Counterflow chiller degrees cooled

[user 574]

I'm thinking of making a counterflow chiller but with the water where I'm at in summer being rather warm (haven't taken a temp in July but...) I'm wondering how efficient it really will be. Without getting too mathmatical on me if water out of the tap was say 80 and a 50' counterflow chiller what would you expect the wort to come out at? 90-95?

What I do today is immersion + kettle sitting on bench in my pool. Works great when the pool & tap water is around 50-70 degrees and cooled in about 15 minutes. When the pool is at 85 and probably ditto with tap water I'm at about 1 hour to get to 85 then I rack to fermenter and put the fermenter in the fermentation chiller until I'm at pitching temp. This can be 3-4 hours or so.

I'm just wondering if by the time I build this that I don't reduce my pitching temp very much would piss me off. Now that I have a Keggle (using this weekend) though; putting this in the pool probably isn't a good idea especially since it has a temp gauge on it. I suspect they're not designed for immersion?

 

[MrSaLTy]

You may just want to build a pre-chiller for you immersion chiller. You just basically build another immersion chiller and daisy chain them together with a length of tubing. Then place the pre-chiller in a buck of ice water.... viola! Your water is like 32 degrees going into your immersion chiller.

 

[Dude]

Yep. Go ahead and build the CFC, and use your old IC for a pre-chiller.

I did that all last summer when it was hotter than 2 squirrels ****ing in a wool sock, and I usually pitched right around 75°.

I am probably going to end up using a pre-chiller even now with the shirron chiller.

 

[user 574]

Counterflow + Pre-chiller when needed it is. Needed something to build anyways. But not this week. I couldn't find the BYO article on building one. Anyone got that link?

So, does anyone know if the brewpot thermometers are waterproof? The one that came with my keggle via ebay is a Miljoco. Going to cruise over to their site to see if I find anything but...

 

[budbo]

I did that all last summer when it was hotter than 2 squirrels ****ing in a wool sock, and I usually pitched right around 75°..

You watched? and took temp readings?

 

[user 574]

So, does anyone know if the brewpot thermometers are waterproof? The one that came with my keggle via ebay is a Miljoco. Going to cruise over to their site to see if I find anything but...

Submersion not recommended as noted by Bubba at Miljoco. But boy was he interested in what I was using it for when discussing homebrewing.