Chiller Lid - Something New?

[domonsura]

I had an opportunity to make something a little different today at the request of an adventurous customer, I thought I'd share it with you guys so you could knock it back and forth & discuss the possibel merits and downfalls.....it's a cooling lid - that is a lid designed specifically to place over/into a kettle for the cooling process to achieve the all wonderful quick cool down. just an immersion chiller really, but it has 2 separate coils that each receive a fresh water supply.

It wasn't much fun to make due to having to get the right number of coils etc for the right surface area equation and having to space them all out, but I imagine it will work pretty well indeed. This one is made to fit a 36 litre kettle. Before anyone asks, it was very expensive, and accordingly won't be becoming a shelf item any time soon - but I'm happy to weld sockets into a lid for anyone who wants to coil their own copper up

I'd be interested to hear some feedback on what the various 'cooling factions' think.

Fitting into pot

 

[jeddog]

WOW

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

:icon_drool2: :icon_drool2:

hot.

that is all.

 

[Guest Lurker]

Very nice, it will do the job nicely. But its the lazy mans version, where the cooling pipes are evenly distributed through the liquid and so there is no need to move the liquid around. Just one of those coils, plus taking the effort to squidge the lid up and down and move the liquid across that coil, would probably get close to the same cooling rate.

 

[browndog]

Bloody nice workmanship there, some people have too much money. When I win lotto I want one made out of S/S. Should work a treat.

cheers

Browndog

 

[cliffo]

I need to excuse myself......

 

[buttersd70]

oo, oooo, just 'ad a thought (and I think it's a good un for a change)....

is it possible to get an agitator down the guts? You know, like the little paddle jobbie that goes down the centre of the coils on a temprite, that agitates the water to prevent it freezing up? Just run off a tiny electric motor, to do the dual function of whirlpooling and moving the hot liquid over the coils for a more rapid chill??

 

[Darren]

Whts the displacement like? I suspect you would not want a full kettle!

cheers

Darren

 

[Doogiechap]

Aaaaahhh loooverly copper :icon_drool2: .
It reminds me of my first love from Borret. :wub:

 

[domonsura]

Whts the displacement like? I suspect you would not want a full kettle!

cheers

Darren

Fair question/comment Darren. I had the same thought myself given that it's quite a small kettle (and man wouldn't that be an expensive faux pas :lol so I checked.

The entire coil set submerged in 30 litres raises the water level by about 15mm, which in this kettle roughly equates to about 1.5 litres.
Looking at it myself I had expected it to be more than that, but not so. Which is good.

Butters - I've already had that conversation with the customer, as I'm making an electric agitator for someone else and it seemed like the perfect partner for this. Stay tuned.

 

[Batz]

What a pain that'll be!
In the boil all the time,almost impossible to have the lid open a bit,adding hop additions,OMG,hops stuck all over it after the brew.
Finish the brew and take it out,imagine the mess dripping everywhere.

Then there's GL's comments which are completely correct.
Looks flash but very impracticable.

Batz

 

[Effect]

i wouldn't have the lid on while I brewed...


just at the end...

I see it as a bling immersion chiller...

 

[Adamt]

Batz: I'd imagine would only really be necessary to have the lid on for the last minute or two of the boil...

Wouldn't be fun to clean though, though any immersion chiller is a pain to clean.

Edit: Sorry have to put this in Wayne... I wanna hear you say "Chuller Lud"! :lol:

 

[Steve Lacey]

Similar first reaction as Guest Lurker. But actually I thought that it would still be relatively inefficient in static wort and that some kind of agitation would still be needed to hasten chilling time, hence I saw that having it affixed to a lid like that was actually a fairly serious design flaw. So the stirrer or pump recirculation does seem mandatory.

Yet ... why wouldn't he just go for a plate chiller? Like the one I emailed your sales@ address about today (in case you haven't seen it yet )

 

[Batz]

i wouldn't have the lid on while I brewed...


just at the end...

I see it as a bling immersion chiller...

Depends if you have the lid completely off your kettle when you boil I suppose.
That's another issue hey?

Batz

 

[reg]

Depends if you have the lid completely off your kettle when you boil I suppose.
That's another issue hey?

Batz

If you had the money to get that made up wouldnt you just buy a second lid?

 

[Batz]

If you had the money to get that made up wouldnt you just buy a second lid?

No if I had the money to get that made up I'll buy a convoluted counterflow chiller and spend the change on some other brewing equipment.In fact that's what I did :lol:


Batz

 

[rich_lamb]

On it's merits it is a very elegant immersion chiller - I like the fact it has dual coils which would make it much more effective than the same amount of copper in a single coil.
Initially I had the same concern as Darren- would it push out too much wort, but seems it doesn't.

With ANY immersion chiller you need agitation (to avoid using 10x as much water for the same result) so once that's added it's a gem.

I would add this badboy in the last 5 minutes only, so the lid is not an issue. If it gets covered in hops well, thats less hops to filter out. The downside is the two pairs of hoses connected to the lid.

Very nice.
But I don't want one, as I've forsaken the whole messy chilling thing and gone to the dark side...

 

[InCider]

What kits does it work best with?

InCider.

 

[Jakechan]

Thats an awesome looking chiller.

Now with all this talk about agitation, I am wondering just how quickly you guys are expecting your wort to cool. Ive got a very crappy homemade chiller using about a 3rd of the copper of this one, and it cools the wort down really quickly. The first 20 drop at an alarming rate, then naturally it slows down after that, but really how fast CAN it be?
In other words what will an agitator really do for this amazing chiller when there would hardly be any room for it?
Cheers,
Jake