Cold Water Issue In Pilbara

[Diggles]

We'll did a dry run yesterday to sus out any issues with my setup and found one.......wort chiller requires a pump to force the chilled water from my esky and throught the chiller! My chiller is a 50' copper tube version as I thought I'd need the extra efficiency due to the water temp being 30degC straight from the tap here in the Pilbara! Even tried putting the esky on top of the fridge to gain more head pressure....no change!

I'm thinking of using a bilge pump to pump the water from the esky, has anyone done this or a similar method before? Pump puts out 750gallon per hour at 3m head, so should have enough grunt. Will most likely have to throttle it back using an inline tap.

Currently doing BIAB, FYI.

Finger crossed!

 

[Doubleplugga]

mate i am thinking of a similar set up to use here in Perth during the summer months. my idea was to purchase a water feature/pond pump with enough power. fill a large plastic bin with a few bags of ice and then fill with water. submerge the pump at the bottom of the bin and as it pumps up through my plate chiller it will drain back into the top of the bin. the idea was that if i pump it just back into the bin it will recirculate back down through the ice and be pumped out cold again. saw a video on you tube of someone doing it and it worked a treat.

 

[Batz]

When I lived in Damper (25 years ) I ran tap water for the first few minutes then ran it through a pre-chiller in an esky with ice. later I found an old refrigerated water cooler and ran that through my chiller.
If I had my time again in the Pilbara, I would no chill like I do now.

batz

 

[dent]

I used to run a chest freezer I had sealed up and filled with chilling water for this, with a pump attached.

Nowadays, trying to get to pitching temperature in one hit is a bit of wasted effort in my opinion. One can always put it in the fridge and pitch tomorrow. The fridge will work much better if you put a fan in there with the fermenter too.

 

[Diggles]

When I lived in Damper (25 years ) I ran tap water for the first few minutes then ran it through a pre-chiller in an esky with ice. later I found an old refrigerated water cooler and ran that through my chiller.
If I had my time again in the Pilbara, I would no chill like I do now.

batz

No chil eh, have you had much infections etc? The water chiller sounds like a good one, might keep my eye out for one, or tap into next doors :icon_cheers:

 

[Diggles]

mate i am thinking of a similar set up to use here in Perth during the summer months. my idea was to purchase a water feature/pond pump with enough power. fill a large plastic bin with a few bags of ice and then fill with water. submerge the pump at the bottom of the bin and as it pumps up through my plate chiller it will drain back into the top of the bin. the idea was that if i pump it just back into the bin it will recirculate back down through the ice and be pumped out cold again. saw a video on you tube of someone doing it and it worked a treat.

I initially thought of a pond pump, but I think some of them don't have enough guts in them when you see the small amound of fountain some thow up, especially for the price. Just bought the bilge pump off ebay for $25 inc delivery. As for the recirculation, I was thinking along the same lines even if I have to place the output into a bucket and manually recirculate inot the esky.

Cheers

Diggles

 

[mILLrAT]

I am on tank water and have an above ground line going to the shed/brew house. During summer the higher water temp and higher ambient temp means my immersion chiller on tap water only gets the wort to about 28-30. Leading up to brew day I use a loaf sized baking tray to freeze blocks of ice storing up to 6 or so. To chill I run water from the tap through the immersion coil to get the wort down to about 30 (I run the discharge line up into the gutter on the roof, so it goes back to the tank). At that point I disconnect the feed to the coil from the tap and connect it to a $20 bilge pump from BCF [codebox]http://www.bcf.com.au/online-store/products/Blueline-Bilge-Pump-360GPH-12V.aspx?pid=215657&menuFrom=350113#Description[/codebox] The pump sits in a 20L bucket, the discharge from the coil goes back into the bucket. I use standard garden hose snap on fittings to quickly disconnect from the tap to the bilge pump. I throw in the ice blocks and start up the pump. As the ice melts I scoop out some water and throw in more ice. The other important thing I do is that once I start using the bilge pump I wrap the boil kettle in insulation. On a bad day inside my shed hits 40 (a pleasant cool change in the pilbara) and you need to reduce the effect of the high ambient temp on the kettle. The bilge pump is 12 volts, I have a home made variable voltage power supply and generally run it at around 9 volts. Im not sure you will get your wort down to lager pitching temps in summer but this setup works well for me, .

 

[ianh]

Diggles

Perfect location for using the no chill method, do it on all my brews, no problems with infections. When we lived in Karratha we use to turn the hot water off during summer and use that as cold water, the water heater was inside the air conditioned house so maintained a reasonably cool temperature.

 

[Batz]

Diggles

Perfect location for using the no chill method, do it on all my brews, no problems with infections. When we lived in Karratha we use to turn the hot water off during summer and use that as cold water, the water heater was inside the air conditioned house so maintained a reasonably cool temperature.

Yep we did that as well, the cold water tap was way to hot to shower with after work.

Glad to be out of that sh*t hole.

 

[Diggles]

Diggles

Perfect location for using the no chill method, do it on all my brews, no problems with infections. When we lived in Karratha we use to turn the hot water off during summer and use that as cold water, the water heater was inside the air conditioned house so maintained a reasonably cool temperature.

That's what I do now doing my kit and kilo, sounds I should keep doing the same. Sounds like the only benefit in chilling would be to get your brew down the same day as you mash!

 

[Diggles]

Yep we did that as well, the cold water tap was way to hot to shower with after work.

Glad to be out of that sh*t hole.

Sorry to hear about your thoughts of Karratha, sounds like you didn't get to see the best side of things here, especially the sea life! each to his own. However my new house here has the cylinder on the roof...haven't figured out if it can be isolated yet.

 

[stux]

That's what I do now doing my kit and kilo, sounds I should keep doing the same. Sounds like the only benefit in chilling would be to get your brew down the same day as you mash!

Chilling allows you to lock in late hop aroma more easily. If you're in the Pilbara, maybe you could try brewing beers which work well with No Chill. Beers which don't need a lot of very late hops work best.

Bit like brewing stouts in ireland

 

[Diggles]

Chilling allows you to lock in late hop aroma more easily. If you're in the Pilbara, maybe you could try brewing beers which work well with No Chill. Beers which don't need a lot of very late hops work best.

Bit like brewing stouts in ireland

Well, I've now got the gear, so why no use it and get all the benefits. Bought the pump, ice from the fridge, plumbing, well that's just donkey work. Funny you should say what you did as the little creatures I just tasted has lost quite a bit of it's hoppiness since the end of fermentation....not ure why! I don't think it's quite the same as chilling tho, poibly the hop taste falls off when you chill for crbonation and drinking??