Backlane All Grain!

[Backlane Brewery]

Has anyone seen/built/used a hybrid chiller as shown in Palmer?

 

[johnno]

Has anyone seen/built/used a hybrid chiller as shown in Palmer?

[post="49996"][/post]​

BB,
I beleive dicko uses one of these.

cheers
johnno

 

[Justin]

For the fittings, normal garden hose will fit on 1/2" copper pipe, with a worm clamp you can tighten it to get a good seal and not worry about it coming off. Otherwise you can spend a few $$ and buy some 1/2" compression fittings and some 1/2" hose barbs to fit but these are a bit excessive, the first method works well.

If your worrying about getting the temps down and varying water temperatures thoughout the year I recommend making an immersion chiller over a counter flow. I nearly went the counter flow route a while back but glad I didn't now. In my opinion the immersions are better, easy sterilizing, easy making but most importantly if your having trouble getting down to cold temps then the immersion is by far the better choice.

The reason is, with a counter flow if your wort temps at the end of the chiller are higher than desired you have to try and make adjustment on the fly-all the while too warm a wort is going into the fermenter-if you want to try and chill the wort to temps below the water temps they are terribly inefficient and chew your ice up bloody quickly. See, with a counter flow you have to chill the cooling water during the whole chilling process from 100C down to pitching temp-you wouldn't believe how quick this eats your ice.

If you use an immersion and have the problems above you can use your tap water to drop the temp of your wort down as low as it will go without further cooling, say 100C-21/22C (assuming water temp of 20C). Then measure the temp-if its not cool enough keep chilling until it is, if it's cool enough-now that the temp of your wort is around the 22C mark you can then add the ice to your prechiller and drop the temp further from 22C to your lagering/pitching temp. This will only use 5 mins of ice in your prechiller vs the 20mins of ice needed for your CFWC. Your letting your natural water temp do most of the work before using the ice just for that final bit.

This may cause argument and once again it's just my opinion. Have a good think about the pro's and con's of your different options before going out and building it. Sometimes the simple things really are the best.

Cheers, JD

 

[warrenlw63]

Yep Justin it's an age-old argument.

There's lots to like with C/F chillers. For me first and foremost it would be being able to incorporate a hopback into my brewing system :super: .

The biggest drawback with a C/F and call me paranoid would be not knowing what lurks inside the things. How does one know they're really clean?

Warren -

 

[pint of lager]

This is a "it depends" debate, and Justin has certainly raised some valid points.

So long as your cfc is long enough and flow rates are slow enough, the wort is chilled to almost the same as your tap water temperature. When designed correctly, they will use less water than an immersion chiller. If the cfc is set up wrong, you will have to work out some way of prechilling, or run the wort through twice.

The immersion chiller here was converted to a cfc, the length was too short, and it was extended. Now, the cfc works really well and I would not go back to an immersion.

To clean a cfc, flush it immediately after use. If you wish, use your favourite cleaner on it and flush again. There was an earlier thread where many different brewers posted their cleaning regimes on a cfc.

 

[sosman]

Cheers Justin, think I got the 5 metre idea from the brewiki chiller gallery- maybe it was for a CFWC?

[post="49958"][/post]​

IMHO 5m is a bit short for an immersion chiller. I did the full 18m but that is a bit unweildy (but ok).

Plastic fittings on IC's tend to perish very quickly - at least on the hot end. If you can arrange to solder some stuff buy a double ended brass adapter (bunnings) cut it in half and it will fit nicely onto 3/8" copper tube and then solder it.

If you haven't got the cutting soldering stuff you are welcome to do it at Sosman's brewery.

 

[Backlane Brewery]

If you haven't got the cutting soldering stuff you are welcome to do it at Sosman's brewery.

[post="50032"][/post]​

Thanks sosman, may very well take you up on that sometime soon. Tracey can do a bit of welding but not sure she is up for this.

 

[Backlane Brewery]

Spent a couple of hours getting stuck in with the drill & hacksaw on Friday.

Done! It was much easier to do than I thought.

That bit of cross wire is there to try and pull the easy hooker into a better shape. It's a little too long, may have to adjust it. Put 20 liters of 65o water in it- didn't leak a drop & only dropped 2oC over an hour. Any comments welcome.

Such a pity Tracey told me to move out yesterday- may have nowhere to brew in the immediate future. Aah well such is life. Kipping on a mate's sofa ATM.

 

[Doc]

Such a pity Tracey told me to move out yesterday- may have nowhere to brew in the immediate future. Aah well such is life. Kipping on a mate's sofa ATM.

[post="51376"][/post]​

Looks like a good job on the MLT.

The other bit sucks.
Sounds like you need to pull a sicky tomorrow, hire a truck and go rescue your brewing kit before things get nasty.

Hope everything works out.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Backlane Brewery]

Cheer Doc.
The place I'm at has a garage which has room for everything, if I'm gonna be allowed to go and get it out.
Throws my plans for the first mash right out the window.

 

[warrenlw63]

Sorry to hear Backlane

Is it the fact she does not understand the importance of your hobbies? My wife sometimes thinks that brewing has sent me insane.

Warren -

 

[Backlane Brewery]

Sorry to hear Backlane

Is it the fact she does not understand the importance of your hobbies?
Warren -

[post="51386"][/post]​

No, more the fact that I have two children from my (long dead) marriage, that take up a certain amount of my time & energy.

Anyway, as has been said before, this ain't Oprah! I'll survive- took a good dozen bottles of HB with me as a housewarming present :beer:

 

[johnno]

Sorry to hear BLB.
Hope everything works out ok.


johnno

 

[Backlane Brewery]

Well what a royal PITA. :angry:

Have just been told I need to get ALL the brew gear etc out this weekend.

150+ empty bottles, about the same number of full one, inc. 30 brown ales capped on Friday, 3 fermenters (one full) , 2 demijohns, bench capper, brand new mash tun, blah blah blah.

FTFAJ

There's a moral here somewhere.

 

[sosman]

Cheer Doc.
The place I'm at has a garage which has room for everything, if I'm gonna be allowed to go and get it out.
Throws my plans for the first mash right out the window.

[post="51385"][/post]​

Yeah the doghouse isn't big enough for brewing.

 

[Doc]

Well what a royal PITA. :angry:

Have just been told I need to get ALL the brew gear etc out this weekend.

150+ empty bottles, about the same number of full one, inc. 30 brown ales capped on Friday, 3 fermenters (one full) , 2 demijohns, bench capper, brand new mash tun, blah blah blah.

FTFAJ

There's a moral here somewhere.

[post="51462"][/post]​

On the bright side you get to keep it. Thats the way I'd be looking at it.
Onwards and upwards.

Beers,
Doc

 

[warrenlw63]

Backlane,

Sounds like you may be doing a lot of your drinking in a self-storage warehouse.

Warren -

 

[NRB]

Sorry to hear too Trev. If you need a hand moving stuff on Sunday, let me know. Saturday's out - working then heading to Sandown for a few laps.