Crazy water saving idea?

Everyone,

I have been having a crazy idea recently when thinking about the future. I know one of the biggest places water is wasted is when cooling down the wort to pitching temperature. I have been thinking if I had a cold room I could store a 100 to 200 gallon tank in that room and let it get to 38 degrees, then use a pump to recirculate that water to cool down a batch of wort. I prefer using immersion chillers because it gets the whole batch down in temp instead of just a little bit at a time. This could work with any of the common cooling techniques.

Has anyone ever seen this done? I wonder what size reserve you would need proporionally to the amount of wort. I wonder if it would be safe to use a liquid besides just plain water, like glycol or salt water to get the temp lower.

 

What you're saving in water is wasted in energy to cool 200 gal of water. I'd think it would be cheaper to freeze a bunch of water and to use the ice in a pre-chiller to cool the water going through the main immersion chiller.

 

Are you trying to save water or energy? I only ask because you are in VT where water is more plentaful than say southern CA. Also your water should be cooler naturally all year. There are a few people who have mentioned using 2 imersion chillers with water and ice for the first chiller (2nd chiller in wort) And others who use pumps for the chilling. No reason you couldn't do both, having a switch over once the loop was full or something.

But again, what is your real goal? Less water use (over night cooling would use zero for chilling) or less energy (again over night cooling would use less). I'd be inclined to believe that for someone in VT, more energy would go into a recirculating chiller set up than in just dumping water. I'd also be inclined to beleive -given the distance water has to be moved in the SouthWest - that it would be less energy intensive to recirculate chiller fluid (water, gylcol) than to run the water.

 

I agree with the last poster, you'd probably save more water and energy if you recirculated your cooling liquid. If you were able to set it up with a second chiller to cool down the liquid before it reaches the wort (as was also previously mentioned) you could probably have a really efficient setup.

 

Or just get some rain barrels to water the garden with. No wasted water or energy.

 

I put it in my washing machine and run a load of clothes as I don't have plants to water

 

Start growing hops!

 

This was mostly a thought experiment. We definitely don't have to worry about water consumption like those in the southwest. I just wonder with people running cooling devices for 10 plus minutes for each brew session, plus for commercial breweries, water and sewer costs have to factor in their budgeting. Obviously in the winter for most locations you could save more money going with the recirculating model since your cooling could be free.

 

Ditto

 

This is what I've been experimenting with. I have a 55 gal container of water in the garage. Here in CO the average temp is about 70 and much colder in the winter. I have a 1/6 HP pump that circulates the water through the immersion chiller. When the wort temp gets down to < 100, I then add ice and water to the bucket and use the pre chiller to get the temp down the rest of the way. I probably use about 5-6 quarts of ice, which then gets poured on the garden. So far this works pretty well. For a 5 gallon batch, the big container water temp goes from the low 70's to the mid 80's, but with the pre chiller I can get the wort temp down to around 60 without too much trouble for lagers. Going lower things are really slow as I have to slow the pump flow to a very low rate to get the circulating water down to the 50's. note the pre chiller is 25ft of 3/8 copper and the chiller itself is 50 ft of 3/8 copper.

 

Hey mtnagel, how did you pick that user name? I think we must have similar names as I think I tried to get yours before coming up with mine.

 

Ha! I beat you! It's the first initial of my first and middle name and my last name. I've been using since college in the late 90's as my college assigned it to me.

 

I have been mtneagle, which I could not get to work either. Now that I live on Mountain Avenue Mtn_Brewer was the logical next choice.

 

That is awesome, do you take the 55gal drum outside to get it cooler during the winter.

 

My garage is unheated. During cold times it will build up an inch of ice around the sides.

 

Thank you to the OP and everyone who's actually doing something to reduce their water usage. I don't think most people ever really consider how scarce fresh water really is and how bad it will be when we're running out.

