Robobrew

[HazyGillespie]

So my robobrew just arrived excited and nervous all at once. I had a though that it comes with an immersion chiller what i was wondering was can I hook up the pump to the immersion chiller set the chiller in an Ice bath and pump the wort thru the chiller then back into the pot? Recirculating the wort thru the chiller instead of pumping cold water thru the chiller and placing the chiller in the pot?

 

[Pappers_]

That's kind of a counter flow chiller, but without the running cold water. Assuming you can sanitize the inside of the immersion chiller and all the fittings you'd need (that's a big "if" I think), then theoretically you could do this. I think you would find, though, that your ice water would need to be replenished multiple times.

Let us know if you do this and how it worked.

 

[jalc6927]

Better off running the ice water through the chiller while it’s in the wort

I use 4 bags of ice and about a gallon of water, just enough to keep the pump primed

You can immerse the chiller into the boiling wort 5 minutes before chilling to sanitize, plus the copper and zinc will aid as a yeast nutrient (so I’ve read, not a metallurgist)

 

[ram5ey]

couldn't you just run the pump while the immersion chiller goes? seems like you'd chill super fast that way.

 

[jalc6927]

You could but in Texas the ground water doesn’t get very cold even in winter so circulation of 90 degree water does not work well to get wort below 70 degrees

 

[vwluv10338]

Ground water temp issues are exactly why the Aussies developed hot cubing

 

[jalc6927]

What is hot cubing

 

[myndflyte]

What is hot cubing

It's just a no chill method where you just let ambient air chill it down before pitching. Usually takes 24 hours or so. But you need to make sure you have the right container to hold almost boiling liquid.

What I do in the summer when my ground water is too warm is I'll use the water until I get to about 100F. Then I'll hook my chiller up to a pond pump that is in a cooler filled with ice water. I'll pump that through the chiller back into the cooler and just recirculate the water like that. I'll add more ice as it melts.

 

[jalc6927]

Ok, got it

I use the same method you do except I start with the ice water from the get go

 

[CavAv8tr]

So my robobrew just arrived excited and nervous all at once. I had a though that it comes with an immersion chiller what i was wondering was can I hook up the pump to the immersion chiller set the chiller in an Ice bath and pump the wort thru the chiller then back into the pot? Recirculating the wort thru the chiller instead of pumping cold water thru the chiller and placing the chiller in the pot?

I did exactly that with mine yesterday. Just ran the hot Wort through the chiller with the pump (chiller was in the cooler), then added two 10# bags of ice and some hose water. Crashed the Wort from boiling to around 90F very quickly. However the last 20 degrees took a long time. I actually gave up and put the Wort in my fermentation chamber (68F) to bring the temp down. It works, and it works pretty well; but I would buy more ice.

 

[mscroggi]

So my robobrew just arrived excited and nervous all at once. I had a though that it comes with an immersion chiller what i was wondering was can I hook up the pump to the immersion chiller set the chiller in an Ice bath and pump the wort thru the chiller then back into the pot? Recirculating the wort thru the chiller instead of pumping cold water thru the chiller and placing the chiller in the pot?

Yes you can do this.. In fact there is a youtube video of someone doing it.. Sorry I dont remember the guy that did it.. but search for robobrew on youtube.

 

[Brewdogbrew]

I do the counter flow method using the chiller immersed in a large cooler with alot ice (6 10 pound bags of ice) and filled half way up the cooler in water. Wort goes through the chiller and back into the Robobrew using the pump.
I wash and sanitize the chiller and hoses and also sit the chiller in the boiling wort before flame out.
I do run some wort through chiller that I output into a bucket to make sure chiller is good.
With a wort volume of 6 gallons I can get the temperature down to 85 degrees in less than 30 minutes. I then transfer to a conical fermenter that has chiller coil you can insert and pump that sits in the same cooler to get the temp down to 68-70 degrees within another 5 minutes. Depending on what the material of your fermenter, if it is stainless steel, transferring it from Robobrew to fermenter can take down the wort around 5-10 degrees just getting it away from the hot robobrew which lessens the time get to your target pitching temp. Hope this helps