Freeze the immersion chiller?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Airborneguy

Airborneguy

Retired and Brewing
HBT Supporter
Joined
Sep 24, 2009
Messages
11,759
Reaction score
2,219
Location
Central Jersey
I’m not usually one for the wacky ideas but here we go…

I recently purchased a Brewzilla and will use it for the first time next week. I will be using the included immersion chiller.

I bought a separate camlock fitting so I can pump the wort through the chiller. I am considering freezing the chiller into a solid block of ice in a 5 gallon pail. I will add cold water as necessary as the ice melts.

Thoughts? Lol
 
Strange as it sounds; the initial melt that will occur will actually insulate the chiller to a more significant degree than seems intuitive. Using a bucket of ice-water with a bit of circulation would be more effective in conducting the surface heat away.
 
I totally agree with the "try it and see" because that trumps theory. But I agree that the bucket of ice water is going to work much better than a giant ice sculpture of frozen wort chiller (hands down which one would look cooler, though!).

I love a good engineering problem. And I'm trying to think of the difference here of circulating wort inside the coil with the cooling water on outside versus the typical way of water inside and wort outside. To chill, you're looking for a temperature difference. The bigger the temperature difference, the more heat you can take out. And the circulation is just a means of moving the localized warmed up liquid right next to the cooling coil off somewhere else so it can be replaced with fresh cooler water so you keep a good temperature difference.

So comparing to flowing ~60 degree cooling water, you'll be using ~32 degree cooling water, so that should be a big benefit. city water will have a high pressure so it can keep pushing fresh cooling water faster than you'll be able to push hot wort with a typical brewing pump. But you've got such a big benefit of colder water. The real question is how much that hot wort is going to heat up your 5 gallons (or whatever) of ice water. It might cool from 200 to 150 at lightning-fast speed, but maybe then your bucket of ice water is suddenly a bucket of 80 degree water and you struggle to get much more out of it.
 
Once the ice starts to melt around the coils, it could create a thermal layer of water that impacts heat transfer. Being stuck inside a block of ice, there's no way to move it around. Immersing the coil in ice water (and adding ice as needed) might work better, as you can give the coils a little shake every so often to break up any thermal layer buildup.
 
"Don't do that" :no:

I'm not a fan of chilling wort inside something that cannot be inspected for sanitary condition, so at least follow a process that has a chance of sanitizing the inside of the IC. Boom.

Definitely do not freeze it or submerge it in anything to start, keep the exterior dry in free air while you recirculate hot wort through it for long enough to ensure any "bug nests" inside have been rendered inert. Could be just a matter of minutes to bring the coil temperature fully up inside the "fast pasteurization" temperature * time window

THEN you can submerge your IC in a cooling solution of your choice...

Cheers!
 
I used to have a setup that included a run inside 100' of copper tubing that was wound inside an 8 gallon brew bucket. The wort went from the kettle to a plate chiller then through this long coil of tubing into the fermenter. I had the bucket filled with ice water. So post plate chiller the wort was already knocked down in temp. So the ice water finished things off nicely. Just run hot PBW through the tubing while it is still wet and it can stay clean.

Back to the original question - will a frozen block be better? I would say no because you are wasting all of the cooling power from the ice that is not touching the coil in the block. The best cooling I have had is during the phase change from solid to liquid. You want to keep this fresh liquid in contact with the metal until it warms up. Then remove it to make way for new fresh phase changed liquid. So you want melting of smaller ice bits and removal of the melted water.

The way I do this is have a reservoir of ice cubes that only has enough water depth for the pump to keep the recirc going. The cold water is connected to the immersion chiller and the output goes back into the reservoir. I collect the return water every once in a while so the ice does not get too submerged.

If you do the opposite, it would be best to have a way to move the warmer water out from around the chiller to make way for the fresh cold water.
 
Airborneguy said:
Ice bucket with a small recirculation pump then?
Click to expand...
Like this. Works really well. I have found 3 ten pound bags very adequate for the 5 gallon batch. The image below is from earlier with my stove top kettle, I have used the basic setup with the SVBS and it works better with the whirl pool circulation.
20221203_160322.jpg
 
Tinwhistler said:
I use a AgiiMan 1/2 HP Submersible Sump Pump at the bottom of a large cooler filled with ice water. The pump does double duty in a keg and vessel cleaner I made.
Click to expand...
I do much the same. I run the line into the pump, put the pump in the ice water and the drain tube into the cooler to recirculate. I usually buy about 4 to 5 bags of ice from the local liquor store. The pump is used for my DIY bucket and keg cleaner as well.
 
