Improving CFC Efficiency

[_d_]

Hello,

Today I built a counter flow chiller based on Bobby M's awesome tutorial. Thanks Bobby! I used 20' (thats the longest continuous piece home depot carried) of 3/8 OD copper tubing encased in 5/8 garden hose.

I tested it with boiling water just now. Using tap water at 71 F, the chiller reduced the boiling water from 212 F to 80 F. Unfortunately thats still a little hotter than I'd like to pitch at.

I was naively hoping I would be able to chill my wort to approximately the temp of my cooling water (~70 F).

Does anyone have suggestions on how to bump up my efficiency without using a colder water source?

Intuitively, I would expect that either increasing the flow of the cooling water or reducing the flow of the wort would allow more heat to be exchanged... so would either constraining the wort a little more or increasing the water pressure would help?

Thanks!

 

[Bill_in_VA]

Yes.

I made a 50 footer and my wort does reach my cooling water temp. You need either a higher cooling water flow rate or a lower wort flow rate or both.

Also make sure you plumbed it so it actually "counter flowing"

 

[cascadia]

Try putting a valve on the wort out side of the chiller. Keep all the valves upstream wide open. Then you can monitor the out temp and throttle the valve accordingly to keep wort in the chiller longer, therefore reducing the temperature. Restricting the flow at the end also ensures that the chiller is full of wort-if it is just trickling through it will not be as effective.

 

[koomber]

Try putting a valve on the wort out side of the chiller. Keep all the valves upstream wide open. Then you can monitor the out temp and throttle the valve accordingly to keep wort in the chiller longer, therefore reducing the temperature. Restricting the flow at the end also ensures that the chiller is full of wort-if it is just trickling through it will not be as effective.

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