New wort chiller

I bought a copper wort chiller and put it right to work last night. I noticed that my tap water is a little over 80 degrees. Does this mean I cannot chill below 80 with the wort chiller? I'm doing ales, so I think I am trying to get to low 70's.

I guess I could pack the hose in ice?

 

Either way, just rack to fermenter once you get to terminal temperature and set it in the fermentation chamber to finish cooling. Pitch once it's reached desired fermentation temp.

 

Thansk. This sucks. I was hoping the chiller was the end of all my chilling machinations.

If I was smart, I would throw a couple of gallons in the fridge early in the day. I'm doing mini-mash right now so I top it off with a couple of gallons. I'll check the fridge temp. That would help me get below 80. I am sure. This step won't help me on all grain days, though.

 

Another method is get a cheap pond-pump and put ice in a bucket full of water. Run water into the bucket to keep the fluid level constant until the output chiller-water becomes less "hotter than hell". Then simply recycle the output water into said bucket and keep adding ice.

 

This should probably be moved to a different forum but beyond that....

multiple solutions are available to you:

1.submerge your boil kettle in an ice bath while chilling with wort chiller
2. get a pre-chiller which is essentially another wort chiller that you put in an ice batch so that the water entering your wort chiller is cold enough to get your wort down to pitching temps.
3. get a pond pump and just re-circulate the wort chiller water in an ice bath once you get the wort temp down to your water temp of 80*.
4. do all 4 of these if just get really excited.

 

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I honestly don't think I would have bought the chiller if I had known it wasn't the final solution for wort chilling. I'm really disapointed.

The kind that I bought has some clear plastic hose between the copper coil and the hose connection (held with hose clamps). I think I am going to buy a really long hose to replace the short pieces that I have and run that through an ice bath before it goes into the copper. A second chiller is totally out of the question for me. I still need a brew kettle and liquor pot to get back to all grain.
I pitched the yeast at just under 80 this time if my thermometer is to be believed. It took about 12 hours, but the blow off tube now sounds like a strong and steady heart beat. I'll get it down to the low 70's next time.

 

If it is any consolation, water temps vary considerably based on outdoor ground temps. Yours might be coming out of the tap at 80 right now, but for most of the year, it is probably substantially lower than that.

 

Pond pumps are cheap, really cheap...so are the bilge pumps you can get at walmart. As mentioned, put one in bucket of ice water and you'll be golden.

As it stands, your chiller is fine. Just chill it down as low as you can go and seal it up in the ferm chamber. In a few hours, or the next day, just open it and toss the yeast in. No time, really.

 

A word of caution: don't expect a longer hose to do much. Vinyl is a relatively poor heat conductor. I'd be surprised if you gained more than a couple of degrees.

 

You have plenty of cheap options so don't get upset about it. You will have the same problem with any kind of chiller that uses tap water.

Pond pump is a very cheap and easy solution. You can also build a pre chiller for under $25 that will work well too. I would recommend one of these as it will not only bring the temp to what you want but it will do it much quicker than the chiller alone

 

Before I bought mine. I did a test temp of both the kitchen sink and outdoor faucet. The outdoor faucet was much colder. Stands to reason as the house plumbing is going to be the same temp in the house. I was able to cool down to 65 in 15 min. I did add a ball valve to control the flow at the chiller. I felt it allowed the water enough time to absorb the heat.

 

water flow is important, you dont want it rushing through so fast that it doesnt have time to absorb the heat. I put my hose pressure just barely on so make sure the water has enough time to absorb and come out hot.

 

"I did add a ball valve to control the flow at the chiller. I felt it allowed the water enough time to absorb the heat."

That isn't how thermodynamics work. You will get the fastest chill from passing the highest volume of cold water through the coil as you can. Reducing the flow through a single coil immersion chiller reduces the chill speed. The rate of heat transfer from the wort to the chill water is proportional to the temp difference between the 2. The closer you get in temp, the less heat is removed per minute.

 

Well, it depends on what BronxBrew was trying to accomplish, right? Restricting the flow of water won't save you time, but it might save you water.

 

Maybe I misunderstood, but it seemed like the implication was that reducing the flow allowed the water to absorb more heat and aided cooling the wort. That is the opposite of what actually happens.

If water conservation is a priority, then do what you have to do, but it will hurt your cooling rate.

 

To some extent, but I can cut my water usage in half by increasing my chill time by 5%. Beyond a certain point, you're just wasting water.

