Quick question...I have 25' of 3/8" and 25' of 1/2" copper...

[natewv]

I've been using the 3/8" length as an IC with average results since I started brewing 2 years ago. I perceive that the slow chililng time is due to 1) not cold enough water and 2) not enough surface area as weel as probably 3) not enough wort movement.

I can get 25' of 1/2" from a buddy for cheap and my first thought was use what I have as a pre-chiller and use the new coil as the WC. That would take care of 1) and possibly 2) but would I be able to effectively/efficiently fill and move water through the wider diameter WC given the head/pressure drop created by running through 25' of a smaller diameter pre-chiller?

Would I actually want to do the exact opposite? Keep my IC and use the wider diameter pipe as a pre-chiller?

 

[LuiInIdaho]

I ran the calculations on surface area for a 1/2 inch versus 3/8 inch diameter IC. If I recall correctly, I think that the 1/2 inch diameter results in 25% more surface area than the 3/8 inch. I think that this is pretty significant.

Secondly, many people recommend that you keep the wort moving as you chill. There are different ways to do this. One is to stir the wort as it is being chilled. Others move the wort chiller around to keep the wort moving. Others who have a pump install an arm to their chiller and draw wort from the kettle and pump it back to the recirculation arm to keep the wort moving. The last one is what I do and it works great.

Finally, many people recommend using the chiller to bring your temps down to knock off the initial heat. Then they add an ice bath through which they recirculate their cooling water using a pond pump. I have not tried this because I have cold water, but generally this seems to be the consensus as to the best way to drop your temps after the wort temp is knocked down to a reasonable level.

Mark

 

[slarkin712]

You have a similar setup to me. I have 50' of 1/2" and 25' of 3/8". I cool wort in 2 stages. In stage 1, I have both the 50' and 25' chillers hooked up in series with the input cool water running into the 3/8". The output of the 3/8" runs into the 1/2" chiller. I run this until the wort temperature is near the input water temp. This is usually very fast if I continually stir the wort. Then to cool the wort further to pitching temp do one of 2 things. I place the 3/8" chiller in ice cold water as a pre-chiller for the 1/2". Or I remove the 3/8" altogether and hook up a water fountain pump that recirculates ice cold water directly through the 1/2" chiller. The pump recirculation works much faster and more efficiently. It uses much less ice and water and can get to lower temperatures. If you use the pre-chiller method, you'll probably need to keep adding ice to the pre-chiller container and stir both the wort and the pre-chiller conatiner - pain in the ass. You can get a fountain pump at Harbor Freight for less than $20. Then you could recirculate with both of your chillers in the wort. How's that?

 

[natewv]

I ran the calculations on surface area for a 1/2 inch versus 3/8 inch diameter IC. If I recall correctly, I think that the 1/2 inch diameter results in 25% more surface area than the 3/8 inch. I think that this is pretty significant.

Secondly, many people recommend that you keep the wort moving as you chill. There are different ways to do this. One is to stir the wort as it is being chilled. Others move the wort chiller around to keep the wort moving. Others who have a pump install an arm to their chiller and draw wort from the kettle and pump it back to the recirculation arm to keep the wort moving. The last one is what I do and it works great.

Finally, many people recommend using the chiller to bring your temps down to knock off the initial heat. Then they add an ice bath through which they recirculate their cooling water using a pond pump. I have not tried this because I have cold water, but generally this seems to be the consensus as to the best way to drop your temps after the wort temp is knocked down to a reasonable level.

Mark

So what are you insinuating in your first comment? That the 3/8" coil will NOT be able to effectively "fill" the 1/2" coil?

Second, I'm with you on moving the wort. I stir now, but it's of course a PITA, and usually is also when I'm trying to clean up other stuff like my mash tun with the run-off from the WC. I'm considering a pump with the recirc. arm though, essentially the "jamil chiller"?

Third, so this ice bath thing...I've heard of it before, so the hot WC discharge water goes back into the icebath to be repumped? am i missing something?

 

[LuiInIdaho]

So what are you insinuating in your first comment? That the 3/8" coil will NOT be able to effectively "fill" the 1/2" coil?

No. What I am saying is that a half-inch diameter chiller has 25% more surface area. Because of the larger surface area, it will be more effective at cooling down the wort than a 3/8 inch diameter wort chiller.

My guess is that if you would hook them up in series with water passing through the 3/8 first, then the 1/2 inch chiller, I would imagine that the water will slow down to completely fill the 1/2 inch cross section.

And third, the discharge from the IC will go into the cooler into the ice bath, and then gets recirculated through the IC again. The general consensus is that this is the preferred way to go.

Mark

 

[dbrewski]

As LiuInIdaho says, you have to bring down the wort temps quite a bit before you start using ice/recirculating pump, if you don't want to go through a ton of ice. I usually try to get below 110 using straight tap water, 120 maybe worst case, then hook up the recirc pump. I have actually turned the spigot on, let it drain into the ice bucket, and then directed the output of the IC down the drain rather than back into the bucket. That's because the heat you are drawing off will just serve to melt the ice faster than tap temperatures will. But it's a waste of water too. So it's a balance.

 

[HIlife]

As far as I understand your original question, the setup you're proposing would cool faster than your current setup. The 3/8" coil will be the limit on the flow rate if you hook them up in series but I don't think the difference in flow rate matters enough between the two with just 25 feet of tubing in the wort.

What you'll have is water flowing through the 1/2 inch coil at roughly the same rate as it currently flows through the 3/8 inch coil. If the pre-chiller was also 1/2 inch, you would get faster flow through the main chiller. The increase in surface area will, however, cool the wort faster.