The Goat: Is this the fastest and most water efficient chiller yet?

[Feldon]

A homebrewer in the UK has designed a counterflow wort chiller that in experiments has cooled water from 90C down to the low 20s in under seven minutes using only about 30 litres of coolant water. Amazing.



Other advantages are:

1. 100% inspectable
2. 100% cleanable
3. 100% demountable
4. Expandable
5. Very coolant economical – water meter and tree hugger guys will be happy
6. No threads on the cold side – can use a Blichmann inline temp gauge
7. Very easy to build – can be built without soldering
8. Very cheap to build
9. Can be used in single pass or recirculation systems.
10. Clean In Place (CIP)

He's put up a demo video of his chiller, which he calls 'The Goat'. Its an experimental model that looks like a long trombone and he has it laying on the floor of his brewery (nice set up too), but the final version will be attached to the back of his 3V brew stand.



You can read his build narrative (with pics) in a thread on Jim's Beer Kit forum in the UK: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=69638&sid=b296310d8fef4fb1efb20e8226df2f50 .
For the technos, he goes into a lot of the maths and thermodynamics to explain how he achieved what appears to be a remarkable outcome.

 

[Cervantes]

Damn............

Another project for this year

Very cool and if you re-use the heated cooling water for cleaning very water efficient as well.

 

[dicko]

I like these experiments but 27 degrees is hardly a remarkable outcome in my opinion.
That is easily achievable with any cfwc with a standard supply of tap water.
His achievement is more with the small amount of coolant that he used and that is probably the result of the size of the chiller and his controlled flow rates.
If you have a use for spent cooling water, or recirculate it back to a tank is it really worth it?
I, personally can get wort to 9 deg with 40 litres of water stored in 2 x 20 litre cubes in the fridge with an IC which I run tap water through until I get around 30 deg then add some ice to the chilled water and pump it through the IC until the wort gets down to temp.
Depending on the temp of the initial tap water I commonly use around 60 litres of coolant water to get to 30.
I can easily achieve ale pitching temp using just the chilled water without any ice after the initial cooling with just tap water.
Where I live my tap water temp is not cold during summer.
My system cost me the price of a submersible pump $79.00 but the rest is a no brainer and I dont have a cleaning issue as it is an IC.
I have to agree with the fellow with his comment re the cleaning of the plate chiller......I had one once....PITA.

 

[Bribie G]

For most of the year in the UK, hopping into a bath of typical tap water would make you scream and you'd be dead in 5 minutes. I'd guess in most of Australia, apart from maybe Launceston in the winter, you would need to use a stack of tap water.

 

[NewtownClown]

To answer the question in this thread's title - Not really
That is called a straight Double Pipe Heat Exchanger, utilised in many industrial applications and is hardly a new design. BYO project found here
The disadvantages of this design include lower HX efficiency and size.
The advantage of these units over others are the low-cost design and easy maintenance.

 

[Scottsrx]

Would I be wrong in saying there's more money invested in copper pipe there than you could drop on a plate chiller? But obviously the cleaning side of things is much better.