 

The difference was that on full blast. The water coming out was luke warm at best. dialing back the the flow. The water coming out was hotter. Not to mention the temp gage dropped faster. The thermo dynamics mentioned above is relative to what works on paper. Its right in theory to what it is relative to. I'm talking a large volume "Garden hose" going the 3/8 of copper tubing. Volume is displaced by pressure. It does give the water enough time to "soak up" the heat. "Sorry high school teacher in NYC".

 

It's not theory. Faster flow is always faster chilling. Don't let me stop whatever works for you, but I'll eat a goat's lung if you can prove that slower flow chills faster for you.

 

This. In fact, I think that's a waste of time personally. You can always boil some water to sanitize it then put it in a sanitized container and freeze it. Then adjust your OG of your boil and add the sanitized ice to your brew while you chill with the chiller.

But what I did before I got a prechiller (dirt cheap on amazon for a 25' chiller) was just stir stir stir in the opposite direction that the water is flowing through your coil chiller. I could get 5G batches cooled to pitch temp in 30 minutes that way. Now I recirc the wort with a pump while running the chiller and prechiller set up, and honestly, it takes me an hour to pitch...which, I've found, is just fine.

It's not your chiller that's not working well, its your expectations of what it would do for you that need adjustment

 

I use a pre-chiller submerged in a bucket of ice water. It's a 20 foot coil of 3/8 copper tubing with some hose connectors. Paid about $20-$25 for it at Lowes.

I only need it July-August. I don't use it until my wort gets down below 90. It helps get the temp down that last 15 degrees. I can generally ge my wort to the mid 70s with a 7 lb bag of ice.

 

This.

its bloody hot right now and our ground water is 75, has been for almost a week.

 

Easy way to figure this out is to do a test. Full blast and then half blast. Easy enough. I don't know anything about water flow and temp displacement but what you are saying makes sense. Full blast might be pushing water to fast through. You would want the temp of the water exiting to be as close to the temp of the wort. That would mean the chiller is working 100%.

 

Throttling your water flow rate may improve your efficiency, but it won't improve your chill rate.

 

I use a pre-chiller in a bucket of ice water and find that I have to throttle back the flow substantially in order to get the water coming out of the pre-chiller as cold as possible. This in turn though cuts the flow to the chiller in my wort, so I am apparently not doing myself any favors by getting the water going into the kettle chiller colder if it's just getting saturated with heat as soon as it kits the chiller. Sounds like next time I should try keeping the water on full blast and agitating the pre-chiller to get better cold transfer.

 

When you are using a pre-chiller, the effect is much more complicated. A slower flow rate through the pre-chiller makes the water colder and speeds up the rate of heat transfer in the main chiller. This is balanced against the "more water = faster cooling rate" of the regular chiller. Which method "wins" really depends on the specifics of your setup.

Agitating the pre-chiller will increase the cooling rate regardless of flow rate just like stirring the wort does. It's the same reason - the heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temps. The water immediately around the pre-chiller warms up, so moving the chiller drops the water temp the chiller is experiencing.

 

Could you add salt water to your pre chiller to help get it even colder? or would this have no effect?

 

I'm going to built a prechiller as I know that can be made for about $25 at Lowe's. I wanted a pond pump, but after doing some searching on the forum, it didn't sound like a cheapie one would work. I would love to hear that I'm wrong, as I'd gladly shell out $30 to recirculate the water.

 

All,

The key to heat transfer is temperature difference - the greater the delta T the more heat is transferred per unit of time. If you want to go fast run the cooling water as fast a possible. The concept of giving the cooling media time to absorb the heat is completely in error. I am certain - I am a Chemical Engineer.

 

What he said!

 

Is this chemistry or physics, probably both for all I know, I'm a finance guy.

As Mal Fet says, you can certainly increase cooling rate by increasing flow, but you're not using your water very efficiently that way. I know. I carry all my run off water in buckets to various places in my yard to water plants/lawn/etc.

I thought a lot about this last night as I brewed and cooled with my pre-chiller/IC combination, and yes...it makes sense to slow the flow through the prechiller to cool the water inside the coil before it enters the IC in the brew pot.

I run it at a bit more then a trickle. Takes about 10 minutes or so fill a 6G bucket. Then I haul that bucket off to the sink for cleaning (first bucket is usually quite hot and great for cleaning!) and then watering the yard thereafter. Last night I cooled my full boil batch in hot weather in 35 minutes down to pitch temp.

