I feel like a complete idiot for using pretty much

[ThePonchoKid]

100L of water through an immersion chiller and down my drain.

I want to buy a therminator type chiller. Any suggestions? I want something that I can clean and inspect to assure 100% sanitation.

 

[passedpawn]

Good luck with your search.

 

[neosapien]

buy a pond pump and recirculate ice water through your chiller. no wasted water and you get to chill faster.

 

[drkaeppel]

Hook up the outlet end to a water sprinkler and water the yard!

 

[LLBeanJ]

100L. What's that, 25 gallons or so? Basically, the equivalent of a 10 minute shower. But instead of sending the water straight down the drain, perhaps you can divert the discharge out onto the lawn or flowerbeds where it can do double duty. Or collect it in buckets and use it for laundry. Or skip a shower. I know a lot of people on here seem to get racked with guilt about the "wasted" water from their immersion chillers, but I honestly don't understand it. It's really not that much water when you think about it.

 

[bribo179]

I run mine into the fermenter to sanitize. The rest I collect into buckets for cleaning other equipment and watering flowers

 

[MalFet]

What's your ground water temperature? Are you agitating your wort while the immersion chiller is in there?

People often try to switch up their chilling setups in hopes of getting better efficiency, but often the limiting factor is just hard facts of thermodynamics. It can take a lot of water, no matter how you mix it, to bring 5gal of boiling wort to pitching temps.

I don't know of any plate chillers that open up for inspection. It's pretty much a constraint of the design.

 

[ThePonchoKid]

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

 

[MalFet]

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and making everything relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

Keep it in the debate forum, sparky.

 

[ThePonchoKid]

Stay on topic, sparky.

"I want to buy a therminator type chiller. Any suggestions?"

 

[MalFet]

Stay on topic, sparky.

"I want to buy a therminator type chiller. Any suggestions?"

I don't know of any plate chillers that open up for inspection. It's pretty much a constraint of the design.

.

 

[aquenne]

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

May not be the right place in the forum, but his head is in the right place. You may want to look into a no chill method.. no water usage, pitch yeast a few days after your wort naturally cools.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I guess I touched a nerve with my response. It wasn't my intention. I was just trying to give a little perspective so you wouldn't feel like "a complete idiot" for your excessive water usage, maybe even save you from laying out cash for a new chiller. Please accept my apology.

 

[Yooper]

What's your ground water temperature? Are you agitating your wort while the immersion chiller is in there?

People often try to switch up their chilling setups in hopes of getting better efficiency, but often the limiting factor is just hard facts of thermodynamics. It can take a lot of water, no matter how you mix it, to bring 5gal of boiling wort to pitching temps.

I don't know of any plate chillers that open up for inspection. It's pretty much a constraint of the design.

This is true. If your water out of your tap is 75 degrees, you simply can't chill with it lower than that no matter what your chilling device is.

However, you can chill faster by agitating the chiller/wort. A prechiller is great for saving water, as is recirculating with ice water (with a pond pump).

The same constraints for temperature will apply to any type of chilling device, whether it's a Therminator, an immersion chiller, or a counterflow chiller.

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

And, please remember to keep any political debates, remarks, and other controversial topics out of the technical threads and only in the debate forum, as per our forum rules.

 

[LLBeanJ]

You may want to look into a no chill method.. no water usage, pitch yeast a few days after your wort naturally cools.

Excellent suggestion.

The Aussies came up with no-chill out of necessity, as they have some serious water shortage issues, the kind that make our periodic droughts appear trivial. Well worth looking into if you're concerned about water usage when brewing.

 

[fpweeks]

Dudadiesel makes a reasonable plate chiller. Love mine.

 

[bottlebomber]

I'm kind of pissed about the water loss as well. A plate chiller seems like one solution, but really I just end up not making hoppy beers in the summer, and doing a no-chill. I let it cool in the kettle down to about 120 and then into the bucket and an ice bath. Haven't had any problems doing this, as far as infection, clarity etc. Plus I hate my immersion chiller. Look for it in the classifieds in the near future.

 

[moonshinerhopkins]

Grab yourself a fish tank pump and hose that fits put pump in container. It will suck your ice water in, and that extra hose. Return it back into the same container, then just recycle your water.
= 0 spillage or waste!!

 

[bottlebomber]

How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?

 

[Brewham]

25 gallons of nice hot water to clean out your brew pot and rinse out your fermentation bucket.

