice too and try it again.

 

[theseeker4]

Bought 2 pieces of 20ft 3/8 copper tubing today to make the ultimate immersion chilling experience.

Made one to fit inside of a smaller cooler filled with water and 3 1 liter frozen water bottles which ran to your traditional immersion chiller you put in the wort.

Now I was expecting a cool down to mid 70's in 15-20 minutes, hoping for less, but it's hot out so I couldn't complain if I got to pitching temps in 20 minutes. Heck, it would be slowly stirring the wort in an ice bath for an hour...

It took 40 minutes to get it to 82 degrees.... The whole point of me being able to buy one was I convinced the SWMBO that it would drastically reduce my brew day... She wasn't impressed either.

The water going to it was like 75 degrees even after the ice water coil... Who knows. Maybe next time I'll fill the whole little cooler with ice too and try it again.

Did you stir well while chilling? That is going to have a huge impact on the speed your wort chills down.

 

[schematix]

Given the amount of surface area you have there i'm not surprised by the performance numbers.

What is your source water? Right from the garden hose? 3/8" is going to give you a lot of flow restriction.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Did you stir well while chilling? That is going to have a huge impact on the speed your wort chills down.

A little with the actual chiller.

Should have just made a counter flow chiller and been done with it since I was hoping to get away from having to sit there and stir it while it chilled

Yeah straight from the garden hose

 

[CGVT]

You have to move the pre-chiller too.

I use a 25' 3/8 pre-chiller and 50' 3/8 immersion chiller, but have found that it works best with a cooler full of ice and constant movement of the pre-chiller. I was standing there moving both the chiller and the pre-chiller, but it only took a little more 10 mins to get to pitching temp (80 degree ground water) for a 5 gallon batch.

I finally started using a pump to whirlpool so now I only have to move the pre-chiller.

With a counterflow chiller you would still most likely have to use a pre-chiller if your ground water is too warm. (someone may correct me on that...)

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Why the chiller in a cooler? Seems like an odd way of chilling.If it were me I would connect them together if possible to make a 50 ft line,put that in BK,and get a cheap fountain pump to circulate the water in a bucket.FWIW if your looking to shorten your day,My new practice is to chill to around 100 deg to lock in Bitter/flavor/aroma hops.Then let bucket sit overnight and pitch the next day after temps naturally drop.Or put in ferm chamber set to pitch temp.It chills to 100 quick the last 40 deg are what take forever

 

[Stillraining]

+1 on agitating the chiller vigorously like a washing machine...I use the opportunity to aerate the wort so I make a frothy mess on top of my beer. Our ground water is about 55 this time of year..Only takes about 7 or 8 min to chill 5.5 gallons to about 78.
And No.... I have never had oxidation issues.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Yeah, I was all pumped to see it drop to about 110 in about 10-15 ish minutes then it just stalked big time...

 

[CGVT]

Why the chiller in a cooler? Seems like an odd way of chilling.If it were me I would connect them together if possible to make a 50 ft line,put that in BK,and get a cheap fountain pump to circulate the water in a bucket.FWIW if your looking to shorten your day,My new practice is to chill to around 100 deg to lock in Bitter/flavor/aroma hops.Then let bucket sit overnight and pitch the next day after temps naturally drop.Or put in ferm chamber set to pitch temp.It chills to 100 quick the last 40 deg are what take forever

From what I've read, if you use a pump and recirculate the water, you go through ice way before you get to pitching temp. I think the people that do it efficiently cool to about 100 with ground/tap water first and then use their pump and recirculate ice water.

That was more hassle than I was willing to deal with when I was looking for a solution to my hot, Lower Alabama water from my hose, so I went with the pre-chiller method. Once I hook up my hoses, I don't have to change anything until I'm done.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Well, first I would say that 20' seems pretty short for a chiller. I think 25' is about the cheapest one I've seen, but 50' would be much better.

Second, like other folks pointed out, you need to get the wort in the kettle moving if you're using an immersion chiller. Use the chiller itself, your brewing spoon/mash paddle, or a paint mixer or whirlpool paddle attached to your drill. Prior to switching to a recirculating setup I did the latter and got some pretty amazing cool down times.