I've been thinking about this myself. In the summer it's easy because I let it flow out into my rain barrels which goes in the garden. If those are full I spray it out on the yard and, once cool enough, on my berry bushes and hops. The winter's a little harder since I live in MN and don't want to just make an ice rink in my yard. I hadn't even considered using it in the washing machine and I love this idea. Do you have to use some special setting to get it to skip filling the tank itself?

 

I have two roughneck garbage cans that I run the water into and if those don't cut it I have numerous clean 5 gal buckets to fill. I then use all of this water in my garden or to do laundry. I also use this runoff to make the star San solution in my fermenter as the wort is cooling. I shudder to think of just wasting the water.

Your idea did get me thinking that if I freeze huge chunks of ice I could drop them in those cans and use my 1/6 hp utility pump to just recirculate that water

 

No special setting is needed, your washer senses when it has the right vol of water, even old one have this

 

I use a 48 qt cooler about half full of water, and 3 bags of ice, wort is at or below 70 in about 20 minutes. I use a pond pump to recirculate the water through my immersion chiller - http://www.harborfreight.com/264-gph-submersible-fountain-pump-68395.html

Less than 10 gallons of water to cool 5 gallons, and then it waters the lawn, garden, etc. Could use it to wash clothes, dishes, whatever... It's gotta be a ton less than running a faucet, and does not go into the sewer or septic.

 

I use the initial cooling water to load my mash tun with PBW for cleaning. After that I run hose out to the pool to top it up.

 

I run the water out of the chiller into a sprinkler and just let it go on the lawn. Since I don't brew all that often and the lawn doesn't need watering all that often...

Besides, this way, I have a built-in excuse to make another batch. "Geez, look. The lawn's getting wilty. Guess I'll have to make more beer. Darn the luck.

 

If I had a cold room that big, it would have 200 or 300 gallons of beer in it.

 

I No-Chill all my brews now...saves lots of water.

 

What do you mean by "no chill"?

 

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/exploring-no-chill-brewing-117111/

 

The only way to "waste" water is to contaminate it with a substance that cannot easily be removed. Heavy metals, radiation, toxic substances. After that you are not wasting the water, you are moving it from point A to point B.

With that it mind were does your water go after you use it.

1. Irrigation: Your trees and grass thank you. Eventually, back to ground water.
2. Septic tank: Back to groundwater.
3. Sewer system: Back to sewage treatment plant, where it is processed, and turned into reclaimed water. Most likely a golf course somewhere is enjoying your water. Back to groundwater.
4. Whatever evaporates, rains on someone else. The whole "circle of life" thing.

What you are wasting is the electricity required to move the water from point A to point B, and availability.

Here in the Southwest availability of the water is crucial, in Vermont I suspect not.

 

Meh... You're wasting a lot more than that.

You're not factoring in the chemical cost it took to treat the water, the pay both the treatment, distribution, and wastewater operators made through your tax dollars, the electricity it costs to move and treat all that water to drinking water standards only to be used for cooling then put down the drain (or wherever you put it).

The carbon footprint for a gallon of water is quite large when you scale it like this. I work in the wastewater field and we can't remove every contaminate that comes through the plant. Not only that but not all water is used for reclamation purposes as you stated. Many municipalities dump to a river or other large body of water.

 

I was trying to keep my post simple and short. Obviously there are additional costs like salary all the way to advertising that I omitted, and all possible scenarios of where water goes before it is returned to the ecosystem.

I dont disagree with you, but my post still stands, the water is not "Wasted".

 

Lol I figured. But when a topic comes up I'm am expert on (which is rare on this forum) I must chime in!

 

Edit: was just trying to show there is more wasted beyond the water.

 

It took me about 20 gallons to cool my last batch. I used some in the washing machine and some in the water bath to cool the beer during primary.

 

I use pre-frozen jugs (which I reuse) in my pre-chiller. Run the water into the pool until it gets below 100deg then start to re-circulate with pond pump. All extra H2O goes into pool also.