I will say this, this thread got me thinking about my chilling technique and shortened my typical brewday by almost an hour. Other efficiencies during the mash/sparge steps and remembering to heat the sparge water BEFORE starting my vorlauf took another hour (almost) off. Altogether I did a full boil 5 G batch with batch sparging and the prechiller/IC setup in 4.5 hours, including cleanup. My fastest AG brew yet!

 

What is your water source? Virtually all water come from underground, and would be around the 60 degree mark...are you letting it run long enough?

Yes. You can not chill to any lower (temperature) than your cooling media.

 

Water does not "soak up" heat. Your cooling rate is proportional to the temperature difference between the wort, and the water. If your water is exciting your chiller at wort temperature, that is very inefficient.

Why? Because that means that the water in the chiller near the exit is not transferring any heat out of the wort around it. The colder the water is at the exit, the more heat the wort is able to transfer into the water.

Flow as fast as possible for the quickest cooling, but as MalFet said, you may be able to cut water in half and not double cooling time if saving water is your goal.

 

I don't mean to be pedantic, but there are two types of efficiency being addressed here. Heat exchange efficiency, and water usage efficiency.

I don't disagree with anything you said though. I personally think you can easily quadruple your water useage and only increase your cooling time by 25% (disclaimer: these are just my real world observations, and not scientific in anyway) if you run the water too fast through the chiller.

I wonder, supposing what you said is true (I believe it is!) doesn't the inverse hold true for a prechiller setup? IE, the WARMER the water exiting your prechiller is, the LESS efficient your prechiller has been at exchanging the heat between your tap water (in the coil) and your ice water (in the bucket)?

 

That's correct. But it depends on how you measure efficiency, or more accurately what efficiency you want to maximize. With a pre chiller, you WANT the water exciting the pre chiller to be as cold as possible, thus slower moving water would be better because that water's measurable temperature would be lower. Your ice water will melt slower, but that's what you want. With your wort chiller, you want the wort to cool as fast as possible so you want as fast a flow as possible, which will result in less of a change in inlet/outlet water temperature.

Efficiency is probably a bad way to frame the discussion, as you pointed out. Define what you want (fast cooling, less water usage, etc) and then maximize your setup.

 

I'm going to use a 50 ft 1/4 inch prechiller on my next brewday to try to get the water colder faster (water in the coil will have more surface area touching the ice bath) while using 3/8 for the IC.

Thoughts?

 

This is what I am going to be doing soon.

Use the wort chiller until about 100 degrees. Then take a tub of ice water and pump it through the chiller

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=submersible+pump

 

Im in the same boat.
Options as I see it
1) build pre-chiller $25 copper coil and some tubing.
2) buy pump - harbor freight has them for $10 but unlike the pre-chiller it requires being plugged in to operate.
3) Try my budget wart chiller design I came up with but do not know if it would work $5

I was thinking to buy a small bucket, and cut 2 holes in it. The input hole would run tubing down to the bottom and use water from the faucet. The output hole have a much shorter piece of tubing would be located near the top. Fill the bucket with ice then turn on the faucet. Once it fills up, the water would be nice cold and it "should, might, maybe" push water through the tubing in the top of the bucket with the other end of the line attached to the chiller.

What do you guys think? Will it work? Am I being to cheap and I should just go buy a copper coil? I would imagine water in direct contact with ice would be even colder than using copper tubing but either should be efficient enough?

 

^ I don't see how that's going to work unless you have the perfect amount of pressure going to the in tube so the water level doesn't just rise above the output hole and overrun the bucket. I think you'll end up ruining a bucket and still buying a coil chiller TBH.

And by the time you get the bulkhead fittings (or whatever you'll use for the imput/output ports and the hose clamps etc, you're way over 5 bucks.

Just my $.02, but I love ingenuity and DIY stuff, so please post it up if you decide to try it!!!

 

I should have been more clear, I would drill the holes into the bucket lid, I would think that would hold enough pressure but I'm not sure. Maybe just JBWELD the lines to the lid rather than buy bulkhead fittings etc?

Ok maybe I'm dreaming and should just be cheap and buy the pump.

 

I admire all the ingenuity here, but I don't understand the trouble people go to to avoid buying a $12 pond pump (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002JPGE6S/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20). As they say in my neck of the woods, "cheap and best!"

(Of course, I often find myself over-engineering very simple problems, so I'm hardly one to criticize.)