Immersion Chillers And Water Restrictions

[Pumpy]

Is it too long a wait until the morning for the wort too cool ????

Hogan leaves his in the covered kettle until the morning all the trub has settled and gets lovely clear wort to drain out .

How simple could that be .

he makes a great beer

Pumpy

 

[Kingy]

when i seasoned my aluminium pot it was still to hot to move in the morning. It holds the heat to well.

Personally id think the plastic would stand up better than the no chill cubes as the plastic bottles would only be hot for a few seconds untill the wort cools around them. Especially when they have frozen blocks inside.

I wouldve thought some one wouldve tried this allready :blink:

 

[The King of Spain]

I have a rainwater tank and re-cycle - but thats my situation. If I did not, I would consider a single downpipe into a 500L tank which you could install yourself with the overflow going down the stormwater. Costs very little and you could even get a rebate. Put a small pump on that an there is your cooler.

 

[domonsura]

I have 2 x 200l water drums under the downpipe that i use for a closed system. Only way to go as far as I'm concerned, no guilt..

 

[Tony]

I have been considering retiring my chiller and going No-chill for a while to trial it for myself with a few different styles.

I have thought of leaving it in the lettle overnight too.

It makes sense......... it aint going to get any more sterile than that unless Darren can think of spore that will survive a 60 min boil

turn off the burner, put the lid on and let it cool for 24 hrs. pitch the following night.

mmmmm will 50 liters cool down to piching temp overnight?

I do recal my last no chill cube was still warm the next day.

only one way to find out.

cheers

 

[Kingy]

what about changing the water volume (downsizing by about 9 litres) then add 3x 3 sterile frozen water blocks to help chill it down.
Am i missing something here?

 

[Sammus]

Tony: not to be a cynic or anything but I've read in several places that botulism spores can survive boiling for hours - I know ive read this from several convincing/trustworthy sources but I cant seem to find a reference at the moment... :angry:

Kingy: someone has tried this, its what palmer recommends as an alternative to using a chiller or ice bath
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter7-4.html

S

 

[Stoodoo]

....................................................mmmmm will 50 liters cool down to piching temp overnight?

I do recal my last no chill cube was still warm the next day.

only one way to find out.

cheers

Tony, I used to nochill overnight with my 20-23lt batches, I found that my wort was still a little too warm the following morning, for pitching yeast. I'd be surprised if a 50lt batch dropped down to the req'd temp overnight, but hey, only one way to really know. Furthermore, I've recently started "quick chilling" with my immersion chiller (using recycled water from my tank) and have been greatly surprised by how much better my beer tastes. The extra flavour and aroma is mind blowing. Don't know why I didn't get a chiller earlier. Mind you I enjoyed my nochill beers as well, though not as much as my chilled beers taste now.

Cheers

 

[Screwtop]

Most of us will have water tanks soon if the social conditioners marketing works to plan, so set up to recirc from the tank.

Otherwise what's wrong with Hoges method, he makes good beer, and isn't hung up on trivial shit like sanitising a cube by running hot wort into it, blah, blah, blah. What's the diff between crash cooling and draining off to the fermenter and slow cooling before draining off to the fermenter. The bloody kettle is going to be bio clean after a 60 - 90 min boil for gods sake.

Haaa! feel better now. :super:

 

[Stoodoo]

Most of us will have water tanks soon if the social conditioners marketing works to plan, so set up to recirc from the tank.

Otherwise what's wrong with Hoges method, he makes good beer, and isn't hung up on trivial shit like sanitising a cube by running hot wort into it, blah, blah, blah. What's the diff between crash cooling and draining off to the fermenter and slow cooling before draining off to the fermenter. The bloody kettle is going to be bio clean after a 60 - 90 min boil for gods sake.

Haaa! feel better now. :super:

Chillout man h34r: (parden my pun)

Oh, btw, my tank fittings cost me more than my tank. I never felt obliged to get a tank I just wanted to be able to (legally) waste water if I wanted to h34r:

 

[Screwtop]

Chillout man h34r: (parden my pun)

Oh, btw, my tank fittings cost me more than my tank. I never felt obliged to get a tank I just wanted to be able to (legally) waste water if I wanted to h34r:

Lived in Toowoomba as a kid, remember the COUNCIL MAN coming around and putting a pick through the side of the old mans 3 year old tank because they were banned, now that town water was connected, they were nothing more than breeding grounds for mosquitos. All the water you want is available from the council supply, the cost is included in your council rates. Next we'll have sewerage and that will be included too.