 

[HDIr0n]

buy a pond pump and recirculate ice water through your chiller. no wasted water and you get to chill faster.

That is one of the best things I did to improve my chilling along with recirculating & whirlpooing.

-G

 

[bob3000]

I guess I had to qualify that I rent, and have no use for the water.

I can tell by some of the responses that water conservation is far too close to sounding like environmentalism. Political discourse in the states doesn't sound like too much fun, nor is it really productive with your political/media environment trivializing everything and rendering every argument relative, redundant, or outright idiotic. What else is new right?

Perhaps it'll be more of a concern when your aquifers are all contaminated and you have to scrounge for money or resources to obtain clean water. These things always come to mind after the fact though. Good luck indeed.

i think the point people are making is not that water waste isn't a problem but that when you put 100l in the context of an average persons daily usage it actually isn't as bad as you think.
And If you are really cut up about it, miss a few showers and you should square it up.

 

[bob3000]

Apparently it takes 300l to make one pint of commercial beer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/brewing-companies-water-usage-footprint

 

[Stankonia]

How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?

That's the problem with ice-water recirculating idea that gets thrown around a lot. The water coming out of the IC is pretty damn hot, so your ice-water bath isn't going to stay ice cold for long if you're recirculating right off the bat.

I recirculated ice-water with my IC when I lived in FL..but I didn't actually start using my ice-water supply, and completely having a closed-off recirculating system until about 15 minutes of chilling time with just tap water and collecting my steaming hot runoff in my HLT.

Collecting the run-off water was a perfect opportunity to throw in some oxyclean and thus having my cleaning water nice and hot and the oxyclean completely dissovled. I use 15.5g keggles, and ended up using just a little over 15gals for chilling before I switch to a close re=circulation.

 

[onthekeg]

Apparently it takes 300l to make one pint of commercial beer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/brewing-companies-water-usage-footprint

I am not sure where they are coming up with that number, then later in the article SAB has a ratio of 4:1 which is well documented. I think this website likes to scare people with their subtitles and/or pictures to appease their target market.

 

[MalFet]

How cool do those ice water recirculating setups really get the wort? How much ice do you need?

I'm not sure, to be honest. I've gotten my wort down to 50°F without much trouble, but I've never had reason to go below that. I buy a 5lb bag because that's what's available, and it always has been plenty to supplement my water (which is at least 75°F this time of year)

This is on a 50' chiller with a recirculation arm. I capture the first 10 gallons for cleaning, then I fill the sink with 3 gallons of water and the bag of ice. I use a cheapo pond pump that I had laying around to push water after that. Takes about 15min to get from boiling to pitching temps.

 

[bottlebomber]

Cool, it sounds like you guys are using the same technique. I'll have to try that, and maybe I can learn to love my IC again.

 

[Yooper]

Cool, it sounds like you guys are using the same technique. I'll have to try that, and maybe I can learn to love my IC again.

As was mentioned, the key is to not use the boiling water that initially comes out of the chiller. I fill my HLT with some the hot water, to use for cleaning the brewkettle when it's empty. Within a few minutes, the water coming out of the chiller is cooler (you can at least touch it without burning yourself, even though it's still pretty warm) and that is the time to add the ice.

I tried using NO chilling water, and just using my HEX in my HERMS to chill a 5 gallon batch with ice. But it took 42 pounds of ice doing it that way- and so I never did that again. Combining the two- chilling to sub-130 with the chiller, and then using some ice and recirculating- would be a fairly efficient and cost effective way to do chilling.

 

[bottlebomber]

As was mentioned, the key is to not use the boiling water that initially comes out of the chiller. I fill my HLT with some the hot water, to use for cleaning the brewkettle when it's empty. Within a few minutes, the water coming out of the chiller is cooler (you can at least touch it without burning yourself, even though it's still pretty warm) and that is the time to add the ice.

I tried using NO chilling water, and just using my HEX in my HERMS to chill a 5 gallon batch with ice. But it took 42 pounds of ice doing it that way- and so I never did that again. Combining the two- chilling to sub-130 with the chiller, and then using some ice and recirculating- would be a fairly efficient and cost effective way to do chilling.

Sounds good. Really, it's those last 30 or 40 degrees that are using at least half of the water.

 

[BBBF]

Am I the only one that uses the hot water coming out of the chiller to start cleaning up and do a few extra dishes? That way the water is not going to waste and I am even recycling the heat.