Chiller Idea

[Vanoontour]

So been thinking a bit about chilling and through research found the following: they waste water (unless saved for future use) and they only cool to what ever temp is coming out of you tap, if your lucky.

So, what if you had a copper coil and mounted this into a bucket with a compression fitting at the bottom of the bucket to keep it watertight. fill the bucket/copper coil assembly with water and freeze it. Then gravity feed the hot wort through the frozen copper coil (surrounded by ice) straight into the fermenter.

Benefits are saving water and cool wort in the hotter areas.

Problems are keeping the compression fitting sterile and free from germs.

Any thoughts on this? Would it work? Any issues you can see with it?

 

[balconybrewer]

the ice would last 2mins max with 100deg going past it.. better off thinking along the lines of pre chiller.

 

[MaestroMatt]

the ice would last 2mins max with 100deg going past it.. better off thinking along the lines of pre chiller.

I combine both ideas when I am chilling.

Bucket of water with a bag of ice that I hold a small coil (leftovers from my immersion chiller build) in and that does a great job of pre-chilling the water before it hits the immersion chiller. The icy water lasts for the whole chilling session. From 100 to pitching temp in around 15-20mins (25 if the mains water is warmer in summer).

Whilst this is happening, I connect the output of the chiller to a long hose and water the lawn/garden/hops/next-door neighbors cat etc. No water wasted.

MM

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I combine both ideas when I am chilling.

Bucket of water with a bag of ice that I hold a small coil (leftovers from my immersion chiller build) in and that does a great job of pre-chilling the water before it hits the immersion chiller. The icy water lasts for the whole chilling session. From 100 to pitching temp in around 15-20mins (25 if the mains water is warmer in summer).

Whilst this is happening, I connect the output of the chiller to a long hose and water the lawn/garden/hops/next-door neighbors cat etc. No water wasted.

MM

I use bore water, its much cooler coming from 25m under ground and the plants love it.
Nev

 

[adraine]

I use bore water, its much cooler coming from 25m under ground and the plants love it.
Nev

I use tank water & it goes straight back into the tank. prechilled through a garden hose coiled up in my 80l esky

 

[BoilerBoy]

So been thinking a bit about chilling and through research found the following: they waste water (unless saved for future use) and they only cool to what ever temp is coming out of you tap, if your lucky.

So, what if you had a copper coil and mounted this into a bucket with a compression fitting at the bottom of the bucket to keep it watertight. fill the bucket/copper coil assembly with water and freeze it. Then gravity feed the hot wort through the frozen copper coil (surrounded by ice) straight into the fermenter.

Benefits are saving water and cool wort in the hotter areas.

Problems are keeping the compression fitting sterile and free from germs.

Any thoughts on this? Would it work? Any issues you can see with it?

This is similar to the method i have always used since starting ag some 7 years ago, only I freeze 1L & 2L blocks of ice (Typically 25-30L all up)

I have a copper coil resting inside a plastic crate/tub of water I simply connect it to the kettle tap and the wort flows through the coil and out into a cube with a thermometer measuring the wort temp just as it goes into the cube.

I stir the water around the coil and add ice as I need it and gets the wort down to 16c easily and with a bit more Ice 13-15C if doing a lager, in winter sometimes even lower.

Obviously only the water from the ice and the plastic tub is the total used, and it gets the wort to pitching temp.
The negative is having to find freezer space to make and store the ice, I start making it generally when preparing the yeast for brew day.

Cheers,
BB

 

[argon]

So been thinking a bit about chilling and through research found the following: they waste water (unless saved for future use) and they only cool to what ever temp is coming out of you tap, if your lucky.

So, what if you had a copper coil and mounted this into a bucket with a compression fitting at the bottom of the bucket to keep it watertight. fill the bucket/copper coil assembly with water and freeze it. Then gravity feed the hot wort through the frozen copper coil (surrounded by ice) straight into the fermenter.

Benefits are saving water and cool wort in the hotter areas.

Problems are keeping the compression fitting sterile and free from germs.

Any thoughts on this? Would it work? Any issues you can see with it?

What will happen is that the wort will hit the coil that is in the solid ice and melt the 10mm of ice directly in contact with it and create little heated pockets of water within the ice block. This will eventually pool at the bottom of the block and leave the coil adjacent to air gaps within the ice block and hence provide no cooling effect. Even if placed in an ice slurry, it will heat the exchange water very quickly and not provide any chilling effect.

You're better off using the coil as an immersion chiller or counter flow chiller

 

[Vanoontour]

Right, cheers, will knock the idea on the head now in its infancy

 

[QldKev]

I could be totally wrong in this,

So the idea is to move the use of water from your house, to the use of water at the power station for cooling? Which is probably burning coal to produce the power?
In the US alone power stations consume more than 500 billion L of fresh water per day, or about 95L or water per 1KW
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environmen...ake-electricity

I understand the use of ice to get down to below tap temp, but not as a replacement for using water altogether?

If your concerned with wasting water, get a tank / rainwater tank and pump from it and back in to it.

QldKev

edit: This isn't meant to sound nasty, just putting the idea forward

 

[DarkFaerytale]

I use bore water, its much cooler coming from 25m under ground and the plants love it.
Nev

i have a bore hole in my back yard and i work for a company that makes pumps, be stuffed why i'v never thought of this idea befor, thanks heaps GB

-Phill

 

[mfeighan]

I use bore water, its much cooler coming from 25m under ground and the plants love it.
Nev

hey nev, on roughly how much cooler, this is very tempting as summer tapwater temps suck!

 

[Gar]

Mines about 26'

I can't get to pitching temps on an immersion chiller alone, I have to fridge it or frozen milk bottle it.

I think I'll eventually get one of those little pumps off the Nevmeister and pump ice water though the chiller after the bore water

 

[Wolfy]

Melbourne tap water should cool your wort to ale pitching temps with 1 pass through a decent chiller (1 degree of the tap water temp for my DIY CFC).
Then the only issue is how to recycle that water, which can be done in many ways, including washing machine, brewery wash, garden etc (I collect mine in cubes and re-use it later).

If you're brewing lagers pre or post chilling is needed, but that could be as simply as putting it in the fermenting fridge, or - as others have suggested here - a pre-chilling coil immersed in ice.