Just a couple things:
For those circulating wort:I don’t want to put wort anywhere I can’t see, (I want to make sure I can see that it’s clean afterwards so I don’t even have valves on my stainless fermenters.

For those circulating water:
I don’t return my water to my ice bucket; I capture the hot water and use it for cleanup, etc (watering the garden, dogs, chickens after cooling)

As for freezing the coil, I would advise being very cautious and making sure you have ALL water out of it before you freeze it. It would be a shame to ruin a good coil with a freeze split.
 
Closet Fermenter said:
Just a couple things:
For those circulating wort:I don’t want to put wort anywhere I can’t see, (I want to make sure I can see that it’s clean afterwards so I don’t even have valves on my stainless fermenters.

For those circulating water:
I don’t return my water to my ice bucket; I capture the hot water and use it for cleanup, etc (watering the garden, dogs, chickens after cooling)

As for freezing the coil, I would advise being very cautious and making sure you have ALL water out of it before you freeze it. It would be a shame to ruin a good coil with a freeze split.
Click to expand...
I do the same thing, but recirculate until my wort is at temp. Then I take the cooler with the water in it and dump it in a garbage can we use to catch rainwater.
 
These are great threads as we get to learn how everybody does their chilling. There are many ways to do it.

Wort Inside the coil vs Wort outside the coil - I prefer wort outside the coil for reasons of trub/clean wort into the fermenter. I know that is unpopular on the website, but I want clean wort and the option to leave everything behind in the BK. Having said that, I think running the wort through a small tube and cooling it is more efficient from a cooling point of view. But you are putting all of the stuff you just boiled out of your wort right back in with it.

When I had my plate chiller + 100' copper coil setup, I could open the BK valve and the wort would come out the other end in the 40's if I wanted. That is in Texas. Very efficient. But I moved away from that setup for stainless and immersion (Lodo, I know, cue the flaming arrows :) ).

My SOP is to run ground water through the immersion chiller until about 120F-100F and then switch to pre-chilled water or ice with a recirculation. The first 8-9 gallons goes into the HLT to be heated for cleaning. The rest either goes back into the pre-chilled containers or down the driveway. I try to minimize the water wasting. Less water means faster cooling was accomplished in the end.
 
Cooling speed goes as the temp diff between the hot and cold.
Use tap water at first, gather bucket of hot outflow for cleaning.
Once down to 100-110F, switch to pumping recirc through iced water.

My 5.5gal batches only take 12-17min to chill to 60-68F this way.

But I also stand there and CONSTANTLY move the chiller around.

(I really need to hook up some Rube Goldber Auto Stir)
 
Bassman2003 said:
Wort Inside the coil vs Wort outside the coil - I prefer wort outside the coil for reasons of trub/clean wort into the fermenter. I know that is unpopular on the website, but I want clean wort and the option to leave everything behind in the BK.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that was unpopular on the website. Guess I need to pay closer attention.

I have four 50 gallon rain barrels that are elevated about four feet off the ground. Since I brew outside, I've been thinking about setting up two immersion chillers - first one in an ice bucket and second one in the wort. It's free water in the first place and the output can go back into the barrels anyway. Not even sure I would need a pump as long as the barrels are at least half full, but it's probably worth having one so I wouldn't need to collect the hot water in buckets and dump it back into the barrels.
 
i have tried to chill kettles in snow banks and it doesnt work well for the same reason i think this might not work well. it melts a layer of ice that turns to water and insulates the kettle from further cooling. thast why you need to continually remove the insulating layer to get real chilling.

recirculating ice water works very well. especially if you lwet the first few minutes run out of the coller and not recircualte that first round of hot water.

i also saw recently someone use gravity instead of a pump whch i though was cool. ( no pun intended) . you basically have a cooler of ice water above your wort. start a siphon and let it run to a bucket below your wort throught the chills. then just keep refilling the top bucket with runoff water in the bottom bucket. i thought that was genius. he did it with a plate chiller but a coil would also prolly work the same or better. i imagine siphon speed is also good speed for chilling...ie. not too fast.

cooling wort inside the coil is interesting. i saw kegland reccomends it as a tip for the brewzilla. but as others have said cleanign the inside could be an issue. which brings me to another topic- how do we clean things we cant see. i guess narrow mouth growlers, metal tubing, hidden pumps etc would all qualify.
in general it sounds like hot pbw can be used to reliably clean things we are unable to inspect with the naked eye . just my 2 cents.
 
