Using an ice immersed wort chiller.

[CosmicBertie]

To let a tap just run and run for cooling purposes still fills me with genuine indignation. Guy I mentioned in the post uses his "spent" water on his roses.

I'd hope that as an old tinkerer, like myself, you'd come up with something like this for chilling:

I pump my cooling water out of the rain water tank, through the immersion chiller and back into the tank. "No water was lost in the chilling of this wort."

And as i'm putting on my flamesuit, I chill to approx 24C and pitch. Then into the fermenting fridge set to whatever fermenting temp. I do this for both ales and lagers.

 

[WitWonder]

Upon the arrival of the new Braumeister the plan is to have our current plate chiller (which nearly got beaten to death with a sledgehammer during the last brew due to it continually blocking during transfer) sitting in an ice bath. Mains water would be transferred through the plate chiller and out into an immersion chiller with the 'waste' water from the immersion chiller used on the garden. Theory being this will chill faster and to a lower temp than standard immersion chiller using mains water here in Perth which in summer can be fairly warm.

**edit - shouldn't this be moved to 'gear and equipment' ?

 

[Tahoose]

I haven't done any all grain brews yet (hopefully first one this week), but how about the idea of running the boiling hot wort through 10-15 of silicone hose submerged in a bucket of ice, could be sanitised prior to use, will easily handle the temperature and maybe with a tap at the end you could manage flow rate for the desired result....

 

[Dan Pratt]

Silicon will cool it, copper pipe will cool the wort much faster and more efficiently.

 

[malt_shovel]

This is what I used after I got the wort to around 35deg with tap water. Recirculation through the immersion chiller using a pond pump and ice water got to 17deg in under 15mins for 40ltrs of wort.

 

[Middo]

If you want to save a few dollars you can just buy some copper pipe and get a cheap pipe bender on ebay. I did this myself by wrapping the copper around a corny keg.

I also bought a 12w aquarium pump on ebay for under $20 delivered.

Works a treat, here's some photos of the coil and the esky I use, like Malt_Shovel... I use tap water at first to get it down into the 30's then ice (recirculating) which gets it down to pitching temp real fast. I first used icecream containers for the ice but now I use chinese takeaway containers... got plenty of them and can stack them up high which gave me enough to do two brews on the weekend.

This was only the 3rd time using this and the first beer I did this with had a really good clarity and wasn't cloudy like my no chill beers.

 

[Blitzer]

Think something like the below would work fine for recirc?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1350L-H-Energy-saving-Submersible-Water-Pump-Aquarium-Fish-Pond-Tank-Fountain-/151107331286?pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item232eb2e4d6

 

[zappa]

I have been coiling the inlet hose to my plate chiller in a bucket of ice successfully for the last few brews. I don't need to worry about reducing temp first, because the source water is never much more than about 27c and the ice hardly melts. I seem to get wort into the fermenter at around 22 to 24c using this method. I intend to make a short immersion chiller for this purpose in the next few weeks (prior to my next brew) and think it will be more than sufficient (garden hose is a good insulator). I reckon this is a simpler approach to reducing wort temp first then recycling ice water through an immersion chiller in the boil kettle, but I guess it depends on whether or not water use is a problem. Mine comes from and is returned to a rain water tank.

 

[Middo]

Think something like the below would work fine for recirc?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1350L-H-Energy-saving-Submersible-Water-Pump-Aquarium-Fish-Pond-Tank-Fountain-/151107331286?pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item232eb2e4d6

HAH!

That's the exact one I'm using you can see a bit of it in the esky, same seller even... got the watts wrong though, it's 19w not the 12w I previously posted....$19.20 delivered.

Good flow rate too, the hose is a cheapo from bunnings that I put all the hot water out on my front lawn then just put the end back into the esky once I'm ready to drop the ice in. The hoses always stay on the chiller, I just give the pipes a good wipe over and drop it in during the boil to sanitise it.

 

[The_Duck]

I have been doing what Cosmic Bertie above suggested and using my water tank water in a closed loop. With 2500 litres of water available and a 4 L/m pump it gives a nice slow flow rate. I find my temps drop quickly to about 40 C in about 15-20 mins but getting down to about 20 is a real struggle. I am planning to create a small copper coil that can sit in line with the water coming out of the water tank and after cooling to around 40C, I can add the ice to pre-chill the water going to the immersion chiller to crank down the rest of the way. I am figuring maybe 3-5 m tightly coiled in a small esky should provide the surface area to get chilled quickly.

I think it will be trial and error to work out the sweet spot for adding the ice. Hopefully winter will not require ice at all as the water should be in the teens or lower anyway.

Duck

 

[Bribie G]

Of course the elephant in the room here is no chill in a cube, that's all I've ever done for the last five years and no complaints.

 

[Dunkelbrau]

I was thinking of getting an esky full of ice to submerge my plate chiller in and cool my wort to 8 for a lager..

I'm guessing that it will get down that far if I run the wort slow enough.

I do hate the water waste.. Especially if it just rained as there's no point watering the garden with it and we have a stupid front loader washing machine!

 

[Gelding]

I was thinking of getting an esky full of ice to submerge my plate chiller in and cool my wort to 8 for a lager..

I'm guessing that it will get down that far if I run the wort slow enough.

I do hate the water waste.. Especially if it just rained as there's no point watering the garden with it and we have a stupid front loader washing machine!

not a chance dude, your ice bath will warm up from ambient long before you get wort down cool enough that way. You have to pump the water from the ice bath through the plate chiller. Unless that's what you meant ...