I'm not saying you shouldn't do the recirculating pump idea, but I don't waste any of the water that comes out of my immersion chiller. I collect it all and use it in my washing machine and my swamp cooler.
mtnagel said:I'm not saying you shouldn't do the recirculating pump idea, but I don't waste any of the water that comes out of my immersion chiller. I collect it all and use it in my washing machine and my swamp cooler.
Sounds good to me. I'm just getting started, and I cooled my first two batches by immersing the pot in a sink of ice water. To supply the ice, I set my old 54-qt Coleman Steel Belted cooler beside the sink and scooped ice out of it. But I'm sure a rib-cage immersion cooler hooked up to a fountain pump in that Coleman would work a lot faster...I'm thinking about building a wort chiller and using a fountain pump to cycle the water. But my idea is getting a submersible pump and recirculating the water from a cooler with ice water and back into to the cooler to bring it back down. That way I'm not waisting a lot of water. My question is this.....does this sound okay or more like a hair ball idea. Any info or ideas?
Thanks for this thread (as far back as it goes...) and the ideas.
I just picked up 50' of 1/2" OD tube at Home Depot for $20. Another $10 for clamps and tubing and so forth, and I will get around to making my RCIC for my next brew day.
Just worried about the bending of the tube, especially the parts that come up and over the rim. Slightly tighter radius, I;m kinda paranoid about that kinking on me.
troy2000 said:One more chiller... 50 feet of 3/8" OD copper. It just fits into the 28 qt tamale steamer I use for a boil kettle. Obviously I haven't put any hoses or fittings on it yet; need to make a trip to the hardware store.
While I'm at it I'll probably pick up another 20 feet of copper, so I can make a pre-chiller. I'm lucky; I have access to all the free ice I can use (within reason, of course).
add: I love this concept. Had I tackled the problem on my own, I would probably have tried to put a small coil inside a larger coil. Not nearly as easy or practical...
One more chiller... 50 feet of 3/8" OD copper. It just fits into the 28 qt tamale steamer I use for a boil kettle. Obviously I haven't put any hoses or fittings on it yet; need to make a trip to the hardware store.
While I'm at it I'll probably pick up another 20 feet of copper, so I can make a pre-chiller. I'm lucky; I have access to all the free ice I can use (within reason, of course).
add: I love this concept. Had I tackled the problem on my own, I would probably have tried to put a small coil inside a larger coil. Not nearly as easy or practical...
#215. Looks nice , but it's not efficient, only one side will get cooled, the return water up the second side will already be hot. If you joined the two pipes you have at the top as a common entry, the cut and fit a tee on the bottom of your two coils and bring an exit pipe up, you will then have TWO effective coils and much greater efficiency, you only need one tee and a riser pipe.
Troy, money's better spent buying a small pump to recirculate ice water through the IC, I pick one up off of Fleabay, works great after bringing the work down to around 100F with tap water.
We're cool Troy, it's just that I know cos I have got very uncomfortable with very hot water down my trousers from 25' which suggests that maybe after 15' it is not doing any cooling at all.
I have no proof it works better; I just made it. But it seems to me that coils distributed throughout the wort will cool better than a single stack of coils one above the other. If nothing else, it should take a lot less stirring to bring wort in contact with the chiller....apologies if this is discussed earlier in the thread, i tried to skim through and didn't see it... is there any proof that this works better than a single coil design? I am inclined to think that it does not, as any length of copper will have the same results regardless of the shape it is wound into. is this an incorrect assumption? has anyone done an actual comparison using the same length and diameter of tubing for single coil vs double coil vs ribcage style?
Well, no. I didn't. I simply pointed out that any chiller is going to squirt hot water at first. But I doubt many of them are discharging water at the ambient temperature of the wort, unless the water is simply trickling through. And I don't doubt that more tubing works better, up to a point.Hey Troy
You have agreed that 10' may be enough. Those degrees lost are the same degree wether at 200f or 100f. What's the difference ?
The extra length does nothing for you !
#215. Looks nice , but it's not efficient, only one side will get cooled, the return water up the second side will already be hot. If you joined the two pipes you have at the top as a common entry, the cut and fit a tee on the bottom of your two coils and bring an exit pipe up, you will then have TWO effective coils and much greater efficiency, you only need one tee and a riser pipe.
.troy2000 said:I suspect that if you had 10', it would still be coming out hot - at first. But when the water gets to the end of my coils it should still be doing some cooling, although not as much as the water just entering. And since the coils are spread through the wort better than a single stack would be, they should be more efficient. If the second stack seems redundant and not contributing its fair share of cooling, I'll turn up the water flow. By the way, someone with a degree in thermodynamics might have fun examining what happens where the two stacks of coils intersect....
Thanks for the post; it's a good one. I'll try to respond point by point - but remember it's my bedtime, I've been into my stash, and I'm coming off another 12-hour shift....:cross:.
A degree in mechanical engineering should suffice given the number of thermodynamics and heat transport classes I had to take. Although this design is more efficient than a single coil (ie half of the rib cage design) it's efficiency could be vastly improved. The easiest way to do so would be to increase the flow rate of cold water through the coil. Furthermore the most "bang for your buck" would come from splitting the coils and having a t that would send cold water down both both coils instead of routing it down one and up the other. Over all the more surface area you can get with large temp differences the better the design. Hope that helps. As far as the intersection of the coils they in theory would reduce the efficiency of the coils. This is because they will dump heat from the "hot" coil to the cold coil. Reducing the amount of heat that can be absorbed by the cold coil.
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A degree in mechanical engineering should suffice given the number of thermodynamics and heat transport classes I had to take. Although this design is more efficient than a single coil (ie half of the rib cage design) it's efficiency could be vastly improved. The easiest way to do so would be to increase the flow rate of cold water through the coil. Furthermore the most "bang for your buck" would come from splitting the coils and having a t that would send cold water down both both coils instead of routing it down one and up the other. Over all the more surface area you can get with large temp differences the better the design. Hope that helps. As far as the intersection of the coils they in theory would reduce the efficiency of the coils. This is because they will dump heat from the "hot" coil to the cold coil. Reducing the amount of heat that can be absorbed by the cold coil.
No degree whatsoever talking here!..........But if you were dialing in the efficiency of your chiller VS. coolant flow, wouldn't you try to shoot for a minimum spread of temp., ("delta T"), betwixt wort temp. and coolant outlet temp?
Speaking as an Auxiliary Equipment Operator in a power plant for a few years, many times it required DECREASING the flow through the cooler, to get the desired temp on the "cooled medium".......
Was super counter intuitive to me until I saw it in action, where we had to slow down the flow of the coolant, (longer contact time), to get the temp drop where it was needed!
Just throwin' it out there!...........
I got a hose valve for the chiller end, so I did't have to worry about running to the spigot when I wanted to adjust or turn it off (best idea I had)
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