Same goes for the pre-chiller as well. Keep that water around it moving to have the best efficiency. Perhaps just adding a small aquarium pump to your setup could work there?

Lastly, how are you moving water through the chillers, and at what rate? I think most people run their water through too quickly which does not maximize the heat exchange and leads to longer chill times. If the water coming out at the end is significantly cooler than your wort, then it is running too fast.

 

[CGVT]

Well, first I would say that 20' seems pretty short for a chiller. I think 25' is about the cheapest one I've seen, but 50' would be much better.

Second, like other folks pointed out, you need to get the wort in the kettle moving if you're using an immersion chiller. Use the chiller itself, your brewing spoon/mash paddle, or a paint mixer or whirlpool paddle attached to your drill. Prior to switching to a recirculating setup I did the latter and got some pretty amazing cool down times.

Same goes for the pre-chiller as well. Keep that water around it moving to have the best efficiency. Perhaps just adding a small aquarium pump to your setup could work there?

Lastly, how are you moving water through the chillers, and at what rate? I think most people run their water through too quickly which does not maximize the heat exchange and leads to longer chill times. If the water coming out at the end is significantly cooler than your wort, then it is running too fast.

There were some engineer types that did the math and said that faster water flow cools the wort faster. I'm too lazy to look up the threads...

 

[schematix]

Lastly, how are you moving water through the chillers, and at what rate? I think most people run their water through too quickly which does not maximize the heat exchange and leads to longer chill times. If the water coming out at the end is significantly cooler than your wort, then it is running too fast.

The physics is exactly opposite.

The rate of temperature change is proportional to temperature difference. Temperature difference will be optimized by removing warmer water from the system as quickly as possible. Thus higher flow rates will lead to faster cooling.

The most efficient use of water is closer to what you describe, but your trade off is time.

If you are trying to increase SPEED you need to increase flow. Flow is going to be related to your water pressure and the amount of restriction in the system. The longer the piping you have in your system, the more pressure drop you'll have, and thus less flow.

The physics of fluid flow in a pipe tells us that that for a constant length of constant diameter pipe, you'll have less pressure drop if you use divide that pipe up into more parallel paths. This is essentially the theory behind something like the Hydra immersion chiller. It uses more, and slightly smaller coils than a standard immersion chiller.

 

[CGVT]

Yeah. What he said^^^^

Ha!

 

[schematix]

<---- "engineer type"

 

[mongoose33]

I've thought about a heat exchange system to reduce the amount of water used.

I have a Silver Serpent SS IC from Northern Brewer. SS is not as efficient at heat transfer as copper, but mine is 5' longer than yours, so you should be able to do roughly similarly. And do stir--I use the IC as my stirrer, just swirling it back and forth.

If I were going to do what you're doing, I'd fill the chest with ice cubes rather than big blocks of ice (bottles are big blocks). You want that ice in contact w/ the copper tubing in your cooling cooler, as that will promote cooling the fastest. You want the water going through to melt the ice, which while going through its phase change (from ice to water) will absorb the most heat.

I'm using municipal water out of a hose bib that is probably, oh, 52 to 55 degrees. It takes me about 8 minutes, sometimes 9 minutes, to chill a 5.5 gallon batch down to 70 degrees. But while I'm doing it, I'm constantly swishing the wort back and forth with the chiller, in lieu of stirring it. Same difference.

In your case, I'll bet the water in contact w/ the coils in the cooling cooler warms up pretty fast, then there's little benefit until you wait for the ice bottles to cool it back down. Very slow.

If yours is taking too long, either your flow rate is not high enough (covered above, quite well, by Schematix), or you need to have a better exchange of heat in your cooler. Cold water is not as good as ice in contact w/ the coils.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Yeah, I am going to have to do something.

I guess next time I'll fill the cooler that has the "cold coil" with a bunch of ice to keep it as cold as possible. Then do the swirl the ic while it's doing its thing. I can't stand the idea of sitting there for 40 minutes again after dumping another 40 bucks on brewing stuff with my SWMBO already mad about me getting extra grain etc etc lol

 

[CGVT]

You have to move the chiller coil in the ice, too. It won't take long and you will have enough water in the cooler to make it easy. You will feel a noticeable change in temperature in the water coming out of the pre-chiller when it is moving as opposed to when it is not.