I did an experiment where i ran my chilling water through a couple cornies filled with ice before it hit my chiller coil. It worked great until the ice all melted. Kinda the same vein as ypur idea.

My ground water is cool enough all year that it's not worth the extra effort for me, but i can see it as a necessity in the hotter areas.
 
The salt is an “impurity” in the water that depresses the freezing point and allows liquid water to exist below 32°. Liquid water also greatly increases the surface contact with the object being chilled to the maximum. That in turn increases the temperature gradient and facilitates the transfer of heat from the object. It will work.

The reason I don’t do it, and I have considered it, is that I don’t want to have to deal with disposing of the salt water. It would kill my plants and I can’t give it to my dogs or chickens. I suppose, if you have a suitable spot on your place, you could create a salt lick for livestock or wildlife.
 
balrog said:
Or re-freeze it and use it again.
Click to expand...
That may be possible. It will be more difficult to refreeze, as the freezing point is lower than pure water. Right off hand, I don’t remember how much the freezing/melting point is depressed.

The biggest concern I would have is putting salt water in my freezer. One little spill and you’ve started the countdown on a rusty freezer, but maybe I’m more clumsy than the average brewer. 😁

Going to have to bring out the thermometer next summer when we use the ice cream churn.
 
day_trippr said:
"Don't do that" :no:

I'm not a fan of chilling wort inside something that cannot be inspected for sanitary condition, so at least follow a process that has a chance of sanitizing the inside of the IC. Boom.

Definitely do not freeze it or submerge it in anything to start, keep the exterior dry in free air while you recirculate hot wort through it for long enough to ensure any "bug nests" inside have been rendered inert. Could be just a matter of minutes to bring the coil temperature fully up inside the "fast pasteurization" temperature * time window

THEN you can submerge your IC in a cooling solution of your choice...

Cheers!
Click to expand...


Worst case scenario, the immersion chiller gets a pin prick inside of one of the coils from the freezing water that's expanding inside of the bucket.

The beauty of an immersion chiller is being able to "immerse" it in the boiling wert to sanitize it the last 10-15 minutes of the boil. OP, just my opinion, just keep it simple and buy a few bags of ice to chill your wert faster.
 
Years ago we used an immersion chiller the standard way by using cold (chilled Ice water) inside the chiller. We decided to move the WORT on the Outside and that Thermal Barrier was really apparent. Cycling the WORT made a huge difference in the time it took to cool. We have since moved to a double plate chiller system that is almost instantaneous

I also think that freezing the Chiller in ice is a really bad idea as Water expands when it is frozen. I think it would weaken the chiller.
 
Chilling is a interesting topic for me since I live in Texas. The big things I have noticed are move and replace. Meaning you need to carry away the warmth as well as keep the wort moving so you do not develop pockets of warmth. Also, it is best to keep your chilling water at least 30F degrees cooler than your wort temperature for fast, effective chilling.

We are often forced to make solutions that are not optimal giving our location or budget constraints. In a perfect world, the best chilling approach would be to end the boil, gravity feed a long stainless counterflow chiller with 37 degree water flowing through it year round which would end up in a settling pot with a rotating racking arm to grab the clear wort for fermentation. Instant, no hassle ability to run to any temperature in a single pass. I have actually wondered about creating this setup with two water tanks and a large fridge. My current garage does not have the room, but keep 20 gallons of water in a fridge, pump it out through the chiller into a holding tank, then pump it from that tank back in to the fridge tank. The tank would weight 225 pounds, which might be an issue, but the chilling would be great and the setup would not be that expensive...
 
Hmm... "move and replace" just sparked a great idea that I can try without even modifying my current equipment.

"MOVE" - the wort through the chiller that came with the brewzilla, into a bucket of ice water.

"REPLACE" - using my old chiller, submerged in the wort. First using the hose then switching to pump ice water through it.

I can use both systems at the same time!
 
Here in the NC my tap water gets to 80°F in the summer. To combat this, I brew high gravity and dilute with 30% chilled distilled water into the fermenter. There are a lot of benefits for me with this approach.

