I want to make a prechiller

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

What's the least amount of copper line you think I could get by with?

I want to go with the coil that you hook to your garden hose and drop in a cooler full of ice water. Would five feet actually do any good?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I doubt it. I think you would want at least 20'.

 

[2nd Street Brewery]

20 ft would be good. My pre chillers looks like it is made with about 10 to 12 ft of copper, the main chiller has about 25ft. You might get by with 5ft but I don't think it will give you enough surface to make a big difference.

 

[Bobby_M]

You could get by with maybe 10' but you'd have to get the icewater colder (add rock salt) and/or run the water slower.

 

[foppa78]

I used 25 feet of 3/8 and put the coil in a bucket with hose fittings on the outside. Just add ice and water to the bucket.

Trying to add pictures.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2525633950058020267tYwVEy?vhost=home-and-garden
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2132318930058020267YvXGop?vhost=home-and-garden

 

[EvilTOJ]

That's a pretty tight system you have there foppa.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

I used 25 feet of 3/8 and put the coil in a bucket with hose fittings on the outside. Just add ice and water to the bucket.

Trying to add pictures.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2525633950058020267tYwVEy?vhost=home-and-garden
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2132318930058020267YvXGop?vhost=home-and-garden

that does look cool. It's just that copper has gotten so dang expensive. I guess I just need to nut up

 

[foppa78]

Yeah the price has gone up. I lucked out and got some copper on a going out of business sale from a local hardware store here in Kansas City. I am new to this so I don't know how many people have something like this for the hot summer months. If someone in this area needed one I would be more than willing to help.

 

[Ize]

Billy, I went ahead and bought a new immersion chiller, so I'm going to use my original get-toe chiller

[/IMG]


as a pre-chiller this summer. Going to put it in your basic 5 gal bucket of ice with simple tubing and garden hose fittings to connect to the actual immersion chiller.

That's the plan anyway... I'll keep you posted.

Ize

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Billy, I went ahead and bought a new immersion chiller, so I'm going to use my original get-toe chiller

as a pre-chiller this summer. Going to put it in your basic 5 gal bucket of ice with simple tubing and garden hose fittings to connect to the actual immersion chiller.

That's EXACTLY what I did, except my upgrade was a CFC. Wish I would've gone with a plate chiller, though.

 

[Bobby_M]

What you should do is comparison shop 20-25' of 3/8" copper tubing with a small submersible aquarium pump (~200-300gph). You can acheive the same end with either. The reason why people use prechillers is so you can use the pressure of the tap to drive cold water through your chiller. Using a submersible pump allows you to drop it in a bucket of icewater and pump it directly into the your IC. You end up with water that's a lot colder than the tap would be coming out of a prechiller. You can actually test this out yourself prior to buying anything.

1. Test the temp of the water coming directly out of your garden hose. I'll assume it's hotter than 60F otherwise you wouldn't even be discussing prechillers.
2. Put your IC into a bucket of icewater.
3. Test the temperature of your ice water (it's 32 degrees unless you put rocksalt in it, then it will be much lower).
4. Run the garden hose water through the chiller and collect the output water. Measure the temperature of this water. I bet it's higher than 32F.

Bottom line; water in direct contact with ice will be colder than water separated from the ice by a wall of copper.

 

[foppa78]

In this type of setup with the pump would you be recirculating the water back into the bucket or just keep adding ice\water into the bucket to replace what is being pumped?

 

[blefferd]

im going to rig mine up so it goes threw a pre chiller, then main chiller, then to the sprinkler to water the lawn :rockin: :rockin:

 

[Bobby_M]

In this type of setup with the pump would you be recirculating the water back into the bucket or just keep adding ice\water into the bucket to replace what is being pumped?

The method I would suggest is put straight tap through the IC at first, just until the wort hits about low hundreds (~110F). Then switch the chiller over to your pump immersed in icewater. At that point you can either recirculate the output water back into the icebucket or let it dump. If the output water from the chiller is around 90-100F, it's probably about the same temp as your tap water so topping up the icebucket can be done with either.


blefferd.. dude, chiller output water can be near 200F at first.. Don't put that on your grass.... dead.

 

[blefferd]

im aware of the temp that comes out of the cooler it sprayed all over my bare foot yesterday lol the water coming out of my chiller once it cooled off a bit wasnt bad i would put it on my grass

 

[Tophe]

blefferd.. dude, chiller output water can be near 200F at first.. Don't put that on your grass.... dead.

Ahhhh....thats why the grass died where I put my exit water on my last brew!! I was wondering why that was...LOL.....wont do that next time.

 

[Bobby_M]

I know about it because my dad used to kill weeds by putting boiling water in an old metal fire extinguisher and blasting them a bit. Nice enviro friendly method!