 

[Sadu]

I'm still experimenting with this at the moment but I think the key is to pump iced water through the chiller.

I have a 6m (18') wort chiller and find that it takes 40 mins for a 6G batch. Wasn't super happy with this.

So I added a second 2m (6') wort chiller which recirculates iced water using a $4 12v pump - I figured this would be helpful during the last part of the cool where the hose runs into difficulty. My last batch was 10G and also took 40 mins to cool, which I thought was ok given the larger batch size.

Next time I'll try getting a bigger pump and push iced water through the larger wort chiller, I think this might just get me there.

If I were in your position I would forget about pre-chilling. Join the 2 lengths into one large chiller (if you can) and use the hose for the first half of the chill, then a pump to recirculate iced water for the last half of the chill.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

The physics is exactly opposite.

The rate of temperature change is proportional to temperature difference. Temperature difference will be optimized by removing warmer water from the system as quickly as possible. Thus higher flow rates will lead to faster cooling.

The most efficient use of water is closer to what you describe, but your trade off is time.

If you are trying to increase SPEED you need to increase flow. Flow is going to be related to your water pressure and the amount of restriction in the system. The longer the piping you have in your system, the more pressure drop you'll have, and thus less flow.

The physics of fluid flow in a pipe tells us that that for a constant length of constant diameter pipe, you'll have less pressure drop if you use divide that pipe up into more parallel paths. This is essentially the theory behind something like the Hydra immersion chiller. It uses more, and slightly smaller coils than a standard immersion chiller.

I stand corrected! Thanks for the explanation!

 

[Homercidal]

I don't have much experience with warmer water, but I think it stands to reason that you could probably easily recirculate your ice water with a small pump from harbor freight and not have to stand there and move that coil around. Last brewday I attended someone was chilling just like that and they simply chilled with hose water until the temp dropped a bit and then switched on the ice water pre-chiller. I didn't get a time on it, but it seemed to work pretty quickly. IIRC they didn't even use water from the ground, just several plastic carboys of water and a pump.

 

[jbb3]

Pre-chiller or not, a 50' IC would be a good starting point. And as others have said, moving the IC around or recirculating the wort greatly reduces the chill time. A 20' pre-chiller is probably fine to help get the wort temp down those last 15 degrees so you should be all set there. If you want to save on ice, you can wait until the wort temp get's below 100 deg before adding ice to the pre-chiller cooler.

Next time try to move both chillers around while cooling and see how it performs. But I think what most are saying is; you have a few more bucks to spend to get cooling down to reasonable chill times. Whether it's a pump &/or 50' IC??

I made my own 50' IC. Purchased 50' 3/8 copper tubing from the large rain forest site for under $50.

 

[Redlantern]

I use a 50' 3/8" chiller and a 3/8" pre-chiller

pre-chiller sits in a bucket of ice water with a $6.00 submersible fish pump in it.

I run tap water full blast until wort hits about 130°F then slow the flow to about 1/2 and turn on the fish tank pump. Using the fish tank pump is akin to stirring the pre-chiller in the ice water but requires a lot less activity on my part.

5.75 gallon batches chill in about 11 minutes this way. Not as fast as a counter flow chiller, but fast enough.

Oddly, I found a striking difference in the effectiveness of the chiller when the chilled water runs to the outer coil as opposed to the inner coil. If the water from the pre-chiller runs to the inside coil of my chiller, it takes forever. If I run the water from the pre-chiller to the outer coil of my chiller, I get the 11 minutes cited above.

 

[CGVT]

I use a 50' 3/8" chiller and a 3/8" pre-chiller

pre-chiller sits in a bucket of ice water with a $6.00 submersible fish pump in it.

I run tap water full blast until wort hits about 130°F then slow the flow to about 1/2 and turn on the fish tank pump. Using the fish tank pump is akin to stirring the pre-chiller in the ice water but requires a lot less activity on my part.

