New future project ....stirring wort chiller.

[Toymaker]

I am throwing around the idea building or retrofitting my current wort chiller.
Right now my chiller is made from (3) 20' coils of 1/4 copper plumbed in parallel with each other. They are about 2 1/2" in diameter and positioned in a triangular shape. It works great, although I have to stir the pot while cooling for the heat transfer to work efficiently. 3 gallon boils take about 6 -7minutes to cool with "Winter" tap water if stirred constantly. If not stirred, it takes about 25 minutes.

So I came up with the idea of making the wort chiller stir as it cools. I have an extra 6 RPM gear motor needing a project. My thought is to create a brass water dual port slip ring for the supply/cool water and the exhaust water. With the low pressure on a chiller I can use standard neoprene o-rings. I'll probably use a double seal on the top and bottom of the slip ring for a better seal, to make sure no water escapes into the wort. This will be a great tool for my brew setup because I won't have to stand there and stir while chilling, it'll be hands off. I'm thinking of incorporating it right into a brew pot lid so I can just swap out the lids in the last 15 minutes of the boil to kill any nasty's on it. I'm going to go to the scrap yard to find some brass. Then turn parts on my lathe. It shouldn't take too long and will be a nice tool to have. I'm going to be making a keggle soon too so I'll make the lid fit that as well as the depth. It's much deeper than my current brewpot.
Has anyone else seen something like this? I've looked at a lot of wort chillers here but never seen one that stirs the wort...

 

[horseinmay]

This will be quite awesome if you can pull it off. I'm interested in how you get it to seal, and how you get it to turn. This will be powered by the water pressure, no?

 

[Toymaker]

This will be quite awesome if you can pull it off. I'm interested in how you get it to seal, and how you get it to turn. This will be powered by the water pressure, no?

No it will plug in I pick up gear motors from time to time via Ebay. You can never have too many I use them for all kind of projects. This will be yet another. I'll post pic's as I go.

 

[krazydave]

I was thinking about doing something very similar, I just didn't like the idea of a motor running over cooled wort.
I spent some time trying to find a motor that would run on the liquid pressure, but never did find anything.

I recently just decided to build a CFC though and be done with my IC, however.
Definitely interested in seeing what you come up with though!

 

[Ceedubya]

love the chiller! But why not just buy a pump and fashion a whirlpool device to stir the liquid instead of the entire chiller? I am currently planning / building a whirlpool chiller myself to replace my old IC.

 

[Chia]

not to be a negative nacy, but wouldn't bigger tubing and less coils be faster? have you ever checked to see how hot at what chiller point the water gets? my small chiller gets darn hot and it is a single. I could not imagine moving the hot water through another chiller tube... just saying, i dont know, i have a ****ty little chiller and it takes a half hour for me.

 

[Toymaker]

It actually works very well. I did it this way to conserve space and maximize surface area. This little thing has the same surface area as 30' of 1/2" . 1/4" is super easy to work with too. I simply spiraled the tube around a 2"piece of PVC. If the wort is hot the water out is really hot! hot enough to make clear tubing turn milky white.

If I make this thing spin in the wort it should cool even better than stirring by hand.

 

[Toymaker]

I was thinking about doing something very similar, I just didn't like the idea of a motor running over cooled wort.

Why?
That's why i ws thinking of mounting the motor / slip ring above the cover nothing can fall into the wort as far as I can tell..

 

[krazydave]

Just afraid of the minuscule amounts of stuff coming out of the motor's armature. Above a lid would ne fine though, but when I thought about that, I determined that I'd need a dedicated lid or my lid would always have my chiller hanging from it.

This was all before a pump was introduced to my rig though. If I was still planning on using the IC I'd probably be more than happy just whirpooling it around the chiller.

 

[ACbrewer]

OP - Stir bar in the bottom with a larger stirer.... I've seen some on HBT were they were wirlpooling a full carboy, Take a big stirer and stirbar, but that would do it, it should operate clear of your chiller.