Speaking of Fast or Slow or No Chilling

[Mardoo]

Yes, no, no, no boiling anything into a glass carboy. When I was a kid my grandmother poured boiling water into my thick glass fishbowl and I was doused. You don't want that.

And now, Manticle, you have me dreaming of borosilicate fermentors...

 

[mahonya1]

I've read about this idea of chilling in a fridge to save water before. I still don't get it. Rather than use some water that can be reclaimed for other jobs* you will make your fridge work hard for many hours using electricity which is produced at power plants that are bad for the environment. I think I prefer would to waste a little water than to pull thousands of watts from the grid.

* The used water can be used for many things. Run a sprinkler, fill your washing machine, top up a pool or pond, wash your car, sent to a rain water tank.

Yes I totally agree. The water I use for chilling is then heated and gets me 1 load of laundry and cleans all the brewing equipment i've used. So it actually works out cheaper if you think about it because you are effectively using cold water for cleaning and laundry instead of hot.

 

[black_labb]

Is it practical to chill beers to 15*c using a chiller?

I tend to pitch my english and belgian ales at about 15-17*c and ramp the temp up over the next few days which I find gives really nice esters with many yeasts and the added solubility of oxygen at low temps is a nice bonus.

 

[Gelding]

Is it practical to chill beers to 15*c using a chiller?
 
I tend to pitch my english and belgian ales at about 15-17*c and ramp the temp up over the next few days which I find gives really nice esters with many yeasts and the added solubility of oxygen at low temps is a nice bonus.

sure why not

but obviously you will need a coolant reservoir that is lower than 15 deg C in temp. Some ice in a water bath will do the trick, and many people go straight from boiler to fermenter by passing wort through a plate chiller with iced water on the other side.

I do this myself, plate chillers solve many of the problems that immersion chillers have that are discussed elsewhere on this forum.

 

[Yob]

I got myself a 1000lt tank for chilling (so I could return to it and not waste water).. Then decided I like my processes and can't be arsed with more equipment and/time/process.. Now the tank is for my hops

 

[Gelding]

I got myself a 1000lt tank for chilling (so I could return to it and not waste water).. Then decided I like my processes and can't be arsed with more equipment and/time/process.. Now the tank is for my hops

man, that's one helluavalotta hops ...

 

[Camo6]

Could you post a pic or just detail the whirlpool port arrangement DrK? Am looking at doing something similar in my kettle and wondering what height would be best. I was planning on keeping it low in the kettle to allow for single batches.

 

[black_labb]

sure why not

but obviously you will need a coolant reservoir that is lower than 15 deg C in temp. Some ice in a water bath will do the trick, and many people go straight from boiler to fermenter by passing wort through a plate chiller with iced water on the other side.

I do this myself, plate chillers solve many of the problems that immersion chillers have that are discussed elsewhere on this forum.

How much water/ice would you use?

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

How much water/ice would you use?

I'd use a 20L handy pail from bunnings, and a couple of 2L coke bottles with frozen water in them. Make sure the water is cool before you start chilling and when the water starts getting warm, swap the bottles over.

I have a double coil pre-chiller which was gonna be a HERMS coil, but i have other ideas now. So now i will immerse that in a bucket of water and put the frozed water bottle in the middle of the coil. It should be really effective with my CFC.

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

I pulled the pre-chiller coil out of the shed so i can show you what i meant:

This was originally going to be a HERMS coil, But after a post from qldkev, I thought better.

TOP with 1.25L softdrink bottle in it. As you can see it will easily take a 2L Bottle:


BOTTOM:


Plus I will use a 24V brown pump to circulate the iced water through the CFC (which i still have to put together )

 

[dr K]

Camo6..I had a not helpful pic on post #10 when I clean my kettle I will take some decent photo's.
The rig is a 58 litre Keg King "keggle" with an inlet just above the outlet. Its all 12mm till the outlet temporary brass till replaced by SS 4mm blaster as I noted earlier the concept is hardly new ntl I will post some pics.

 

[Camo6]

Thanks DrK. Was planning along those lines but being careful the burner doesn't affect the hose when I start the recirc to sanitise the pump and lines. I'm tempted to reuse the whirlpool arm I had on my chiller as this setup worked well.
Would still appreciate the pics though. Good to see you back in Oz!

