My Wort chiller is inneficient!

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Shwagger

Shwagger

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Location
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Its been over 30 min and my wort is only at 100. I bought one that uses 1/4 inch and I knew knew knew it was too thin. Damnit for me being so cheap.


What size should I break the bank on? For 5g batches

Gracias
 
Assuming that this is a immersion, do you move it around in the wort when chilling? That makes a big difference. Prior to going CFC I had the 1/4" one and I had the same problem until I stirred the wort with it while chilling.
 
Also, what is the temp of the water going through the chiller. Groundwater in florida may be 95 degrees this time of year.

You may need a pre-chiller or submersible pump.
 
What temperature is your ground water? As the difference between the water supply and the wort decreases, the heat transfer slows down rather rapidly. If it is much over 70F, you'll have to setup a pre-chiller.
 
I have the same problem. I put my boil pot in a larger pot and split the hose with one going to the wort chiller and one going to a piece of hose that wraps around the boil pot with some holes in it. the water stays cold around the pot and the wort chiller does its thing and I get the wort cooled in about 15 minutes.
 
I use a pump and hose/ice water combo. I also stirred it with the IC as much as I could. It just doesnt pump enough water due to the small diameter. I also use a keggle
 
Okay so can you use any kind of tubing; air/fridge, K or L type? Or can you only use a specific type?
 
Check with the website for current prices. Maybe...

I paid $48 delivered for 50' of 1/2" in January of this year.
 
I live in Florida too and I had this same problem. Unfortunately a larger IC isn't going to solve your problem. I have a 50' 1/2 copper IC I used to use and had the exact same results. The problem as mentioned before is the temperature of the groundwater you use is probably around or above 80 degrees. What I did was get a counterflow chiller, and used the copper IC to pre-chill the water. I get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it up with ice water, put my IC in that, connect my hose to it, and then run the water coming out of that through my counterflow chiller. It cools the water down to pitching temperature in 1 pass through, which takes about 3-5 minutes. Counterflow chillers arn't cheap though, unfortunnately.
 
My well water isn't any good for brewing, but its damn good for chilling. I can get down to 75 degrees in 8 minutes with 5/16" tubing.
 
Make sure you stir your wort while using the chiller. A thermal boundary layer occurs around the chiller; cold wort surrounds the coils while the rest of the wort remains hot. There needs to be a temperature differential close to the coils for effective heat transfer. You may also need a bigger coil, who knows?
 
My guess here is that your Florida tap water is on the warm side and is only going to get warmer w/in the next few months. Even w/ a deluxe IC you will still need to add ice to the process to get your wort to the mid sixties. You can either go w/ a prechiller of sorts...maybe get a larger chiller and use the one you have for prechilling.

If you can get to 100 degrees w/ your current set up, you can also just place the kettle in a tub w/ 10 - 20 lbs of ice.

Stirring will cut the time as mentioned above.

De nada,
Mike
 
I was using ice water with a fountain pump, and it still wasnt making it any quicker. The 1/4 just isnt big enough and stirring didnt help. I am going to put the keggle in an ice bath and run the IC next time and see what happens, but eventually need to get a counterflow or a huge diameter IC.

It sucks I just bought this damn IC and now I need something better. Home brewing is like owning my b.o.a.t: break out another thousand(or hundred)
 
I start with tap water and then switch to ice water and submersible fountain pump but it still takes 30-40 minutes to get it to ~70* F. I should have bought a higher flow submersible pump, the flow restriction of the IC is more than you think and that seems to bog down those fountain pumps (I think they're rated @ only 1' head or something).

I still have to schlep four 5-gal buckets of IC effluent water to the washing machine...I was hoping to greatly reduce or even eliminate that.:(
 
I live in Gainesville, Fl and we measered our tap water at around 85F at about midnight one night. So it's got to be higher than that during the day. That's a damn cheap chiller on ebay. I don't have a water hose hookup but might look into maybe hooking it up to my faucet in my kitchen.

Thanks for posting that!
 
Wow... 85 degree tap water...if the that POS 1/4 wort chiller is bringing you down to 100 that's great! Ice, ice and more ice...if your tap is that warm...it can only do so much.

I think the problem here is the Florida tap temp, not the cheap IC.
 
Regarding copper tubing prices, definitely check Lowes / Home Depot first. When buying online, you need to includes shipping in the cost as well. For example, the following is for a 50 foot coil of 1/2" refer tubing:

CopperTubingSales.com: $35.60 (before shipping)
Lowes: $38.30
HD: ?? There online site stinks, and never seems up to date. :(
 
wilserbrewer said:
Wow... 85 degree tap water...if the that POS 1/4 wort chiller is bringing you down to 100 that's great! Ice, ice and more ice...if your tap is that warm...it can only do so much.

I think the problem here is the Florida tap temp, not the cheap IC.
Click to expand...

I used ice water, lots of ice water. The 1/4" is garbage


WORD OF WARNING: Don't buy a 1/4" copper wort chiller
 
I wish I would have seen this earlier, cause I think I just bought a 1/4" one. I live in OH though, so maybe I'll have some better luck. If not, I guess I'll be heading down to lowes or HD and pick up some 1/2" tubing.
 
Originally Posted by TommyBoy View Post
If you decide to upgrade to 1/2" copper tubing, these guys are the cheapest:

CopperTubingSales.com :: ICS Indsutries ::

Yet another plug for these guys...
Click to expand...

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:
+1 on them. I would never normlly say this ever, but it is not even worth shopping around to try and beat these people. Unless you have a crow bar and a flashlight.
Click to expand...

.....or a Lowes. :)

i got a 358gph pump at Harbor Freight for $25. check them out. They have bigger ones as well
Click to expand...
SpanishCastleAle said:
Depending on the head pressure they rate it @ and the amount of restriction your IC is...not enough flow imo.
Click to expand...

Yea, I agree. I had their 258GPH model and used it for a long time with a 30ft IC. It worked, but I would have liked a bit more pressure that I could throttle back if needed. I'm not sure how it would have worked with the 50ft IC. One another annoyance about this pump was that in reaaaally cold temps, it wouldn't work. I remember brewing in the winter once and had a cooler full of near freezing water (probably was 35-36F). Flipped the switch to start chilling, and.... nothing. :(
 
golfguy819 said:
I wish I would have seen this earlier, cause I think I just bought a 1/4" one. I live in OH though, so maybe I'll have some better luck. If not, I guess I'll be heading down to lowes or HD and pick up some 1/2" tubing.
Click to expand...

you could always turn the quarter in. into a pre chiller, and still use 3/8 for your actual wort chiller. better than wasting it, anyways.
 
eggbeater59 said:
you could always turn the quarter in. into a pre chiller, and still use 3/8 for your actual wort chiller. better than wasting it, anyways.
Click to expand...

You'd have an interesting time sterilizing both at the end of the boil.

Gotta love Buffalo water. I was at pitching temps on an ale today in 12 minutes.
 
HomebrewJeff said:
Regarding copper tubing prices, definitely check Lowes / Home Depot first. When buying online, you need to includes shipping in the cost as well. For example, the following is for a 50 foot coil of 1/2" refer tubing:

CopperTubingSales.com: $35.60 (before shipping)
Lowes: $38.30
HD: ?? There online site stinks, and never seems up to date. :(
Click to expand...

When I bought from Copper Tubing Sales, it was like $28, and cost me almost $40 after shipping. HD was $34 or so.
 

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