 

[blefferd]

hmm that is a good idea for killing weeds, boiling water has so many use's! now if i could only market it lol

 

[user 574]

My tap water in summer is shooting out at around 80+. I got a CFC and my old immersion and plan to do the pre-chiller as well this year. My only question is how affective really is it? 5 degress, 10? I know flow rate will be taken into account but curious minds want to know.

BTW - love the pics on the bucket setup!

 

[Tophe]

wow...thats warm water out of the tap. Advantage of having your own well I guess. My water is around 55 all year round.

 

[user 574]

wow...thats warm water out of the tap. Advantage of having your own well I guess. My water is around 55 all year round.

Yep, really sucks brewing in summer. Water is already heating up... But on a good note; it's 75 outside currently (I'm from WI)

 

[sirsloop]

or brew 40 gallons of beer every spring and skip boiling water for hours and hours during 80°+ weather

I really like bobby's idea w/ the pump...

 

[user 574]

or brew 40 gallons of beer every spring and skip boiling water for hours and hours during 80°+ weather

I really like bobby's idea w/ the pump...

That's the goal but life gets in the way . Oh, and it's 105+ degree weather; only the water is 80+

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

What you should do is comparison shop 20-25' of 3/8" copper tubing with a small submersible aquarium pump (~200-300gph). You can acheive the same end with either. The reason why people use prechillers is so you can use the pressure of the tap to drive cold water through your chiller. Using a submersible pump allows you to drop it in a bucket of icewater and pump it directly into the your IC. You end up with water that's a lot colder than the tap would be coming out of a prechiller. You can actually test this out yourself prior to buying anything.

1. Test the temp of the water coming directly out of your garden hose. I'll assume it's hotter than 60F otherwise you wouldn't even be discussing prechillers.
2. Put your IC into a bucket of icewater.
3. Test the temperature of your ice water (it's 32 degrees unless you put rocksalt in it, then it will be much lower).
4. Run the garden hose water through the chiller and collect the output water. Measure the temperature of this water. I bet it's higher than 32F.

Bottom line; water in direct contact with ice will be colder than water separated from the ice by a wall of copper.

That does sound cheaper, but it sounds hard to set that up. I guess I need to check the wiki to see if there is a diagram or something. I just can't picture it.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's really not hard at all. I suppose since I've been in the aquarium hobby for years, it doesn't seem all that duanting to connect a hose to a submersible pump. If you can plumb an immersion chiller to begin with, you can use the pump too.

If you want to make it even easier, where you don't have to switch hoses around, you can attach the pump right away to the chiller. Drop it in a bucket and run tap water into your bucket. You can start chilling by simply pumping this tap. Once the wort gets to 100ish degrees, drop your ice in.

I like the first method I mentioned because you don't run the pump more than you have to. Also, it's nice to have that bucket of water and ice fully equalized to 32F ahead of time.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

It's really not hard at all. I suppose since I've been in the aquarium hobby for years, it doesn't seem all that duanting to connect a hose to a submersible pump. If you can plumb an immersion chiller to begin with, you can use the pump too.

If you want to make it even easier, where you don't have to switch hoses around, you can attach the pump right away to the chiller. Drop it in a bucket and run tap water into your bucket. You can start chilling by simply pumping this tap. Once the wort gets to 100ish degrees, drop your ice in.

I like the first method I mentioned because you don't run the pump more than you have to. Also, it's nice to have that bucket of water and ice fully equalized to 32F ahead of time.

About how much ice water do you go through?

 

[user 4295]

I use the same method of cooling the wort with tap water through an IC from boiling down to around 100˚F. Then I use the submersible pump to recirculate ice water though the IC. The reason this works so well and is such an efficient use of ice is due to the temperature differentials.

The difference in temperature between boiling and tap water, even warm tap water, is great enough to cause a rapid transfer of heat. Once the wort is down to 100˚F the temp diff is not so great any longer so the heat transfer slows. Now, by recirculating ice water you have created another large temperature differential, and this will allow for a more rapid heat transfer to your pitching temperature.

I have never found it necessary to use more than two 5 lb bags of ice, topped up with cold water in a 5 gallon bucket to cool wort down to 50˚F.

 

[Brewer3401]

I use 50' of copper tubing for a pre-chiller. I'm in the New Orleans area, and it gets really hot down here. Even in August, I can get to 65 F within 25 minutes. I get from boiling to under 100 F in under 10 minutes. The balance of reduction takes the other 15 minutes (diminishing returns).
Another thought: I've found I have less evaporation on very humid days, as opposed to low humidity days. I think when the air is very dry, evaporation rate is higher (sorry for off subject, but been wanting to say that for a while).

The more pre-chiller surface area you have, the better. 100' would be killer, but you would need maybe a 100 quart igloo to hold it.