Whirlpool Ic

[yardy]

gday brewers,

anyone here made up an immersion chiller similar to JZ's found HERE

reading on other forums that a few have tried to build them but don't seem to be getting the whirlpool effect or the temp drop that that he achieves with his.
( i realise different ground water temps will effect it etc )

I've got some time off coming up and I'll be making one, just wondering if others have run into any problems after building one.

cheers

Dave

 

[sav]

Yardy I just made a return whirlpool in my kettle I`m thinking the same thing I don`t no if its height of the pump and its running through my plate chiller,I thought the flow would be better,maybe wort is more dense than water so it maybe better when I do a brew.

 

[hockadays]

yep I have this setup and it works pretty well. Takes about 40mins to get to 20degc with 47L final amount of wort and a tap temp at the tank of about 15degc. I get a god hot break but the cold break settles ontop so you cant see the cone of trub at the end as the cold trub won't form a cone so you end up with a high kettle loss about 3.5L in my setup but this would be lossed if you removed the cold break later anyway.

hockadays

 

[unrealeous]

I just made one of the recently as my plate chiller was always getting blocked... It's surprisingly easy - there is a good set of demo's on youtube - I'll find them for anyone interested. Basically use a Korny keg as the thing you wrap the copper around, and you need to be able to braise copper - again simple even if you have never tried. Made the whole thing in about an hour and a half - and that includes the time it takes to buy the copper.

Now I have only used it twice, and haven't timed it - but I could swear my temps get down to about 20 within about 15 mins - Certainly wasn't 45 mins. The only thing I find is that you need to slowly stir the wort with the chiller to keep it mixing, especially in the final stages... but I use the chiller to get the whirlpool going, so when final temp is reached you pull the chiller out and let the whirlpool do it's trick.



[Edit - And I make 45 Litre batchs]

 

[yardy]

yep I have this setup and it works pretty well. Takes about 40mins to get to 20degc with 47L final amount of wort and a tap temp at the tank of about 15degc. I get a god hot break but the cold break settles ontop so you cant see the cone of trub at the end as the cold trub won't form a cone so you end up with a high kettle loss about 3.5L in my setup but this would be lossed if you removed the cold break later anyway.

hockadays

those are pretty good figures hockadays, I'd be happy with that temp reduction, especially as it's almost 50lt.

is your whirlpool going opposite to what the flow in the chiller is ?

the pic above is just a normal whirlpool by hand at the end of the boil, i'll make the IC so it sits on the outside edge of the recessed base of the kettle, Jamil also says he should have made his with a larger diameter for containment of the trub.

I just made one of the recently as my plate chiller was always getting blocked... It's surprisingly easy - there is a good set of demo's on youtube - I'll find them for anyone interested. Basically use a Korny keg as the thing you wrap the copper around, and you need to be able to braise copper - again simple even if you have never tried. Made the whole thing in about an hour and a half - and that includes the time it takes to buy the copper.

Now I have only used it twice, and haven't timed it - but I could swear my temps get down to about 20 within about 15 mins - Certainly wasn't 45 mins. The only thing I find is that you need to slowly stir the wort with the chiller to keep it mixing, especially in the final stages... but I use the chiller to get the whirlpool going, so when final temp is reached you pull the chiller out and let the whirlpool do it's trick.


[Edit - And I make 45 Litre batchs]

nice job, also good temp loss considering the whirlpool is done manually.

cheers

Dave

 

[hockadays]

Dave one thing I noticed is my coils on my chiller are not as close together as yours are which may let the liquid form a whirlpool better. Don't know for sure if this could be a reason maybe test with water and try putting a gap between the lower coils.

 

[pingdong]

Hi, I have been getting cloudy beer. I have a wort chiller that looks like the one in this post and also cools quickly maybee 10 - 15 mins. I boil my wort in a 50ltr keg with a tap 2 or 3 inches from the bottom. I dont have the copper pipe like the one above should i?

Also i have been opening tap fully to airate the wort in the fermenter. should i whirlpool the whole time i have the tap open?

Thanks

 

[yardy]

Dave one thing I noticed is my coils on my chiller are not as close together as yours are which may let the liquid form a whirlpool better. Don't know for sure if this could be a reason maybe test with water and try putting a gap between the lower coils.

you must have good eyes mate, i haven't made it yet sorry..


good point though, looking at Jamil's there doesn't seem to be much of a gap between the coils, good thing about copper, I can always compress it or stretch it out to suit the best method, trial & error I suppose.

cheers

Dave

 

[hockadays]

Sorry surfing off my iphone