Wort Chilling Closed Loop System

[evilshatner]

Being from drought stricken California, most of the effective wort cooling methods require A LOT of water which just isn't awesome. After a bit of trial and error, I have come up with a system that utilizes an immersion chiller in an ice bath (looking to do better), a plate chiller for the wort and a variable rate marine pump to control the flow of chilled water.

It takes about 28lbs of ice and 1 gallon of water to chill 5 gallons of wort in ~18 minutes.

Below is a quick and dirty drawing of the setup.

• The reservoir is used to bleed air out of the system while continually providing the pump with air-free water
• The immersion chiller sits in an ice bath
• Priming time: ~5 min

I'd love for people to comment on the design and help me improve upon it.

The next thing for me to figure out is: Icy water eventually heats up enough that it becomes nearly ineffective to chill the wort, so what are some other cost effective options?

 

[TexasWine]

I'd ditch the pre chiller and pump ice water directly to the plate chiller with a submersible pump. The pre chiller introduces inefficiencies into the system.

Have you ever considered putting the plate chiller in an ice bath?

But if you really want to save water, go with the no chill method.

 

[auhsojjones]

I'm trying to find a good water pump to basically pump water from a bucket through an immersion chiller and back into the bucket. Running room temp water usually gets me down to about 100-120 degrees, and I'd add ice during he second half.

 

[TheALEchemist]

I'm in the same boat here in So Cal!

Here's what I do...

10+ gal batch...

I pump from Boil to my 50'coil which is in my HLT. HLT has 2 bags of ice and water which is being recirculated by 2nd pump over coil. Total cooling water used is about 10 gallons. Wort ends in fermenter at about 70 deg and it's quick(<10 min)!

 

[day_trippr]

[...]Have you ever considered putting the plate chiller in an ice bath?[...]

The inside channels are thermally isolated from external influence by the outside channels - which have the cooling water running in them.
I doubt there'd be much if any gain by immersing the whole PC.

I agree that the use of an IC in this application seems misplaced, for the reason already stated.
Ditch it and just pump the ice water...

Cheers!

 

[Jaxmickey]

Here's a list of my supplies:
Medium sized cooler
Water fountain pump $12
2 3'pieces of 1/2" ID tubing
4 3/8 hose clamps
copper chiller coil

I secure the tubing to the coil. I attach one to the pump (sitting at bottom of cooler). the other end goes into the ice water as a return. I usually use 40lb ice because of the Florida heat. takes about 20'

 

[bmcgarry]

Here's a list of my supplies:
Medium sized cooler
Water fountain pump $12
2 3'pieces of 1/2" ID tubing
4 3/8 hose clamps
copper chiller coil

I secure the tubing to the coil. I attach one to the pump (sitting at bottom of cooler). the other end goes into the ice water as a return. I usually use 40lb ice because of the Florida heat. takes about 20'

This. Just did the same thing with a 7.5 gallon batch and cooled it in 30 minutes. I've had a pond pump sitting around for years and never thought of this.

I'm going to make a counterflow chiller and use the same recirculating pump technique for the cooling water.

 

[SeeMont]

I brew in a shop with no running water, I chill with water stored in a 35 gallon plastic garbage can using a HF pond pump for circulation. in my freezer, I keep 6 to 8, 2 liter plastic pop bottles frozen to be used to chill water. The water is run through a 25 foot CF chiller. I use the 1st 5 gallons of hot water to clean and then recycle the rest. Hope this helps.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I have a kal clone herms system and I freeze plastic water bottles solid in my garage freezer, I have 50 or so frozen, dual purpose I put them in my fishing cooler too but any way I add the bottles to my HLT under, in and around my herms coil, then I fill the pot with water and let it set for 20 minutes recirculating every 10 minutes for a bit, I can get the pot down to 40F then I just send the wort through the herms coil right into my carboys, I litterly cut my water usage by almost 3/4 and it works for 10 gallons

 

[TexasWine]

The inside channels are thermally isolated from external influence by the outside channels - which have the cooling water running in them.

Not trying to be snarky, but the way I understand plate chiller construction (at least the kind we use for beer), there are no inside and outside channels. It's a plate chiller. Each plate spans the entire width of the exchanger, all the way to the edge. The plates are brazed together at the edges with copper.

Even if there were inside and outside channels, my plate chiller gets scalding hot on the outside when I use it. Submerging it in ice water would definitely drive the temperature in the desired direction.

 

[mattd2]

Not trying to be snarky, but the way I understand plate chiller construction (at least the kind we use for beer), there are no inside and outside channels. It's a plate chiller. Each plate spans the entire width of the exchanger, all the way to the edge. The plates are brazed together at the edges with copper.

Even if there were inside and outside channels, my plate chiller gets scalding hot on the outside when I use it. Submerging it in ice water would definitely drive the temperature in the desired direction.

I think they were refering to the fact that the cooling fluid flows through the first and last plates (and every second one in between). However since the cold fluid going out should be pretty much as hot as the hot fluid going in it doesn't really make sense to say this.
But as you said my plate chiller also gets scalding hot when used so having that thing in an ice bath would do something.

 

[spank13]

I'm in socal here as well. I have a 600gph pump that I put in a bucket with ice and bit of water and attach to a counterflow chiller and recirculate the water. I usually let the wort drop to 180° after a whirlpool just to let some trub fall out. I need about 25lbs of ice for a 10g batch and half that for 5g. Wort comes out about 75° degrees every time.

 

[El Nino]

I'm in socal here as well. I have a 600gph pump that I put in a bucket with ice and bit of water and attach to a counterflow chiller and recirculate the water. I usually let the wort drop to 180° after a whirlpool just to let some trub fall out. I need about 25lbs of ice for a 10g batch and half that for 5g. Wort comes out about 75° degrees every time.

I'm gonna try this. I'm thinking of buying a mash & boil system to upsize my operation to 5g (currently making 2.5g stove top batches). Problem is my sink doesn't have a garden hose adapter, and even in my old place that had it, I used way too much water to even just bring it down to 75 (tap water isn't that cold in Hawaii lol). I since resorted to ice baths but I go through about 30 lbs of ice for a 2.5g batch, if 25lbs works for 10g with this method ill go give it a shot.