Wort Chilling

[Dan65]

I think I may have schemed up a plan to chill wort quickly. Here is my plan.
Get a cooler and place an immersion chiller inside and fill with water. Place the cooler in a deep freezer(I have space for it in mine) and freeze it. Take the cooler out when ready to chill wort. Pump the wort through the chiller and recirculate back into the BK. Any thoughts on if this would work well.

 

[Pappers_]

That's working on the same principle as counterflow chillers. I would worry about freezing your cooler and chiller might cause cracks or other failure. And I have no idea if your wort would be chilled quickly using this method or not. Shortly, the water near the coils would be warm.

No reason not to experiment, though - if you try it, let us know how it worked!

 

[Gavin C]

The problem is that ice is a poor conductor of heat. The hot wort through the coiled IC in the now lump of ice will melt the ice in the immediate vicinity. The resulting water adjacent to the coil will heat up and you will not get much heat transfer form wort to block of ice.

This is a very inefficient model for a heat exchanger.

A cooler filled with crushed ice and enough ice cold water to fill the voids and float the ice will give you a much better heat exchange medium. Even then you'll still need to move the IC around in the cooler to offset the issue I mentioned.

Easier and more sanitary to circulate the iced water through the IC immersed in the hot wort. Many folks do this.

 

[unviewtiful]

The problem is that ice is a poor conductor of heat. The hot wort through the coiled IC in the now lump of ice will melt the ice in the immediate vicinity. The resulting water adjacent to the coil will heat up and you will not get much heat transfer form wort to block of ice.

This is a very inefficient model for a heat exchanger.

A cooler filled with crushed ice and enough ice cold water to fill the voids and float the ice will give you a much better heat exchange medium. Even then you'll still need to move the IC around in the cooler to offset the issue I mentioned.

Easier and more sanitary to circulate the iced water through the IC immersed in the hot wort. Many folks do this.

I noticed the issue you're talking about when using my pre-chiller. I put a 25' copper coil in an ice bath, run the hose to that, and then into my bigger IC. I don't have pumps, so I have to manually move my chiller up and down in the wort while chilling. If I stop moving the pre-chiller, I can feel the difference in water temp on the inlet of the big IC go down to ground water temp in 10-15 seconds.

However, if I keep both ICs moving I can get 10 gallons from boiling to 65 F in about 12 minutes. Used to take me 30 minutes or more before I realized I needed to move my prechiller around also.

 

[Gavin C]

I noticed the issue you're talking about when using my pre-chiller. I put a 25' copper coil in an ice bath, run the hose to that, and then into my bigger IC. I don't have pumps, so I have to manually move my chiller up and down in the wort while chilling. If I stop moving the pre-chiller, I can feel the difference in water temp on the inlet of the big IC go down to ground water temp in 10-15 seconds.

However, if I keep both ICs moving I can get 10 gallons from boiling to 65 F in about 12 minutes. Used to take me 30 minutes or more before I realized I needed to move my prechiller around also.

I use a prechiller in the summer months and find the same thing. Gotta keep it moving in its icy surrounds for it to be effective. I use a plate chiller as my wort chiller.

 

[Dan65]

I guess thats why I haven't seen it done online yet. I was thinking it would conserve water because you can just refreeze the water in the cooler. Thanks for your responses

 

[unviewtiful]

I use a prechiller in the summer months and find the same thing. Gotta keep it moving in its icy surrounds for it to be effective. I use a plate chiller as my wort chiller.

Have you tried using a pump in your prechiller bath at all? I have a pond pump that I don't use any more, and I was thinking about using that to keep the water moving in the ice bath to avoid the manual labor.

 

[Gavin C]

Have you tried using a pump in your prechiller bath at all? I have a pond pump that I don't use any more, and I was thinking about using that to keep the water moving in the ice bath to avoid the manual labor.

No. It's very minimal effort to agitate the prechiller in the bucket of ice/water. Wouldn't be any room for a pump. It's a tight fit as it is.

 

[Redlantern]

No. It's very minimal effort to agitate the prechiller in the bucket of ice/water. Wouldn't be any room for a pump. It's a tight fit as it is.

Had to toy with this idea as I am working on my own designs

Bigger bucket!!

1) Support chiller on cut pieces of PVC to make room at bottom for submersible pump. Some are the size of a coffee mug - so pretty small. Ice floats so it will not choke up the intake

2) Bulkhead fittings on bucket and drill pump or similar for recirculating water. Water out at bottom, water in at top.

Both options allow you to do something other than move your chillers

Just ideas anyway

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Easier and more sanitary to circulate the iced water through the IC immersed in the hot wort. Many folks do this.

This is what I do. Cheap $10 pond pump from Harbor Freight (I suggest getting the bigger one than I got) and 9 x 2-quart homemade ice blocks. This is not a pre-chiller...I fill an old bottling bucket with about 1 gallon of water then 3-4 ice blocks and recirculate.

If I am lazy which is normally the case) I babysit it for the 10 minute or until everything drops below 140F. By that point I usually have bathwater temp in the bottling bucket so I drain it to clean misc equipment and refill with cold tap and 4 more blocks of ice...I then ignore it for at least an hour. 90% of the time I come back and it is at 65F (9.5 gal, 9 usable) and 10% of the time it is bit over 70F so I toss in the last block.

Total cost to me was the pump for $10 and a pack of $4 2-quart gladware containers. Freezing enough of them does take planning as it normally takes two days for them to solid and I only have four containers.

 

[Mackster]

I think I may have schemed up a plan to chill wort quickly. Here is my plan.
Get a cooler and place an immersion chiller inside and fill with water. Place the cooler in a deep freezer(I have space for it in mine) and freeze it. Take the cooler out when ready to chill wort. Pump the wort through the chiller and recirculate back into the BK. Any thoughts on if this would work well.

I tried this exact method myself a while back. The problem is that your freezer will chill the ice and cooler much lower than 32F. When you go to run water through the chiller, even hot water, it will do what it does best and chill the water down below 32F. This creates an ice plug which will grow to the entire length of the chiller. I had to place the whole block of chiller/ice into my HLT to thaw. Without adding heat it took about a day.

 

[Redlantern]

I tried this exact method myself a while back. The problem is that your freezer will chill the ice and cooler much lower than 32F. When you go to run water through the chiller, even hot water, it will do what it does best and chill the water down below 32F. This creates an ice plug which will grow to the entire length of the chiller. I had to place the whole block of chiller/ice into my HLT to thaw. Without adding heat it took about a day.

You definitely gave me pause for thought

I was entertaining myself with sketches for wort chiller ideas and had this in mind......

 

[Mackster]

I was entertaining myself with sketches for wort chiller ideas and had this in mind......[/QUOTE]

That is pretty much what I do now, except only ice water (no glycol). I use my HERMs in the HLT as the heat exchanger, and just fill the HLT with chunks of ice made in my Keezer/fermenting chamber. 5 milk jugs of ice works well