What will we do when sewerage infrastructure planning falls behind, just another tank or two on the property I suppose. In some municipalities they are lucky enough to get to pay the council for water collected in household tanks according to the area of roof feeding the gutters connected to the tank, only fair I suppose, they are collecting rainwater falling within the municipality and should therefore pay the council for the water :blink:

 

[Tony]

Tony, I used to nochill overnight with my 20-23lt batches, I found that my wort was still a little too warm the following morning, for pitching yeast. I'd be surprised if a 50lt batch dropped down to the req'd temp overnight, but hey, only one way to really know. Furthermore, I've recently started "quick chilling" with my immersion chiller (using recycled water from my tank) and have been greatly surprised by how much better my beer tastes. The extra flavour and aroma is mind blowing. Don't know why I didn't get a chiller earlier. Mind you I enjoyed my nochill beers as well, though not as much as my chilled beers taste now.

Cheers

MMMMMMM i have only no chilled a few beers and they have been ok..... but not great.

Ohhhhhhh the decisions.

Better beer or environment.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

cheers

 

[Kingy]

ive notice a difference in chilling quickly and taking a while to chill. And chilling quickly wins my vote and its better for the beer in my opinion.

And to all the people who claim a subsidy for installing rainwater tanks,you are now on file with the government for that claim. So when the time comes they know who has the tanks installed and where to go to put the water meters on them and charge you for the water that falls onto your roof.

 

[Airgead]

What will we do when sewerage infrastructure planning falls behind, just another tank or two on the property I suppose.

You mean you haven't installed a composting toilet yet? Shame screwtop.. shame. h34r:

Dave

 

[ohitsbrad]

Good topic. I'm thinking about ways of chilling at the moment ahead of doing any all grain brews, and can see that using an immersion chiller will send a fair amount of water down the drain. I'd like to do better than just pouring that water into the garden. (How many litres do people typically use to chill a certain volume? I'd like to know.)

I like the ideas about using a tank with an immersion chiller and recirculating water with a pump. Can we do this using a smaller (<100 litres) tank, maybe something like an ordinary bucket? Maybe fill the bucket with 15 litres of water and ice cubes (larger surface area than frozen bottles), so the water is down close to 0 degrees. Then you'd need a small pump. Maybe a very small submersible aquarium pump capable of >100 litres per hour and about 1m head? There's one here for only $15. (Age of Aquariums) And that would be it. The water would be cooler than tap temperature so chilling time would be reduced, and the volume of water needed would be reduced and more easily reused. Iceblocks could be added as needed.

What do you guys think? Would it work?

If you are insistent on chilling and you have a water tank with a pump then you could simply reticulate the water from the tank, through the chiller and back into the tank again....or use the no chill method.

I Recirculate water from a small tank (130l) that I recirculate with an Onga pool pump. I chill the 110l tank with with frozen coke bottles for a brew. 4 x 1.5 litre bottles thrown into before a brew chills it enough to drop 30 litres into the low 30's, I put the whole fermenter in the fermenter fridge and delay the yeast pitch till 20 degrees (overnight) then pitch.

If you are not already doing so, you should try running the wort chiller at a lower water pressure. I went from using 120L down to about 70L just by doing that.

Basically the smaller the difference in temperature between the wort and the cooling water, the lower the pressure should be, to allow for more heat to be exchanged between the wort and the cooling water.

I have also started to use an ice path in series with the wort chiller to reduce the amount of water needed, with some success. Also lets me get down that last 10 degrees without having to put it in the fridge.

Yep... That's what I do. I re-circulate the water through the chiller then back in the top of the water tank. A 5000l tank gives plenty of thermal mass so the hot water doesn't heat the chiller water. I patch a pre-chiller into the loop (bucket of water with ice and a copper coil) when the temp gets down to 25 or so to get it down the last few degrees.

Zero wastage chilling.

Cheers
Dave

 

[PistolPatch]

Is it too long a wait until the morning for the wort too cool ????

Hogan leaves his in the covered kettle until the morning all the trub has settled and gets lovely clear wort to drain out .

