212 to 78 in 20 minutes. Ice Block IC

So today I completed my third AG (Belgian Wit) and I used something new to cool my wort after the boil. I made up a 15' IC using 3/8" copper tubing and placed it into a dish tub full of water and then froze the whole thing over night.

I completed the boil and had my ICE BLOCK IC ready to go. I cooled the wort from 212 degrees down to 78 degrees in 20 minutes . I ran tap water through the ICE BLOCK IC to my Boil Pot IC and discharged the water down the drain.

Worked pretty nicely and stores away in a small section of my equipment closet.

Here are a couple of pictures:





Salute!

Very nice! Much simpler than the icewater/cooler setup I was envisioning...

How long did it take before without the ice block? At the end of the cooling, was there a lot of ice left? You're effectively doing a prechill to the water going to the main IC. It would be interesting to find out what the temperature drop in the tap water is for this prechiller after running it for 5 minutes. I would think the temperature drop would be minimal, unless there is some form of water agitation in the prechiller tub.

FF

My tap water averages 70 - 75 degrees at this time of year. The ice block was about 50% at the end of the cooling period. Ice melted around the coil quickly, but as suggested above, I kept the tub moving which kept cold water in contact with the IC for the entire period of time. My cooling time before using the ICE Block method was about 35 - 40 minutes using tap water and then switching to ice water bath.

Yes.... I am pre-cooling the tap water and it got down to around 50 degrees. Increasing the water flow raised the water temperature, so I kept the flow rate low to extract as much heat from the pot as quickly as possible.

I am sure there are better ways to cool hot wort, but for me, this provided a quick and easy method of ensuring I got my wort into the primary in less than 30 minutes from flame out.

By the way. My freezer operates at -20 degrees, so the ice block was indeed COLD.

Salute!

Nice! I made a pre-chiller for my IC just like that and I was thinking about freezing it also. But I wasn't sure if the copper tubing would get crushed/deformed during the freezing process. Sounds like yours held up well. Right?

-TH- said:

Nice! I made a pre-chiller for my IC just like that and I was thinking about freezing it also. But I wasn't sure if the copper tubing would get crushed/deformed during the freezing process. Sounds like yours held up well. Right?

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It appears to have held up just fine. After the cooling process, I removed the coil and checked to ensure there were no visible signs of a problem and there were none, so I will use it again in my next AG batch.

If you have the space in a freezer to do something like this, go for it. It is much simpler than having to make or purchase ice then dump it into a water bath.

Salute!

Just make sure all the water is out of there before you freeze it, no need to crack it.

-TH- said:

Nice! I made a pre-chiller for my IC just like that and I was thinking about freezing it also. But I wasn't sure if the copper tubing would get crushed/deformed during the freezing process. Sounds like yours held up well. Right?

Click to expand...

A tube is a very good shape to hold up to outside pressures... that's one of the reasons why most (all?) buried conduit/pipe/culvert/etc is tubular.

Make sure that all the water is out of the tubing when you freeze it. Otherwise you will have an ice plug in there that will be a PITA to get out.......ask me how I know.

An update on using this setup!

Do not start running water through the coil embedded in the ice until you have all connections made and tight. I did an American Stout on Tuesday and got most everything setup but did not connect the water out (Ice Block Chiller) to water in (Wort Chiller) and had already started running water. I shut the water off to make up the connection and in the short time it took to connect the hose, the water in the Ice Block Chiller froze and I could not move water.

I had to disconnect the pre-chiller and run straight tap water to cool my wort. It sucked, but I got it done after 40 minutes.

I will not make the same mistake again.

Salute!

bmckee56 said:

An update on using this setup!

Do not start running water through the coil embedded in the ice until you have all connections made and tight. I did an American Stout on Tuesday and got most everything setup but did not connect the water out (Ice Block Chiller) to water in (Wort Chiller) and had already started running water. I shut the water off to make up the connection and in the short time it took to connect the hose, the water in the Ice Block Chiller froze and I could not move water.

I had to disconnect the pre-chiller and run straight tap water to cool my wort. It sucked, but I got it done after 40 minutes.

I will not make the same mistake again.

Salute!

Click to expand...

Good to know!

One more question, when you WERE able to use it, how much ice was left when you were down to pitching temp? Just curious.

I think you may find better results if you begin using your pre-chiller around 100-110 degrees

chemman14 said:

I think you may find better results if you begin using your pre-chiller around 100-110 degrees

Click to expand...

why is that, because it would melt the ice unnecessarily otherwise?

drez77 said:

Just make sure all the water is out of there before you freeze it, no need to crack it.

Click to expand...

Yup, I've had an IC split wide open when I left a little water in it by accident and it froze.

I blow my IC out with compressed air to remove all liquid after each use. The problem I just encountered was due to running water into the IC then shutting it off to connect the wort IC up. The ice block I use comes out of my freezer at -20 deg. F.

The amount of ice remaining after the wort is chilled to pitching temp is about 50% of original volume. I do not pre cool to lower temperatures before using the Ice Block IC because I am running through the unit prior to going into the hot wort. Water temperature going into wort IC is around 50 deg. F.

I have dropped the temp rapidly this way. I am using 3/8" tubing and think that if I increased the diameter to 1/2" I might get quicker results.

As noted earlier in my posts, my freezer hits -20 / -22 degrees and I have experienced no problems with the tubing being crushed or damaged. It is difficult to freeze water in motion, so once you begin flow through the IC, keep it moving, or you might get freeze-ups quickly.

Salute!

That's a cold freezer!