High tech wort chiller?

[drew4brew]

I made a recirculating wort chiller using a liquid CPU cooler for a computer that I'd like to share.

I whipped together a quick video. I had to discharge the initial 5 minutes of water as it was coming out piping hot, but then I recirc'ed it back into the bath.

Here's a vid --> http://www.youtube.com/embed/3AArTMpDOJ0

 

[daksin]

Adding your heated water back to the bath isn't doing you any favors. Unless there's TEC or something on there, I can't see how this would work even a little bit. A CPU cooler is designed to cool several grams of metal down from temps not much hotter than beer wort, but you're trying to cool 20+ kg of material.

You want the highest possible temperature delta between your cooling fluid and your wort, and the fastest possible flow rate. That dinky little pump on there isn't getting it done and the radiator is probably not doing much to the 150+ degree fluid. Cooling would be a whole lot faster if you could hook it up to your sink outlet, or better yet, a garden hose.

How did your initial run go?

 

[drew4brew]

It went allright, really! I never had a chiller before and finally figured that I'd build one.
Criteria: I didn't want to mess with garden hoses, nor did I want to wash out dirty lines/hoses filled with wort.
I mentioned that I had to discharge the initial 5 mins of water... it was HOT, so I trickled in tap water into the ice water.. then I shut off the water and recirculated discharge water after 5 mins when the discharge temp dropped.
When I start doing all grain, I will build a counter flow chiller.
I am pleased with the performace of this chiller. But then again, I've nothing to compare.
If you watch the end of the video when the camera finally focuses, you can see the temp drop about 5 degrees in about 10 seconds.

 

[daksin]

I just think the whole thing would be simpler, and work better if you excluded the whole pump and radiator system and just put one end of your IC hose on the sink faucet and the other end in the drain. Higher flow rates, colder water, less equipment, faster chilling.

 

[drew4brew]

Might be true, but the ice water I'm pulling from the tub is certainly colder than the tap.

 

[RedOktoberfest]

Cool, I can appreciate the effort! I have a plan to set-up a similar type deal, but use an old fish tank pump. This should help get a butt load of icy cold water through the coils. Have you looked into any used aquarium pumps? That CPU cooler looks pretty fancy, I bet you could pull some money out of the trade.:rockin:

 

[drew4brew]

Cool, I can appreciate the effort! I have a plan to set-up a similar type deal, but use an old fish tank pump. This should help get a butt load of icy cold water through the coils. Have you looked into any used aquarium pumps? That CPU cooler looks pretty fancy, I bet you could pull some money out of the trade.:rockin:

I contemplated selling the unit. It was unused and was free to me.

I'd love to see what you come up with. The ice water certainly chills it down quickly. I have an old cooler here that I might integrate everything into. I bought a "small" bag of ice and it went quick. Next batch, I'll buy the "big" bag of ice. All I can think of at this moment is turning the volume up to "11", as in Spinal Tap!

Thanks for the feedback.