Wort Chiller Just Ain't Chillin

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
so is it better to have the water go straight down to the bottom and work its way up the coils or the other way around?
 
Steve said:
so is it better to have the water go straight down to the bottom and work its way up the coils or the other way around?
Good question.

Prob depends on how many beers you have left over..
 
Steve said:
so is it better to have the water go straight down to the bottom and work its way up the coils or the other way around?
I'd say it makes no difference. I'd put money on it.
 
Legit question. Haven't used a chiller in 7-8 years and after a 3 year break from AG brewing decided to get back on it and built myself a new one and have forgotten which way the plumbing went.
 
Steve said:
Legit question. Haven't used a chiller in 7-8 years and after a 3 year break from AG brewing decided to get back on it and built myself a new one and have forgotten which way the plumbing went.
In theory put the input at the then go and grab a beer....

I can see engineers fighting over this one...heat rises to the top..but pumping hot chiller fluid down to the ( theoretical) cold bottom could heat the wort at the bottom.

After4 beers...if it isnt getting cold....then I would swap taps in the laundry sink...
 
Steve said:
so is it better to have the water go straight down to the bottom and work its way up the coils or the other way around?
Conventional practical procedure has water flow against gravity as much as possible. This allows maximum contact of water to heat exchanging surface. Since most heat exchange occurs in the coil, I'd say water traveling up the coil.

Move the wort around to prevent cold wort gathering at the bottom.
 
I'm going no chill. Botulism over Internet arguements any day.
 
Mattrox said:
Conventional practical procedure has water flow against gravity as much as possible. This allows maximum contact of water to heat exchanging surface. Since most heat exchange occurs in the coil, I'd say water traveling up the coil.

Move the wort around to prevent cold wort gathering at the bottom.
Thanks...will do. I used to stir the wort and it worked well and whirlpooled the trub at the same time.
Cheers
Steve
 
LagerBomb said:
I'm going no chill. Botulism over Internet arguements any day.
Know what you mean. This thread gave me a headache half way through. I went no chill for years but after a spate of infections (that eventually led to me packing it in) im going back to what worked for me.
Cheers
Steve
 
Did some actual flight testing this week.

Amazing what flow separation can do. The flow reverses direction in some areas and literally goes in circles in others. All it takes is a little breaking up of the laminar flow. Different speeds make sod all difference, 120 knots to 220 knots. Doesn't matter, separation is key to turbulent flow. My guess is it would yield far greater dividends than in leaving flow rate.

We could see the zones on the belly where there was no separation, at higher and higher speeds the flow still remained stubbornly laminar.

And yes, the earth is not flat. I cannot quote more or I will have to send the asio over to abduct you and transport you to woomera.
 
Really cant believe I just read through this thread.
Knockout of 540L of wort to 23 degrees takes about 15 minutes on my 7m3 plate chiller, I end up with about 600L of 65 degree hot water in the HLT.
I can knock out heaps faster by increasing both coolant and product flow, to a point, the further its pushed the less cooling effect. Yes faster coolant flow will cool faster, and yes faster coolant flow will cool slower, depending on all the other variables involved.
An immersion chiller is a whole different scenario, the closer the product temperature to the coolant temperature the less efficient the heat exchange will be.
Crashing a tank from 20 to 10 degrees takes only an hour, whereas taking a tank from 5 to 2 degrees takes hours, the closer you get to the coolant temperature the longer it will take. In my case glycol temperature is -2 degrees.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top