How simple could that be .

he makes a great beer

Pumpy

Pumpy,

I reckon you are right. It is simple.

I tried this method twice and I confess, that once it didn't work for me - I had the muddiest beer ever. But, I think that this was due to some irresponsible brewing. I started the brew at 5:30pm, had visitors, didn't add whirfloc and the next morning syphoned somewhat irresponsibly and vigorously

The second time, I can't remember any negatives at all. Funny how one instance can stay in your mind.

There is only one logical reason why Hogan's method shouldn't work and this is because the vessell will suck in air as the wort cools and this may introduce pathogens. But, how hard would it be to prevent this? A reverse air-lock perhaps? This small worry is probably not even much of a worry.

In fact, what I'll do, and this will work in nicely with my current system as I only have one chiller, on the next few brews that I do side by side with identical recipes, I'll chill one and leave the other in the kettle until the next day and then pitch.

I'll PM you the results Pumpy. You'll be able to convey them a little more concisely than I possibly could.

LOL
Pat

 

[redhill]

There is only one logical reason why Hogan's method shouldn't work and this is because the vessell will suck in air as the wort cools and this may introduce pathogens. But, how hard would it be to prevent this? A reverse air-lock perhaps? This small worry is probably not even much of a worry.

Agreed. Possibly not best practice, but works. My previous routine was to leave the kettle outside on the ground over night, with a brick on the lid. I have since improved this system by dispensing with the brick.
Cheers

 

[rwh]

How many litres do people typically use to chill a certain volume?

I don't chill all the way down, but I'd say I use about 40L of water. Then I use it for other things, like cleaning. Sometimes I just skip my shower that day, which makes me feel less bad about it.

I've been mostly no-chilling these days, which is a bit of a waste of a wort-chiller lol.

I like the ideas about using a tank with an immersion chiller and recirculating water with a pump. Can we do this using a smaller (<100 litres) tank

You need to consider the thermal masses of the two things. Intuitively, if you had 23L of wort at 100C, and you circulated water between coils in that that and another tank with 23L of water at 0C, you would eventually equalise the two at 50C (assuming there are no other temperature losses, which in practice there would be).

Now, I'm not going to go into how much energy is required to melt ice, but again intuitively, if you had 23L of water and ice, you'd be able to get your 23L of wort lower than 50C, probably down to 25C or so. Even better, you could use two tanks of water. The first to get down as low as you can go, heating that tank of water. The second to do the last bit of cooling. That way, you should require less ice.

Another pump that you could consider is one of those that can be attached to a drill. These normally come with standard hose fittings.

 

[RobB]

How about a combination of chill and no-chill ideas?

A few days before you brew, you could boil water and put it in a sealed container to cool, and then freeze. This could be done in a set of small containers or possibly in a single volume in the bottom of the fermenter (if you have a big enough freezer). The water would be de-oxygenated by the boil and kept sterile by being allowed to cool in a sealed environment.

On brew day, you could boil an over-concentrated, high gravity wort, say at 60% of your final volume with the remaining 40% to come from your ice. The ice would go in the fermenter first (if it wasn't already frozen in situ) to avoid splashing and contamination. The hot wort could then be added to the ice. Admittedly, all the cold break would end up in the fermenter, and you couldn't use glass (Kaboom!). To get around the cold break, perhaps an intermediate vessel could be used?

Palmer's extract instructions use a 60% boil with a 40% top-off. This would be similar except that the top-off would come from ice. The higher gravity boil needs adjustments in hop quantities, but this is simple enough. I'm guessing that this could work for AG brews too?

If the ice was frozen in a series of smaller containers, it would offer more surface area and chill the wort faster. Obviously, the opening at the top would have to be the full width of the container or you couldn't get the ice out.

This may or may not be a reasonable answer, but I'm convinced that ice needs to be brought into play here.

Consider this:

To heat 1kg of water by one degree takes 4.2 kJ of energy.

To convert 1kg of zero-degree ice to zero-degree water takes a whopping 335 kJ of energy.

By making the wort melt ice instead of just heating water, we are sucking far more energy (heat) from it.

Year nine science to the rescue!

I'm happy to learn from any (constructive) criticism you want to hurl my way.

Cheers,

Rob