Wort chiller 101

[g0dolphins]

Update: I just bought the last piece of plastic tubing I need to complete the IC setup (it's going to look like something from Frankenstein's lab when completed). When it's all said and done, there will be 3 different sized hoses to go from the copper of the IC to the output side of the water pump, and 15/16" inside dia. hose for the input side of the water pump. I like the idea of keeping fridge temp water on hand to add to the bath mixture. Also, in 3 days time our ice maker fills the ice cube bin, and that's about a 1 -1/2 gallons of ice to work with.

I also like the idea of using the 60 +/- degree tap water as an initial temperature break.

My home brew club has our first brew day for 2007 this Saturday, so I might try to assemble the IC and take it there for review/comments.

 

[Scorching Sugar]

Made an immersion wort chiller out of 5/8 inch copper tubing left in my garage by a previous occupant. Left 50 feet so the first 25 was for the wort chiller and the second 25 was for the prechiller. Used two bags of ice from Smart and final and cooled from 212 down to 70 in 6:02. :rockin:

 

[kidoduck]

I know this Immersion Cooler info is an old thread, but I wonder if you could tell me, Why bother starting with tap water if you have a bucket and submersible pump? Why not just recirculate ice water from the start? It seems you could keep an extra bag of ice on hand if it starts to melt(might need to start with an oversize bucket).

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

kidoduck,
It's because there is sooooo much heat to remove at the start and since there is such a big temperature difference between the hot wort and regular tap water...regular tap water will still remove the heat very effectively. But once you get that large 'surge' of heat out at the start, then the heat transfer rate starts to go down so in order to remove the heat quickly you need to reduce the temp of the chill water. That big surge of heat removed at the beginning would also probably melt your ice.

EDIT: I dunno how hot the water coming out of the IC would be if you used ice water in at the beginning...but if it's too hot you could dump the IC chill water outlet and refill the reservoir with tap...at least that way your not dumping hot/warm water back into the reservoir.

Also might as well add this: Bobby said that you don't want to pump too fast but if your 'stuck' with a pump that's too fast you can just add a bypass that dumps right back into the reservoir (basically a tee at the pump outlet...one line to the IC and the other is the bypass that dumps back...a couple of valves and you can throttle the flow however you like...just try not to deadhead the pump outlet).

 

[Jun]

A week or so ago I built an IC using a submersible pump
that I bought at pet supply store for $24, it is only 35GPH, however that
seams to be perfect speed for this purpose.

 

[Bobby_M]

At a moderate flow rate, and assuming you're stirring the wort, the output water is going to be up in the mid to high 100's. In fact, I'd be prone to running the pump with just tap water in the basin for the first 3-5 minutes, collect the output water in a bucket to save for cleanup later, THEN dump the ice in and redirect the output flow back into the ice basin. The thing is, ice is expensive and there's no reason to dump 160F water back into it when you have access to tap water (even if it's warm at 85F).

I'll also add that this icewater thing is completely moot for those in the northern states in the winter. My freakin tap water is 47F right now. I wouldn't spend $5 in ice to cut my chill time by 1 minute.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

My freakin tap water is 47F right now.

Mine is pretty warm-ish here in Florida...I didn't measure it but I ran some tap water on the towel wrapped around my glass carboy yesterday (swamp method fermentation...which you guys up north probably rarely have to do?) and the airlock bubble rate went up...my house is @ ~70 degrees F so it would appear my tap water is >70 degrees F. But I guess each has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Boby,
What do you think of using ice water from the get go but run the IC CW outlet to another bucket (for later cleanup) and replenishing the CW reservoir with tap water...that way you're not putting hot water back into the CW reservoir?

 

[Bobby_M]

It would be great if you run it slow enough that the water coming out is hot. If you run it too fast (or your chiller length is short), the water will come out cold and the delta is wasted. If you find that you often run out of ice too soon, you can go back to my suggestion of using straight tap water for the first few minutes. The delta between 210F wort and even 90F tap water is so great that you get great chilling at first. The ice is handy when the wort is approaching 100F and delta gets lower and lower. Chilling slows down big time there.

 

[Hugh_Jass]

Bobby,
So applying that logic to a recirculating pump IC, use two separate water reservoirs; one ice bath and one closer to actual tap temp using the tap one first, followed by the ice bath?
sound right?

 

[Bobby_M]

I could go two ways on that. You can run your garden hose/tap water directly into the chiller for a few minutes, then swap over to the pump as the source. That way your icewater is sitting there, already 32F.

The other option is to hook the chiller to the pump from the start, fill your basin with tap water, start pumping for 3 minutes then dump the ice into the remaining water. It will take a little while for the ice to cool the water, but we're talking about 3 minutes give or take and you wouldn't have to mesh with the connections.

 

[Jun]

I did an experiment over past two days, one was to recirculate water in the same cooler and the other to have one cooler with cold water and the other just to collect the hot water coming out of the chiller.
The second method did the job in half the time! I didn't even need to use ice water.

Oh.. I also turned the pump speed down a bit, that might have helped as well.

 

[Superman3278]

Try making your own recyclable ice; use a 3 liter soda bottle filled to 80% to allow for expansion. Make at least four bottles and be shure use sanitary water because they do somtimes crack. I drop one in my wort and one in my pre-chiller pail then switch out as nessacary. I go from 215df to 60df in 4 min. flat 3.5 gal wort, note: the faster you get below 78df the better "cold break" for clarity purpose only. I also use pre boiled pre chilled top off water for 5.5gal batches because there is no added benifit of boiling all the water with ingrediants, no infusing going on in beer making just extraction from grain to hops.

Cheers