Natural Born Chillers

[Doogiechap]

Sounds grand Brewtus,
I have an old Evap cooler in my shed and might install my submersible pump in and recirculate from the sump. Joy another project for me to conquer. Next chance to fiddle in the shed is in 7 weeks time .
My last batch was cooled with about 60 litres of tap water with my CFC and then recirculated through again with the submersible sitting in a 20 cube of chilled water doing the second chilling phase. I would love to reduce the wasted energy of chilling the water with my fridge.
Great idea bloke !
Cheers
Doug

 

[Doogiechap]

G'day Brewtus,
Further to your idea I tested the evap cooler concept and the results weren't that inspiring. The ambient temp in my shed was about 34 the water temp from my tap that filled the cooler was about 24 after a few hours of running flat out the reserviour water of the cooler was at about 20. A 4 drop from the tap to the cooler is marginal and I am unsure how much impact the cooling of 20-25 l of 30 warm wort with 15-20 l of 20 coolant would help. I would love for some others to prove my results wrong
Cheers
Doug

 

[Brewtus]

I am glad you gave it a go. It is a bit of a buzz to see someone try out one of my ideas.

Do you know what temp the water comes out of a chiller early on?

If you still the test rig set up, try putting hot water in the evaporative cooler and see how quick it drops. Evap coolers don't cool that much beyond ambient and if your ambient is 35deg then its pretty good that it got it to 15 below ambient (ok you started at 24deg) As they rely on the water evaporating to loose enegry, at 35 deg the ambient air will warming the water.

Just a thought. :huh: