Pre-chill by coiling garden hose in ice bath?

[kh54s10]

I do essentially the same as what was shown in the video. I have two sections of IC, one fits inside the other. Each is 20 ft long. I put both in the wort to sanitize, after flameout I turn on the water. The discharge goes down the drain. When cooling gets slow I take the smaller section out of the wort and put in a bucket of ice and water to chill further. Even my 80+ degree tap water melts the ice fairly quickly, so I don't keep the pre-chiller in the icewater the whole time.

 

[IslandLizard]

I'm off to work on inventing and constructing a hose made of a material that allows for excellent heat exchange

You don't need to invent it, it exists already. The hose is called copper tubing. Stainless will work too, although close, not quite as well. It stays shiny while copper oxidizes.

 

[jack13]

You don't need to invent it, it exists already. The hose is called copper tubing. Stainless will work too, although close, not quite as well. It stays shiny while copper oxidizes.

Obviously we're both joking, but to confirm I brought the question up originally because it occurred to me there may be a VERY simple, ZERO expense, option, as in "Hey, look at that hose sending kinda warm water into my immersion chiller. Could I just take that sucker--or replace it with a longer one-- and coil it in some ice water and speed this up?"

Answer: No.

So I'll continue to just settle for getting it to 90 and sticking it in the ferm chamber till it hits pitching temp. No biggie. Not worth it (to me) to do any purchasing or further rigging.

 

[ccfatboy]

Obviously we're both joking, but to confirm I brought the question up originally because it occurred to me there may be a VERY simple, ZERO expense, option, as in "Hey, look at that hose sending kinda warm water into my immersion chiller. Could I just take that sucker--or replace it with a longer one-- and coil it in some ice water and speed this up?"

Answer: No.

So I'll continue to just settle for getting it to 90 and sticking it in the ferm chamber till it hits pitching temp. No biggie. Not worth it (to me) to do any purchasing or further rigging.

I get what you were asking, as I was thinking the same thing myself. I thought about buying a second immersion chiller to put in an ice bath, but then I thought what if I just wrap a few metres of the hose and shove it in an ice bath before it hits the chiller. I get that the hose won't transfer the cold as efficiently as copper but as it's no cost and simple to do, I thought it would be worth a try. I'll give it a go and see what happens. I also get your point that running it through the ice from the start wouldn't hurt much, as you're not going to melt the ice in half an hour with cold tap water.

 

[RPh_Guy]

you're not going to melt the ice in half an hour with cold tap water.

First, welcome to HBT!

Unfortunately I know from experience 20lbs of ice melts quite rapidly with 74°F tap water flowing through an immersion chiller, certainly less than a half hour.

Either the ice melts rapidly because it's chilling the water, or it doesn't because it's not. You can't have ice chilling the water effectively but not melting.

Using ice from the start is highly inefficient. Lots of ice will melt before you actually need it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_cooling

Brew on!

 

[jack13]

First, welcome to HBT!

Unfortunately I know from experience 20lbs of ice melts quite rapidly with 74°F tap water flowing through an immersion chiller, certainly less than a half hour.

Either the ice melts rapidly because it's chilling the water, or it doesn't because it's not. You can't have ice chilling the water effectively but not melting.

Using ice from the start is highly inefficient. Lots of ice will melt before you actually need it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_cooling

Brew on!

^yep, but an additional sidenote that occurred to me: a "bucket of ice" can mean a range of things--anywhere from a home depot type bucket with some ice and ice packs from the fridge to one of those large plastic buckets people use as makeshift coolers for parties and such, filled with a couple/few large bags of ice from the store. ...so the amount of 'cooling power' a bucket of ice has can vary drastically.

And excellent point about the not melting = not cooling.