Since I recirculate with 2 CFC'S in parallel back into the kettle via 2 separate WP ports (high and low) and allow break to settle before running off, I added a SS blichmann chilling coil to my kettle lid. This allows me to get to the low 80s with tap water very quickly and then I recirculate ice water only through the coil in the lid while it settles to drop it further. The chilled distilled water then gets me down to the mid 50s for pitching and I only use one tray of ice from the refrigerators ice maker. This method saves me from buying ice, but did cost more upfront to add the 2nd CFC and blichmann coil. Having said that, I wouldn't change a thing.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Chilling is a interesting topic for me since I live in Texas. The big things I have noticed are move and replace. Meaning you need to carry away the warmth as well as keep the wort moving so you do not develop pockets of warmth. Also, it is best to keep your chilling water at least 30F degrees cooler than your wort temperature for fast, effective chilling.

We are often forced to make solutions that are not optimal giving our location or budget constraints. In a perfect world, the best chilling approach would be to end the boil, gravity feed a long stainless counterflow chiller with 37 degree water flowing through it year round which would end up in a settling pot with a rotating racking arm to grab the clear wort for fermentation. Instant, no hassle ability to run to any temperature in a single pass. I have actually wondered about creating this setup with two water tanks and a large fridge. My current garage does not have the room, but keep 20 gallons of water in a fridge, pump it out through the chiller into a holding tank, then pump it from that tank back in to the fridge tank. The tank would weight 225 pounds, which might be an issue, but the chilling would be great and the setup would not be that expensive...
Click to expand...
I can get to Pitch temp almost at the end of whirlpool or quicker. I have two plate chillers in series.

Plate Chiller 1 pre chills the chilling water for Pate Chiller 2.

Plate Chiller 1 has tap water on the Wort In and Wort Out goes to Plate Chiller 2 Water In
Plate Chiller 2 has iced water in a large trash can with a submersible pump able to flow chilled water to the Water In of the Plate Chiller and the Water out returns to the trash can.

Plate Chiller 2 has Chilled Water from Plate Chiller 1 to Water In and Water Out goes to my garden via a garden hose (so not to waste water as I water there anyway)
Plate Chiller 2 has Wort from the BK to the Wort In and the Wort Out has a hose that I can move to the Brew Kettle or the Fermentor.

We start by passing 185 degree water though Plate Chiller 2 during the Boil. We move this water from the HLT , through the Wort Side, and back to the HLT (via the moveable Wort Out Hose.) We start with about 45 minutes left in the boil.

At the end of Boil, we start the flow of Wort through Plate Chiller 2 and return it to the Brew Kettle. Once we have positive flow, we start tap water running though Plate Chiller one. . We watch the Wort Out Temp of Plate Chiller 2. If it is at about 120, we can start the submersible pump. We should be very near Pitch at this point on the process. We stop every thing and let it settle, once at Pitch. After a short while, we move the Plate Chiller 2 Wort Out hose to the Fermentor.

Using two plate chillers shorten the time from boiling to pitch significantly. Because we are using iced water to chill the Tap Water and then using the Chilled tap water to chill the Wort. Before we used chilled water from the trash can to chill the Wort from Boiling but that took a lot of Ice and we could not recycle the water as it was quite warm when we started. Since we are chilling the tap water only, the Iced bath does not normally need more than another Bag if that. We brew Big batches (sometimes 2 x 20 gallons), so we need quite a bit of chilling.

The setup was easy to implement and only needed another Plate Chiller, so it was an easy choice for us.
 
Any chance you can use both in the wort? I got lucky because the chiller that came with the Anvil Foundry fit inside the coil of my 50' NY Homebrew 1/2" I.D. chiller. So I hooked them up together with some "T" connections a la Jayded style.
 
day_trippr said:
a process that has a chance of sanitizing the inside of the IC.
Click to expand...
On this side topic: there's more than one way to have good success sanitizing the inside of chiller tubing. Once that's done (chemicals or, better, the oven) then covering the tube ends should keep the chiller sanitized until use.

A salty slush with super-cooled ice sounds simpler than a two-coil method, but you could combine these ideas.

Happy brewing, @Airborneguy!
 

Similar threads

DevilsCups
Immersion Chiller quick disconnects?
Replies
16
Views
686
Skeeter686
S
Brushwood Brewing
Alternatives to Worm Gear Hose Clamps?
Replies
34
Views
1K
whoaru99
W
Willy
New chiller methodology
Replies
26
Views
858
Bassman2003
B
W
Immersion chiller disconnects
Replies
10
Views
1K
pvpeacock
pvpeacock
Airborneguy
Double Immersion chiller w/Ice bath or plate chiller?
Replies
23
Views
2K
Airborneguy
Airborneguy
Brewer's Friend 300

Latest posts

Back
Top