 

[Adr_0]

I have only recently got a chiller and currently my water goes to a sprinkler and water the lawn. In winter i will buy another hose and send it back to the rain water tank.

Geez, that's an expensive way to use chilling water...

I'd use a 20L handy pail from bunnings, and a couple of 2L coke bottles with frozen water in them. Make sure the water is cool before you start chilling and when the water starts getting warm, swap the bottles over.

I have a double coil pre-chiller which was gonna be a HERMS coil, but i have other ideas now. So now i will immerse that in a bucket of water and put the frozed water bottle in the middle of the coil. It should be really effective with my CFC.

I do this, but I chuck bags of ice in. For a ~20L batch I use 2 bags; for a 50L I use 5 (coincidence). I am about to install a tap on the bottom so that I can drain out the water so that I can keep putting ice in... this will waste maybe 5L of water.

I typically run StarSan through the plate chiller (back-flush) and then do the ice water trick for the wort, then mix in PBW after I'm done and back flush on recycle for a while, then into the kettle (after I've dumped the hops into the compost).

This is probably the most costly way to chill wort, but it works for me at the moment.

As raised in another thread, I use water from the hot water system - straight from the hot water tank - pre-heated into my HLT. I have all the taps open around the house during this and can't use hot water. I haven't done it yet, but the best use of water and energy I could think of is to put the water after chilling back into the HWS and pre-heat shower/sink water. A complicated way of doing what other people do for the washing machine.

Any chilling process you choose should be governed by what's important to you at the time: keeping cost down might be one; time to pitching might be another; and least amount of stuffing around might be another.
- Plate chillers, fish tank pumps and ice is the most expensive but is the fastest and isn't too much stuffing around
- 2 x immersion chillers is without doubt the most stuffing around and is moderately expensive, but still good time
- Water bath is a moderate amount of stuffing around, only incrementally faster chilling than no chill and may still have IBU, DMS or infection implications
- No chill is the least amount of stuffing around and the cheapest, but results in the longest time to pitch

 

[real_beer]

Sadly I posted this topic twice, and have no skill to delete..sorry.

I am not good attaching things...but one pic is some of the jello from the fast chill the other a rather bad angle but shows the outlet which may reduce the flow rate but certainly increases the velocity
(I am also not a photographer)

K

Camo6..I had a not helpful pic on post #10 when I clean my kettle I will take some decent photo's.
The rig is a 58 litre Keg King "keggle" with an inlet just above the outlet. Its all 12mm till the outlet temporary brass till replaced by SS 4mm blaster as I noted earlier the concept is hardly new ntl I will post some pics.

dr K you've got to start adopting a more can do attitude mate! If you keep telling yourself you can't do this & that all the time you never will. Think positive, you can do it!

 

[Goose]

How much water/ice would you use?

At risk of being laughed at by the pundits, you can actually calculate this quite easily.

1) it takes 4.18 KJ for every Kg of water, to raise or lower the temperature by 1 degree C
2) it takes 334 KJ for every Kg of water to phase change to ice at 0 deg C and visa versa

so you can see that a little bit of ice goes a long way in terms of cooling potential versus a water bath ..

 

[Bribie G]

This looks interesting, plus a wee pump.... draw the wort out of the FV tap and return to the top using the fan air to cool.

The video only seems to be playable off the page itself.

edit: previous post is not laughable at all, it's the "latent heat of melting / freezing" at work there, that's why ice is so useful and why even the Romans were able to transport vast quantities of ice from the Alps to the Roman Court thousands of years ago.

 

[dr K]

Camo6 and any others that may want some basic photos, rather than clog things up I have posted here http://www.mashematics.net/wordpress/?page_id=110
Yes it is my website and a shameless plug, on the other hand though, I essentially only service the Canberra Region, and as Canberra Brewers know my stock levels on site (being here where I sit in reality) and on site (being the web) never match.....

K

 

[Yob]

jeebus K.. you could have cleaned it first

 

[dr K]

errrr.....I did....but then I am not known for my aseptic process......(as we know)