5.75 gallon batches chill in about 11 minutes this way. Not as fast as a counter flow chiller, but fast enough.

Oddly, I found a striking difference in the effectiveness of the chiller when the chilled water runs to the outer coil as opposed to the inner coil. If the water from the pre-chiller runs to the inside coil of my chiller, it takes forever. If I run the water from the pre-chiller to the outer coil of my chiller, I get the 11 minutes cited above.

I may try the pump to circulate the chilling water in the cooler. I don't have to move the chiller in the wort because of my recirc pump, but still stand there moving the pre-chiller around. The pump in the cooler could make it a hands off operation...

 

[blizz81]

From what I've read, if you use a pump and recirculate the water, you go through ice way before you get to pitching temp. I think the people that do it efficiently cool to about 100 with ground/tap water first and then use their pump and recirculate ice water.

Yeah, it seems a lot of people go with hose water for the initial cooldown, and then switch to the ice + pump.


I go ice + pump the whole way. On warm days I use 40lb of ice. Some people balk at that. With a 50' 1/2" coil (and doing 5 gal batches, I generally have about 4 coils above the surface of the liquid) and stirring the wort, even if it's 98*F out, I'm down in the 60s within 10 minutes.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

I honestly think you're about $15 away from where you want to be.

You should try investing in a small recirculating pond pump as some other folks have suggested. This will attach to the inside of your cooler with a suction cup and keep the pre-chiller water moving for you. Should be $10 or less at Amazon.

Then if you have a cordless drill invest in a $5 paint mixer attachment from home depot. Use that in the center of your chilling coil in your brew kettle, and be sure it is moving the wort in the opposite direction that the cooling water is running through your chiller.

Those things should make a huge impact on your chilling times.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

I honestly think you're about $15 away from where you want to be.

You should try investing in a small recirculating pond pump as some other folks have suggested. This will attach to the inside of your cooler with a suction cup and keep the pre-chiller water moving for you. Should be $10 or less at Amazon.

Then if you have a cordless drill invest in a $5 paint mixer attachment from home depot. Use that in the center of your chilling coil in your brew kettle, and be sure it is moving the wort in the opposite direction that the cooling water is running through your chiller.

Those things should make a huge impact on your chilling times.

I will do this! Thanks for all your suggestions guys!

 

[schematix]

On warm days I use 40lb of ice. Some people balk at that.

Are you buying ice or making ice? That is a crap ton. Certainly understand why people balk.

I used to go through about the same amount of ice for a 10G batch.... then I got smarter and used the tap water to drop the first 90-100 degrees before switching over. That cut usage by about 1/2.

Now i've reached new levels of smart where i don't use any ice. I just let the ferm fridge take off whatever the heat exchanger didn't.

 

[Redlantern]

I make my ice by cutting the tops of 2-liter bottles off and filling them with water. Nice big chunks and they seem to last longer

 

[schematix]

I make my ice by cutting the tops of 2-liter bottles off and filling them with water. Nice big chunks and they seem to last longer

They last long because there is very little surface area to transfer heat. You're just spending more time waiting for the ice to melt. It doesn't change the heat capacity.

 

[Redlantern]

They last long because there is very little surface area to transfer heat. You're just spending more time waiting for the ice to melt. It doesn't change the heat capacity.

Not sure of your point.

Before the end of the boil, prep the pre-chiller bucket with pump, pre-chiller, water and ice. Water drops to just above freezing and remains there as long as there is ice in the bucket. When there is need, I add another block. Normally only need to add one or two.

This pre-chiller set up is effective.

I can easily prepare ice for this chilling process and have sufficient quantity to last until I reach pitching temp. Cheapest and easiest way I found to add ice. Rather do this then spend the $$ on bags of ice or try to make thousands of little tiny cubes.

 

[schematix]

Not sure of your point.

Large blocks melt slower than small chunks.

 

[Redlantern]

OK - I guess I do understand your point.

 

[Derp]

I used my Hydra IC today for the second time. It worked very quickly, but before long the output was rather cool even though the wort was at about 100F. I held both the input and output copper lines in my hands and as soon as I moved the IC up and down a few times the outlet temperature probably shot up 20 degrees. It's amazing how effective moving the chiller around was. I was down to mid 80s (water temp here in south Texas) very quickly. I'm glad I stopped using my plate chiller.

