Wort Chiller Just Ain't Chillin

[Ducatiboy stu]

I used to love my big ( 30,000lt ) tank. Half buried.

I used to pump the chiller water back into it. And it was allways around 15-18*c .

Being in town sucks balls.

 

[Black n Tan]

Cheers LB - I think reading everyone's comments it appears my pressure was to high for the water to make contact. I will also do my best to keep it moving a little.
Appreciate the feedback.

Slowing down the flow through the chiller will not make it chill faster. That said slowing down the flow may be more efficient in terms of the amount of water needed to chill your wort. If you touch the inlet and outlet of the immersion chiller, you could adjust the flow such that the outlet feels significantly warmer than the inlet, and play around with it to see what works for you. It is a balancing act between the ying of cooling the wort quickly and the yang of unnecessarily wasting water.

 

[Judanero]

The post from Dicko is almost exactly the method I was using with my immersion chiller (it was copper) even down to the pre chiller in 60L fermenter of ice slurry.

As said previously, just a couple things to consider and try for next time.

Cheers :beer:

 

[donald_trub]

I have a SS immersion chiller and the coil on it doesn't look very long at all. I stir it around constantly but it would take me at least an hour to get down to pitching temp. Now I get it down to mid twenties and then chuck it in the fermenter/fermenting fridge and pitch the yeast the following day.

Once I get more space for brewing (I brew in an apartment) I'll build my own immersion chiller and make one of those whirlpool ICs on MrMalty.

 

[lael]

I had another go on the weekend with a 90L batch. Two immersion chillers and whirlpooling with pump = 100 to 60C in 4mins... and I accidentally had both elements on. Realised a few mins later when it was stalled at 52C... and pulled the plug on the brauduino controller, instead of turning the element off via switch... plugged it back on, turned the pump back on and forgot about the other element. Dropped to around 32 pretty quick, stalled, realised the other element was on. Down to 26C was quick (around 20mins total even with faffing about) and then down another 3 degrees was sloooow - another ten mins or so?

Be interested to do it properly next time...

 

[dago001]

This doesn't make sense to me. If you increase the flow rate of water, (the water isn't so hot as it exits the exchanger), meaning that it is cooler inside the exchanger. A bigger temperature differential between your wort and cooling medium means a bigger rate of heat transfer. Unless you're trying to save water I don't see how that is efficient for cooling.

The water has to spend enough time in the coil to transfer the heat from the wort. You are removing heat from the wort, not adding cold to the wort. Too fast and the water does not have enough time to remove heat. Slightly different with a plate chiller because of the larger surface areas involved. Nothing to do with saving water.

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I used to love my big ( 30,000lt ) tank. Half buried.

I used to pump the chiller water back into it. And it was allways around 15-18*c .

Being in town sucks balls.

Bet my town bore water is colder than your out of town tank
26 M of earthy coldness, chills like a trooper and makes the garden grown fantastically.
Nev

 

[Burt de Ernie]

The biggest issues is trying to put too much water through it. The water needs plenty of contact time in the wort to chill effectively, so as you said, it should be hot water coming out when you start chilling. So the only way for it to not chill effectively is to have too much water flow. 1/4 of a hose water flow max.

LB

This is Irish engineering at its best.....I agree that more contact time is better but you achieve this by having more contact surface area e.g. more pipe work

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Bet my town bore water is colder than your out of town tank
26 M of earthy coldness, chills like a trooper and makes the garden grown fantastically.
Nev

So....your the one sucking the Artesian Basin dry from WA and heating it up with your chiller water..

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

This is Irish engineering at its best.....I agree that more contact time is better but you achieve this by having more contact surface area e.g. more pipe work

Not if he has only what he has, slow flow will make a big difference with out having to re spend.
Nev

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

So....your the one sucking the Artesian Basin dry from WA and heating it up with your chiller water..

No just recycling and making beer.
Nev

 

[Parks]

The water has to spend enough time in the coil to transfer the heat from the wort. You are removing heat from the wort, not adding cold to the wort. Too fast and the water does not have enough time to remove heat. Slightly different with a plate chiller because of the larger surface areas involved. Nothing to do with saving water.

I don't buy it either. Heat is going to be transferred regardless of the speed, it'll just be a much, much smaller amount per litre of water.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

This is Irish engineering at its best.....I agree that more contact time is better but you achieve this by having more contact surface area e.g. more pipe work

Well...I know where you both are coming from..

I found that running cold tank water flat out through my chiller didnt chill it any faster that if I slowed the flow down. But there was a balance of flow v heat transfer. Unfortunatly several longnecks,kids,swmbo,washing,etc stopped me from taking note of the exact position of the tap.

 

[danestead]

I don't buy it either. Heat is going to be transferred regardless of the speed, it'll just be a much, much smaller amount per litre of water.

Im with you. Of course fast flowing water is going to cool the wort down. There wont be much of a difference in the temp of water going into the chiller to that which is coming out but that is because its flowing so fast! This seems like a very simple concept to me! No it wont be as efficient in terms of the ratio of water used to wort cooled but itll cool it faster!

 

[Burt de Ernie]

Not if he has only what he has, slow flow will make a big difference with out having to re spend.
Nev

To be sure, to be sure!

So if I slow my chiller down to 1 litre/hour my wort will chill faster??

This definitely needs some proof testing!

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

To be sure, to be sure!

So if I slow my chiller down to 1 litre/hour my wort will chill faster??

This definitely needs some proof testing!

Its all about balancing and laminar flow, you need to read, to be sure.
Nev

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

To fast a flow wont capture the hot water on the inner surface of a pipe...

IE the cold water travelling fast in pipe wont drag the hot water sitting against the surface of the tube.

Think of it like jumping in a train. The passengers are the hot water and the train is the cold water. If the train is doing 100kmph then no passangers can jump on the train. Slow the train to 10khp then all the passengers can run and jump on the train. Then the train can carry a lot more hot passengers.

 

[pk.sax]

Your analogy is a bit daft but laminar flow does play a part in any fluid flow situation. Won't it be a simple solution to give the coil a sharp pinch every so often to cause the laminar flow to break up into turbulent flow throughout, forcing the fluid flowing through the pipe to mix and draw more heat out.

 

[dago001]

Agree with the above posts. You are not chilling the wort you are removing the heat. Too fast water flow and the heat won't transfer efficiently, exactly the problem that the OP had. I wont comment anymore. I have to go back to work. My boss thinks I'm cleaning our 200 plate heat exchangers at the moment.
Cheers
LB

 

[Kodos]

One question that hasn't been asked, is which direction is the water flowing through the chiller?

If the cooling water is going into the pipe that goes straight to the bottom of the kettle, and exits via the coil, it will take longer to cool down.

So you want the coldest water coiling around the top of the wort, and by the time cooling water has picked up as much heat as it can get, it's exiting the pot as quickly as possible, otherwise the (now hot) water in the chiller sort of works against the cold water going in.

If that makes any sense.