Copper chiller

[hugcra]

I have a copper chiller coil that I obviously use to cool wort down quickly. I've found that I can get the temp down from 100ish to 60 really fast, with out flushing to much water through is. From 60 to 40or30 takes ages. Any suggestions to speed this up a little. I'm just using hose water that's around 20-25 degrees.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

There is another topic that goes into this..

But. With a straight coil you need to agitate your wort whilst cooling.

A coil is the least efficient if you dont agitate the wort. Moving the wort around mixes the hot & cold water within the kettle and allows for faster chilling.

 

[Bribie G]

If you have a big work space and don't mind the clutter you can get a cheap pond pump, a couple of Bunnings Handi pails and fill them with ice bricks you have made in the freezer in ice cream containers. Smash them up first and pour some water in to get your water supply going.

Then recirculate ice water through the coil. First bucket melts fairly quickly then the second bucket finishes the job. Guy at the brewday then put the spent water on his roses, that was when Brisbane was on Nazi water restrictions.

What I'll be doing with my coil that I've just bought.

Ed: as Stu will tell you, a "birdsnest" is far more efficient than an coil, but we're both stuck with the coil.

 

[hugcra]

Thanks. Yeah just found that thread. I'll give the hose an ice bath, see if that works

 

[hugcra]

Is a plate any better ?

 

[RobB]

Stirring or recirculating makes a massive difference, as does getting your coolant as cold as possible. I pump water from a 60L container inside my fermentation fridge and the wort temperature plummets.

 

[Bribie G]

Stirring or recirculating makes a massive difference, as does getting your coolant as cold as possible. I pump water from a 60L container inside my fermentation fridge and the wort temperature plummets.

Thanks for that lightbulb moment Malty Cultural, I have a 60L fv that I only use for fermenting a couple of times a year. Fill with water - slide into fermenting fridge and bring it down to around a degree. Should just about nail it.
Then when the wort is cool, use pond pump to water the turnips and cabbages.

 

[RobB]

........Then when the wort is cool, use pond pump to water the turnips and cabbages.

It's no accident that my vegetable garden receives liquid fertiliser on brew days, but only after the coolant water has been used for cleaning up. Mmmmmmm, stinky fish emulsion with bits of break and hops - enough to make your cabbages sing.

Back on topic, if you have a fermentation fridge, then by default you have space in it on brew day. Fill the largest container you can fit in the fridge with water and pump that through your chiller, and don't forget to agitate. Within minutes I can be at lager temps with condensation rolling down the kettle.

If you don't have a big enough container to chill the whole batch this way, start with tap water and switch to the chilled water when the chilling rate slows down. Just remember to catch all that precious water for cleaning and cabbages.

 

[lael]

So you guys just start immediately with the 60L or so of chilled water and recirculate?

 

[booargy]

Don't return hot water to chilled water tank other wise coolant temp will increase.

 

[RobB]

So you guys just start immediately with the 60L or so of chilled water and recirculate?

I just realised that my earlier post was a little unclear. When I said recirculate, I was referring to moving the wort past the coils with a pump if you have one. I don't have one, so I just stir with a spoon.

If you were referring to recirculating the coolant, then no, I find that 60 litres is enough so I just flow through the chiller and collect the water (now warm) in an empty tub so I can use it for cleaning. I should note that my batch size is 3/4 of most people's so I need less water to start with. Having said that, I reckon I could tweak things like flow rate and get the 60 litres to work for a normal batch.

When people recirculate their cooling water, they are generally adding it back to ice. There are a few youtube clips of this ice method.

 

[Bribie G]

That's what Lyall Cottam (former Aus Lager Champ) would do, recirculate back to the ice buckets one at a time and when the first one was too warm to be of use he'd switch to the second one.
Malty Cultural's way would presumably have a suckin' tube in the cold water attached to a pond pump, attach that to the coil, then send the output to the veggie garden.

Just a point, do pond pumps generally fit in with standard garden hoses?

 

[dicko]

I generally use the tap water to get it to around 40 degc then I change the hose to my pond pump and recirculate the water from my 60 litre fermenter through the chiller and back onto an ice brick that is floating in the fermenter. This brick is made from water in an ice cream container in the freezer
When the temp of the wort is around 24 to 25 I redirect the return water into cubes and save it for next time. By the time about 30 litres of still reasonably cold water has run through the chiller and into the cubes my wort is usually around 18 degc.

If I want to get to lager temps I make an ice slurry in the fermenter and starting from 30 deg c with tap water I then do the same process but I will get the wort to around 15 deg c before saving the water into the cubes.
The best I have got is 9 degc.
I save the discharge from the original chill with tap water for cleaning.

The above figures are with a S Steel chiller....you may very well get even better results with copper.

 

[RobB]

Just a point, do pond pumps generally fit in with standard garden hoses?

They generally come with a barbed 13mm fitting. With a bit of hot water and swearing you might get a hose on there, otherwise a short length of black retic then a barb to hose fitting will do the job. I use a submersible sump pump because I didn't know how much head I would lose through the coils, so I went for overkill. It turns out I have to throttle the flow down to 25% so the water actually has time to chill!