HLT herms coil doubled as wert chiller?

[sar_dog_1]

I was wondering if anybody has tried this? Recirc you boil through the herms coil. Fill the hlt with cold water, recirc, drian and refill with cold water, add a bag of ice and repeat. Personally I think this would work but I am wondering what the time would be to bring the temp down.

Additionally, iwas thinking of adding a tee with an airline fitting to slowly blow out the remaining wort to lessen any losses.

Any thoughts on this? Has anybody tried it? Pros and cons?

Thanjs all!

 

[BigTuna]

In the past (old brew rig) I have used my Herms coil to double as a wort chiller. All I had to do was take it out of the HLT and put it in a 5gal bucket, sick a hose in it and keep the water flowing. Worked like a dream.

 

[sar_dog_1]

Right. But I wanna leave it in my hlt, run wort thru it and fill the hlt with cold or even ice water.

 

[CJBrewVT]

I do it (25 ft 1/2" stainless). Not quite as fast as my old IC (50 ft 3/8" copper) but also one less piece of equipment. I fill HLT with cold water and ice cubes. This is only 6.5 gal of wort though.

 

[sar_dog_1]

Cj. Thats awsome. How fast does it drop it down? Also, do you have to add more ice or change the water?

 

[LiquidFlame]

I've tired this with my 10 gal all electric system and the cold water heats up to quick. I would have to replace the water constantly and really didn't save me any time or give me any convince over my plate chiller.

 

[CJBrewVT]

Cj. Thats awsome. How fast does it drop it down? Also, do you have to add more ice or change the water?

Took about 5-6 minutes to go from boil to 140 if I remember right. Another 5-6 to get under 110. I think we hit 85 around 16-17 minutes total. I've changed up a lot of things with our set up and will be doing a test run this week hopefully.

Our tap water is very cold and with the ice mixed in we didn't replace the water. You may get better results doing so.

 

[sar_dog_1]

Sweet! 15 min isn't to bad. I think throwing in some more ice and or changing the water would increase the time.

Let me know how you make out!