Waterwise Chiller

[Airgead]

Folks

With the current focus on saving water I have alwys felt somewhat guilty about the amount of water my chiller uses. Sure I water the garden with it (once it is cool enough) and use the hot stuff for washing up but its still a lot of water.

I have now come up with a way to chill my brew quickly and use no water at all. We have a water tank in the back yard for garden watering. I don't use it for brewing as I'm not sure what our galvanised iron roof is adding to the water. I was looking at the tank the other day while hooking up the chiller and suddenly realised that the chiller water never comes in contact with the brew (except through the pinhole in my solder but thats another story) so tank water would be fine for chilling. I feel better about wasting rainwater as a single day of rain will fill the tank. Our tank also had a nice high pressure pump fitted so I can get the flow rates really high and cool that sucker fast.

As I was hooking it all up, a second thought hit me. I ran the outlet of the chiller back into the inlet on the water tank. With 5000l of water in the tank to buffer the temp the hot water running back in doesn't cause the chiller water to heat and I use no water at all. it is a completely closed system. Guilt free chilling.

I suspect that everyone else has been doing this for years and I'm just slow but I thought I'd share anyway.

Cheers
Dave

 

[manaen]

Nice one .. I will have to get something like that going too .. I hate watching the water just sink into the grass .. even though it needs it.

 

[Darren]

Mine goes into the pool. If I has a rainwater tank I would use your method too.

great thinking Airgead

 

[user 384]

My current approach is to collect all the chiller water in jerry cans. I then use some of the water for clean-up, but just store the rest in the jerry cans, and use it to make the next beer. The chiller water is just my normal mains water, which is fine for me because I don't filter or anything like that.

A project I've been meaning to do for ages is to pre-chill 2 r 3 jerry cans of water down to 1C-2C the use a small pump to pump it through the CFC. This would not only allow me to recycle the chiller water, but it would also be more efficent in bringing down the wort temp. I'm pretty sure Ross does this as he only has tank water, and has to conserve every little drop he can

Cheers
MAH

 

[T.D.]

Mine goes into the pool.

[post="112936"][/post]​

That's a great idea (if only I had a pool ) then after the hard day's brewing you can go for a leasurely dip without freezing your nuts off!

 

[hefevice]

Mine goes into the pool.

[post="112936"][/post]​

Oh yeah!! And the pool has a pump as well!! Only downside is that the salt may chew out the inside of the copper tube, and you would definitely not want pool water in the wort...

Now I have an excuse to set up my future brewing system by the pool

 

[Kai]

My current approach is to run it into the fermenter boiling hot and leave it there until it cools.

Mainly because I live in the hills. And don't have a chiller.

 

[Darren]

Mine goes into the pool.

[post="112936"][/post]​

Oh yeah!! And the pool has a pump as well!! Only downside is that the salt may chew out the inside of the copper tube, and you would definitely not want pool water in the wort...

Now I have an excuse to set up my future brewing system by the pool

[post="112960"][/post]​

I only put the tap water going through the chiller in the pool (ie no chlorine).
The pool needs filling sometimes.
cheers
Darren

 

[delboy]

if any of you guys have a home made glycol system for your flooded fonts you could make a glycol cold chiller ???

rain water tank what a good idea but what if the tank water is hotter than the mains water as these tank do get fairly warm after a spell of extreemly hot days ?

:beer: well worth ago though .

delboy :beer:

 

[Airgead]

if any of you guys have a home made glycol system for your flooded fonts you could make a glycol cold chiller ???

rain water tank what a good idea but what if the tank water is hotter than the mains water as these tank do get fairly warm after a spell of extreemly hot days ?

:beer: well worth ago though .

delboy :beer:

[post="112993"][/post]​

Metal tanks will heat up but our tank is plastic. 5000l in a cream plastic tank (walls about 2cm thick) doesn't heat up much. The tank water was 22 degrees on the weekend. Air temp was over 30. I think the mains water was only a few degrees cooler (didn't check though).

I'm building an ice bath pre-chiller anyway so I can get the temp right down.

Cheers
Dave

 

[deebee]

See Goat's waterwise chilling arrangement. I was drunk at the time so he will give a better description than this, but from memory the chiller water is in a closed circuit. It is pumped from a crate into the chiller and returns to the crate from the chiller. The crate has plenty of ice in it.

I seem to remember pix of it somewhere at Goat's brewday in Perth, if you are handy with a search engine.

 

[Guest Lurker]

I havent tried to do the numbers, but I will have a go sometime, and I wouldnt be at all surprised if the environmental cost of the energy you use to make ice to put in a pre-chiller to save water is greater than the environmental cost of using more water in the first place. So its probably more a matter of getting cooler wort than saving wastage.

 

[Darren]

GL,
I agree, then chuck it in the fridge to get down those last few degrees.

cheers
Darren

 

[big d]

exactly what im thinking of doing airghead but on a different scale.with my imminent move to perth later this year the place i will be residing has no mains water so its a supply your own setup.my brew set up in my brew shed will be utilizing various methods of cooling the wort primarily being the recirc of cooling water due to the fact its a limited supply.
im tossing around quite a few ideas at the moment but i know i will work out a whats best for me scenario.only cost will be electricity to pump the water up to a set point then it will be gravity back to the main holding tank.unless i go the bucket to tank method :angry:

cheers
big d

 

[Darren]

Solar panel Big D.

cheers
Darren

 

[big d]

sorry darren.we are talking about cooling not heating.on hot days as up here all the time i go through a pre iced chiller.to heat its company supplied electricity and gas.down south i will be paying for just the gas and electricity.the perks of the job will be distant memories.

cheers
big d

 

[Airgead]

I havent tried to do the numbers, but I will have a go sometime, and I wouldnt be at all surprised if the environmental cost of the energy you use to make ice to put in a pre-chiller to save water is greater than the environmental cost of using more water in the first place. So its probably more a matter of getting cooler wort than saving wastage.

[post="113177"][/post]​

You're right. An ice pre-chiller would ruin my green credentials. The tank water will chill the wort to around 27C which is pretty good. I don't have a fermentation fridge at the moment so a pre-chiller is the only way I have of getting the temp down to the high teens in a reasonable time.

Cheers
Dave

 

[bindi]

Trying to drop the temp on a AG wort as I type using a pre chiller which is very basic being coiled copper pipe in ice water and then onto 18m of coiled immersion chiller, to drop it further I will put the fermenter in a tuckerbox freezer untill it is at pitching temp very basic but it works for me
Oh and I do collect and use most of the water, I did waste a lot today though

 

[Steve Lacey]

GL, how do you equate the two environmental costs? The one for the ice would be in CO2 output from the energy consumption I suppose, but the one for the water incorporates the environmental cost of the raw water resource, not just the CO2 output for treatment and distribution. Not trying to be smart, I'm just wondering how you are going to compare apples with apples here.

 

[pint of lager]

To get the wort down the last few degrees, use some iceblocks.

Freeze up some two litre milk cartons filled with water to about 3cm from the lid.

Get your wort temperature down as far as possible with your chiller, then sanitise the outside of the milk cartons and add them to the fermenter.

If you are worried about sanitising the milk cartons, wash and sanitise the empty cartons throughly, dry the outside, fill with water, put on lid, place in clean plastic bags, freeze, then on brewday, pull them out of the freezer, the plastic bags will come off as they start to defrost and then add to the fermenter.