 

[schematix]

I used my Hydra IC today for the second time. It worked very quickly, but before long the output was rather cool even though the wort was at about 100F. I held both the input and output copper lines in my hands and as soon as I moved the IC up and down a few times the outlet temperature probably shot up 20 degrees. It's amazing how effective moving the chiller around was. I was down to mid 80s (water temp here in south Texas) very quickly. I'm glad I stopped using my plate chiller.

I'm fed up with my Therminator. No doubt it chills faster than anything, but the clean-up takes FOREVER. It adds no less than 45 minutes to every brew day, plus 15 minutes for every time it clogs.

Going to order a Hydra myself in the next few days. The design of that chiller makes a lot more sense than anything else commercially available. I just wish it was available in stainless.

 

[JaDeDBrewing]

Great discussion going on here. We have some input that we feel could be helpful.

1) Pond pumps are not good for pushing ice water through any chiller. Pond pumps have very low working pressure, causing much longer than necessary chilling times. We recommend using a "utility" or "sump" type pump that has head pressures in the 25' range.

2) We know that this has been addressed already, but make sure that you are stirring or agitating the chiller the entire time that you are chilling to achieve the fastest chilling times and most efficient use of chilling water.

3) Pre-chillers are normally slower and less efficient than pumping the ice water directly though the chiller. 4.25 GPM of 40F ice water from a utility pump is going to be more effective than 3 GPM of 60F pre-chiller water. That being said, if you are using a pre-chiller, both the pre-chiller and IC need to be agitated or stirred during chilling.

4) Again, we know that it has been addressed in this thread, but we want to reiterate: DO NOT SLOW DOWN YOUR CHILLING WATER! You will be able to save a few gallons of chilling water by doing this, but it will be at the cost of extending your brew day...a lot.

@Derp: Thanks for getting JaDeD! If you have any questions or if you are having any trouble getting the 3 minute chilling time to 10F above your ground water temp for 5 gallons of boiling wort with your Hydra, email us.

@schematix: A good portion of Hydra/King Cobra purchasers are former CFCs and plate chiller owners. If you have any questions, please email us.

 

[CGVT]

The above advertisement was brought to you by JaDeD Brewing...

Signed-Jaded Brewer-

 

[JaDeDBrewing]

The above advertisement was brought to you by JaDeD Brewing...

Signed-Jaded Brewer-

Being JaDeD, we would like to point out that we were not advertising any of our products in the mentioned post.

However, IF WE WERE trying to advertise our products, we would have talked about how JaDeD's Hydra is the world's FASTEST IC and comparable to a large plate chiller in chilling speed (with MUCH faster cleaning times and no need for a pump, silicone tubing, hope blocker, etc. to get the fast chilling times). OR we would have talked about how our Mantis IC is the fastest IC in the world when a kitchen faucet is used as the chilling water source. OR that we offer the only cleanable counter-flow chiller on the market.

We're just saying...we could have done that...but we didn't

Cheers!

 

[Stillraining]

Id be interested in a SS version myself.

 

[CGVT]

Being JaDeD, we would like to point out that we were not advertising any of our products in the mentioned post.

However, IF WE WERE trying to advertise our products, we would have talked about how JaDeD's Hydra is the world's FASTEST IC and comparable to a large plate chiller in chilling speed (with MUCH faster cleaning times and no need for a pump, silicone tubing, hope blocker, etc. to get the fast chilling times). OR we would have talked about how our Mantis IC is the fastest IC in the world when a kitchen faucet is used as the chilling water source. OR that we offer the only cleanable counter-flow chiller on the market.

We're just saying...we could have done that...but we didn't

Cheers!

Ha! Well played.

 

[schematix]

Id be interested in a SS version myself.

Same here. I e-mailed them the other day to ask if they could make an SS version but unfortunately the answer was no. It's the only thing keeping me from pulling out my credit card right now...

Maybe there is enough of a market out there for SS that it'll be an option one of these days...