Problem cooling the wort

[Octavius]

Hi folks,

Well, I brewed my first batch using the keggle (15.5 gall Sanke). There’s nothing like the feeling, at the end of the process, of opening up that valve and watching 10 gall of soon-to-be beer gushing out into the fermentor.

All went well except for the cooling down part – basically it took 70 min and 40 gall of (70F) well water.

I diverted the spent cooling water (from my newly constructed 50’ ½” diameter cooling coil) into 5 gallon buckets.

Here are the results:

Buckets ...........Time (mins) ...........Temp (F)
0........... ...........0........... ........... 212
1........... ...........12........... ...........170
2........... ...........29........... ...........120
3........... ...........34........... ...........110
4........... ...........41........... ...........97
5........... ...........47........... ...........90
6........... ...........57........... ...........80
7........... ...........63........... ...........77
8........... ...........70........... ...........75

We have actually run dry on well water before (when I was watering the lawn). This is not a good thing – the wife gets perturbed and the well-pump (normally cooled by well water) gets fried.

This is going to be a show-stopper unless I can come up with some ideas.

Perhaps, after 30 min, I could connect the coil to a bucket, containing ice water, and gravity feed in.

Also, I can adjust the grain bill and increase the volume in the keggle to the max and dilute the resulting wort to 15 gall. Then put the three 5-gall fermentors (corny kegs) in the fridge overnight. Is there any downside to this? ie diluting 12 gall of cooled wort with 3 gall of tap water.

Cheers!

 

[BeerBudha]

Hi folks,

I could connect the coil to a bucket, containing ice water, and gravity feed in.

This works excelently (is that a word?) I live in southern az and thats what I have to do, there's no such thing as cold water down here in the summer. I fill my sink with ice water and recirculate the water using a pump bought at the local hydroponic store. Works great.

 

[Octavius]

BeerBudha,
Thanks for the post.
Yeah, that's a word - if you stick in an extra "L".

I do have a pump someplace that I bought to aerate the wort. Never got around to using it - I'll have to dig it out and see if I can rig it up to the coil some how.

This has got me thinking. I have my old 25' 3/8" cooling coil - maybe I can use the ice bucket to hold this coil and then run the well water through this coil before it reaches the main 50' coil. The neat thing about that is the old coil is still hooked up with garden hose connectors so connecting it all up will be a breeze.

Cheers!

 

[BeerBudha]

I've heard of that being done before so I don't see why it wouldn't work. But if then how would you recirculate the water?

 

[Yeastmonkey]

Another Arizona boy here and after dealing with 90 deg. tap water at 9:00 at night, I decided to try Edworts system and couldn't be happier. After I get my wort down into the lower 100's, I hook up my IC to a bucket with ice water and pump it using a cheap Harbor Freight pond pump. I recirculate the chiller water back into the bucket once it is below my 90 deg tap water. I used for my last batch for the first time and chilled from 212 to 65 in :25. Ive rigged my IC, hose and pond pump with quick disconnects, so that the switch from tap water to pump is a breeze.

 

[samc]

Seems like you are a candidate for the no chill method. I have yet to try it but several posters swear by it.

 

[Bullbythehorns]

I am trying the No Chill method to see if I can conserve water, should keg it tomorrow so will be able to report my results in a few weeks.

A friend is having good success with his Blichman Plate chiller. He paid quite a bit for it, but comparable ones (size wise) are available on e-bay for approx $65-80. On a 5 gallon batch he is using right around 5 gallons, then watering his trees with what he collects.

 

[BrewBeemer]

Hi folks,

Well, I brewed my first batch using the keggle (15.5 gall Sanke). There’s nothing like the feeling, at the end of the process, of opening up that valve and watching 10 gall of soon-to-be beer gushing out into the fermentor.

All went well except for the cooling down part – basically it took 70 min and 40 gall of (70F) well water.

I diverted the spent cooling water (from my newly constructed 50’ ½” diameter cooling coil) into 5 gallon buckets.

Here are the results:

Buckets ...........Time (mins) ...........Temp (F)
0........... ...........0........... ........... 212
1........... ...........12........... ...........170
2........... ...........29........... ...........120
3........... ...........34........... ...........110
4........... ...........41........... ...........97
5........... ...........47........... ...........90
6........... ...........57........... ...........80
7........... ...........63........... ...........77
8........... ...........70........... ...........75

We have actually run dry on well water before (when I was watering the lawn). This is not a good thing – the wife gets perturbed and the well-pump (normally cooled by well water) gets fried.

This is going to be a show-stopper unless I can come up with some ideas.

Perhaps, after 30 min, I could connect the coil to a bucket, containing ice water, and gravity feed in.

Also, I can adjust the grain bill and increase the volume in the keggle to the max and dilute the resulting wort to 15 gall. Then put the three 5-gall fermentors (corny kegs) in the fridge overnight. Is there any downside to this? ie diluting 12 gall of cooled wort with 3 gall of tap water.

Cheers!

My friends deep well runs dry after 15 minutes pumping at 8 gallons a minute but recovers within 3-5 minutes with his submergable pump. I gave him a 55 gallon white plastic food grade drum that he fills up over time from his well while starting his brewing process. Thru a cheap pump he pumps thu his cooler coils off the 55 gallon drum, when near the end fills a smaller 20 gallon drum with ice and water for the last temperature drop. He saves all his water for the main house tank. His ground water holds 68 degrees in the summer with a 2,000 gallon tank for the house only that gets refilled on a timer thruout the night with short cycles preventing the the well going dry with the slow recovery problem he also has in the summer. There is a low level switch protecting the pump that starts a 10 minute delay timer for filling the main house tank thruout the night.
I feel bad going thru 12 to 1,500 gallons every other day watering the yard with a shallow well I let run endless by the hour plus for the Coi fish pond with water at 11' and 63 degrees in the summer.
You must be in a dry area, water down deep with a lot of solid rock.
Have you thought about making a cooling system out of a old AC unit that blows thru a matched in size radiator that you can circulate with a small pump this would save you a lot of water then only the electricity bill for the AC unit while in use?

 

[GoldMiner]

I just purchased a small utility pump($30) and pumped ice water from a cooler through the chiller.

Took a little over 20 minutes to get 5 gallons down to 66 degrees.

Probably would have gone a little quicker if I used more ice.